Memoirs of a Revolutionist · Part III · Chapter 3 3 (2/2)

When this questioning was over, and we were preparing to leave, I asked, “Do you know, Mr. Kennan, if they have built a watchtower for the fire brigade at Chitá?” Stepniák looked at me, as if to reproach me for abusing Kennan’s goodwill. Kennan, however, began to laugh, and I soon joined him. And with much laughter we tossed each other questions and answers: “Why, do you know about that?” “And you too?” “Built?” “Yes, double estimates!” and so on, till at last Stepniák interfered, and in his most severely good-natured way objected: “Tell us at least what you are laughing about.” Whereupon Kennan told the story of that watchtower which his readers must remember. In 1859 the Chitá people wanted to build a watchtower, and collected the money for it; but their estimates had to be sent to St. Petersburg. So they went to the ministry of the interior; but when they came back, two years later, duly approved, all the prices for timber and work had gone up in that rising young town. This was in 1862, while I was at Chitá. New estimates were made and sent to St. Petersburg, and the story was repeated for full twenty-five years, till at last the Chitá people, losing patience, put in their estimates prices nearly double the real ones. These fantastic estimates were solemnly considered at St. Petersburg, and approved. This is how Chitá got its watchtower.

It has often been said that Alexander II committed a great fault, and brought about his own ruin, by raising so many hopes which later on he did not satisfy. It is seen from what I have just said⁠—and the story of little Chitá was the story of all Russia⁠—that he did worse than that. It was not merely that he raised hopes. Yielding for a moment to the current of public opinion around him, he induced men all over Russia to set to work, to issue from the domain of mere hopes and dreams, and to touch with the finger the reforms that were required. He made them realize what could be done immediately, and how easy it was to do it; he induced them to sacrifice whatever of their ideals could not be immediately realized, and to demand only what was practically possible at the time. And when they had framed their ideas, and had shaped them into laws which merely required his signature to become realities, then he refused that signature. No reactionist could raise, or ever has raised, his voice to assert that what was left⁠—the unreformed tribunals, the absence of municipal self-government, or the system of exile⁠—was good and was worth maintaining: no one has dared to say that. And yet, owing to the fear of doing anything, all was left as it was; for thirty-five years those who ventured to mention the necessity of a change were treated as suspects; and institutions unanimously recognized as bad were permitted to continue in existence only that nothing more might be heard of that abhorred word “reform.”