es not know that the evils brought on that land
by the despotism of the autocrat were as nothing compared to that dark
network of curses spread over it by a serf-owning aristocracy. Into the
conflict with this evil Alexander II entered manfully. Having been two
years upon the throne, having made a plan, having stirred some thought
through certain authorized journals, he inspired the nobility in three
of the northwestern provinces to memorialize him in regard to
emancipation.

Straightway an answer was sent conveying the outlines of the Emperor's
plan. The period of transition from serfage to freedom was set at twelve
years; at the end of that time the serf was to be fully free and
possessor of his cabin, with an adjoining piece of land. The provincial
nobles were convoked to fill out these outlines with details as to the
working out by the serfs of a fair indemnity to their masters. The whole
world was stirred; but that province in which the Czar hoped most
eagerly for a movement to meet him--the province where beat the old
Muscovite heart, Moscow--was stirred least of all. Every earnest throb
seemed stifled there by that strong aristocracy.

Yet Moscow moved at last. Some nobles who had not yet arrived at the
callous period; some professors in the University who had not yet
arrived at the heavy period, breathed life into the mass, dragged on the
timid, fought off the malignant. The movement had soon a force which the
retrograde party at Moscow dared not openly resist. So they sent answers
to St. Petersburg, apparently favorable; but wrapped in their phrases
were hints of difficulties, reservations, impossibilities. All this
studied suggestion of difficulties profited the reactionists nothing.
They were immediately informed that the imperial mind was made up, that
the business of the Muscovite nobility was now to arrange that the serf
be freed in twelve years, and put in possession of homestead and
enclosure.

The next movement of the retrograde party was to misunderstand
everything. The plainest things were found to need a world of debate;
the simplest things became entangled; the noble assemblies played
solemnly a ludicrous game of cross-purposes. Straightway came a notice
from the Emperor which, stripped of official verbiage, said that they
must understand. This set all in motion again. Imperial notices were
sent to province after province, explanatory documents were issued, good
men and strong were set to talk an