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What would the Kremlin think of Russia today if all its storied brick and stone, all the bones of its saints and its patriarchs and its Tsars could rise up and give voice to the verdict of the past on the present? Would they understand how the commission and the permission of a great mesh of wrong and injustice woven through the centuries had warped the souls of men and brought them into selfish and deadly conflict? And understanding, would they hold their tongues in shame and in penitence, saying, as few among the living will say, that it is not for man to judge? Or would they persist in the pride by which they had lived and turn back untouched with pity to the dreams of their vanished pomp and glory? |