In fact I was never so busy in all my life as during those four weeks

of preparation for the stupendous task I had set myself; and you will

understand that there were countless things to do, unnumbered details

to arrange, and a thousand and one ramifications of the work to be

planned and plotted and thoroughly comprehended, not alone by myself,

but by the men I would gather around me to work under my direction.

The organization of a secret service bureau, no matter how general may

be its duties, is at least a monumental task; but the organization of

such a bureau as this one whose very existence must remain a secret

from all the world, presented difficulties not to be met with or

contended against under any other circumstances.

It was necessary that I should become the chief over an army of men,

and it was equally imperative that not one person among the rank and

file of that army should know of my existence, as it was related to

them. With the chiefs of departments and sections, it was necessary

that I should have intercourse and interviews, but I had already made

my mental selection of persons to fill those positions, when I arrived

in St. Petersburg, and the organization of the several departments was

to be left in their hands.

I was determined that there should be no phase of Russian life which

could hide itself away from the skill of my investigating forces; from

palace to hovel, from the highest official in the Russian diplomatic

service and in the army to the meanest servant or laborer, my sources

of knowledge must extend, and every detail of it all must necessarily

be so complete as to render it not only exact, but absolutely under my

personal control and direction, without however in any way creating the

suspicion that I was personally interested. Presently you will

understand more perfectly how this all came about, and in quite a

natural way it would seem, for always things accomplished seem easy

enough to the casual observer; and you who read are only observers

after all. You are receiving a bit of unwritten history which closely

concerned the Russian empire and without which the assassination of

Alexander would undoubtedly have happened many years before it did, for

I give to myself the credit of having extended the days of that really

great but much misunderstood Moscovite gentleman.

At the time of my appearance in St. Petersburg the forces of nihilism

had assumed proportions greater than they had ever attained before or

will ever attain to again, thanks to my activities. The palace itself

was a hotbed of conspiracy; the rank and file of the army was so

disaffected that the officers never knew whom they could depend upon or

whom they might trust; a secret pressure of the thumb, indeterminate in

its character but nevertheless significant, was likely to be received

from any hand clasp, no matter where given or with whom exchanged, and

a princess or a countess was as likely to bestow it upon you as any

ordinary person whom you might chance to meet. The pressure itself was

merely a tentative question which might be translated by the words:

"Are you a nihilist?" and you might understand it and reply to it by a

returning pressure of acquiescence, or ignore it utterly, as you

pleased. The pressure itself was so slight, was carelessly given and

might so readily be attributed to a careless motion of the hand that it

could not betray the person who made it; nor could the answering

pressure do so.




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