One week later the confusion of impressions was even greater. Reports had come in, during these seven days, of clashes between the military and the people in forty-eight provinces. The atmosphere of uncertainty was more intense. Conditions seemed to be ripe for almost any kind of a disaster--imperial insolvency, barricade fighting in the streets, army or navy mutiny, general insurrection--and yet nothing of consequence actually happened. The cabinet crisis grew more acute, it is true. Witte--who has been called “more of a stratagem than a man”--was said to be in perpetual deadlock with M. Durnovo, his unscrupulous minister of interior, and those who had access to the premier told of how this greatest of Russian political adventurers would sit at his desk, in silent despair, toying with his glasses, frequently snapping them in two--sometimes a dozen pair a day. The second morning after my arrival I was accorded an interview with M. Timirassiroff, whose demission was just announced, because of his liberal tendencies. M. Timirassiroff had been for many years an admirer and supporter of Count Witte--whom he several times spoke of to me as “a great man”--but he now believed that Witte’s secretiveness, and lack of decisiveness, even of ordinary courage, was ruining his power and perhaps blasting his career. “A Bismarck goes straight through his difficulties to the goal he has before him. Count Witte goes around his,” said M. Timirassiroff. The deposed minister also dwelt upon the impractical method of administration then in vogue. Under the existing system each minister reports directly to the emperor, and the prime minister has no way of learning the character of the report of his individual ministers unless they choose to tell him--which in the case of Witte they seldom did. Witte, consequently, preserved a holy silence before his ministers in regard to his own policies. A premier who persistently declines to share with his cabinet information upon which he bases his policies naturally fails to obtain unanimous support. “I would say to Count Witte,” said M. Timirassiroff, “how can I subscribe my name to that which I know nothing about?” “You, sir,” the premier would reply, “are occupied with your own department, your own ministry, you cannot know all the cards.” (A favorite phrase with Witte.) “If I do not know all the cards, then show them to me. I am not merely head of my ministry, I am also a member of your cabinet.”