According to these statements, which come directly in every case from original sources, the Czar is to be regarded as a man upon the whole good-natured and lovable, who is, perhaps, too modest and too conscious of his insufficient knowledge to have the full courage of responsibility, without which an autocrat is the least able of leaders to endure his great burden. Inconsiderate and crafty people, who profit by his weakness, govern him, and he may even be glad of this. In his perplexity and helplessness, which are due to his human sympathy and modesty, he is obliged to submit to others with whom he can at least leave the responsibility for affairs, which in general, as in the specific case of the war in eastern Asia, go contrary to his wishes. His timid temperament is shown especially in his relations with his mother, the dowager empress, who even now, supported by the reactionary members of the family, plays the part of the actual empress, and cruelly mortifies the young consort of the Czar. It is an open secret that the relations between the two women are anything but untroubled, a condition which reacts upon the relations of the imperial pair themselves. The dowager empress has renounced none of her prerogatives in favor of her daughter-in-law, who consequently feels herself in a very false position, and complains bitterly of it. People assured me, moreover, that according to Russian ideas none of the rights claimed by the young Czaritza belong to her so long as the empress-mother lives. Hence it vexes the Czaritza that she cannot curb her so-called ambition. The empress-mother, however, is not at all popular, at least in Liberal circles, where she is held responsible for the fact that her son cannot free himself from the evil traditions of his father, who was a strictly upright, but relentless and brutal despot. The young Czaritza was blamed among the common people because she had borne no prince in spite of the prayers of the archbishop John; she is blamed at court also because she does not conceal her English sympathies. One old friend of the imperial family, however, assured me that there is no more charming, upright, and affectionate woman living than this young Hessian princess. She is, he said, completely intimidated by the enemies who surround her and shows them a lowering face. Where she feels herself secure, however, her merry South-German nature comes to the top, and she can even now romp like a little child. It speaks for the innocence of her nature that she is prouder of nothing than of her potato-salad. For the rest, the same authority asserts, she has a mind of her own, and may be not always the most comfortable companion for a husband.