compatriot, Michael Bakounine, another revolutionist, the father of
anarchy, weeping with emotion at a concert after hearing the symphony
with Beethoven chorals directed by a young friend of his, named Richard
Wagner. "When our revolution comes," he cried, clasping the hand of the
master, "whatever else may perish, this must be saved at any cost!"

Tchernoff roused himself from his reveries to look around him and say
with sadness:

"THEY have passed through here!"

Every time that he walked through the Arch, the same vision would spring
up in his mind. THEY were thousands of helmets glistening in the sun,
thousands of heavy boots lifted with mechanical rigidity at the same
time; horns, fifes, drums large and small, clashing against the majestic
silence of these stones--the warlike march from Lohengrin sounding in
the deserted avenues before the closed houses.

He, who was a foreigner, always felt attracted by the spell exerted by
venerable buildings guarding the glory of a bygone day. He did not wish
to know who had erected it. As soon as its pride is flattered, mankind
tries immediately to solidify it. Then Humanity intervenes with a
broader vision that changes the original significance of the work,
enlarges it and strips it of its first egotistical import. The Greek
statues, models of the highest beauty, had been originally mere images
of the temple, donated by the piety of the devotees of those times.
Upon evoking Roman grandeur, everybody sees in imagination the enormous
Coliseum, circle of butcheries, or the arches erected to the glory
of the inept Caesars. The representative works of nations have two
significations--the interior or immediate one which their creators gave