As a matter of fact the only loyal supporters I ever had around me were my wife and family besides a few others in the service of the State. When I announced my war aims on the Pacific for the benefit of my people my leading Minister had the audacity to obtrude upon my privacy at Tsarskoye Selo and demand that I withdraw the manifesto. This piece of impudence cost me the decision in that war. That magniloquent Minister, with his versatile Irish amanuensis, not only turned my mother against me, but he had the temerity to demand that I dismiss my best agent, Azeff, who alone kept me advised of the machinations of the Social Revolutionists, who, in turn, accused me of murdering my uncle Sergius--the greatest theologian of the age. As I recall the time, now, I am, of course, convinced that the only _real friend_ I had among those Social Revolutionists was BURTZEV,--but I understood him too late!'... My prisoner spoke regretfully. His voice was soft and courteous, breaking at times into the altisonance of the tragic muse. He does not think that any act of his can be wrong; the mere fact that HE ran counter to accepted standards divests, in his mind, the act itself of turpitude. That seems to be the way he looked upon his former Eastern encrouchments. That's the way he justified his subterranean deals with the KAISER; and he even goes so far as to assert that '_if the Vyborg-Björkesund treaty had not been denounced the present war would not have happened_.' He speaks of this a little passionately, scorning the very memory of Count Witte for 'questioning the morality of that arrangement.' That great Minister my prisoner refers to as '_an uncouth bully who bellowed like a mad bull_.' In this respect it is my impression that the ex-Empress indorses his state of mind. What he likes she will place in the superlative; what he merely hates, _she_ elevates to positive abhorrence. In this way she seems to flatter his decisions, which makes him smile quite indulgently at her, and hold her ascendency over his apparently veering mind. I can notice this in so many little things: She oozes delicate flattery and he likes it; she plays upon his _prejudices_, and he seems to have a lot of them submerged beneath his inalienable urbanity and instinctive grace of manner that even this misery and abysmal gloom have not relieved of polish. Beneath it all I get the impression that he is very much in love with every member of his family.... that he would like to be _alone_ with 'Alice,' whom he addresses as 'my darling' and experiences a shell-shock if she stubs her toe. His final words are: 'Now it is ALL OVER and I WILL WELCOME THE OBLIVION that will release us all from the memory of our devoted bondage!'... While my prisoner conversed Alexis assisted his stately mother and his four beautiful sisters while putting on their superannuated wraps.... One by one they filed out the door leading into the open yard.... My prisoner stood up and stretched himself....