＜ Episode 149 >
The flowers on the hospital bed and table were dying.
As if the flame of the life of the person who smells the flower is extinguished.
“Prime Minister.”
“I think it would be better to call him a former prime minister now.”
Stolipin said softly.
Was it a flashlight? My body improved and returned to the level to help with work to some extent, but my health deteriorated sharply again.
He didn’t say anything, but everyone knew.
The time allotted to him did not last long.
“one year.”
Stolipin said softly.
“It’s the time I feel I have left. It didn’t seem like I could prolong my life any more than that, no… Actually, I don’t really want my next birthday.”
“Prime Minister.”
“Even though you are no longer in a position to be respectful to me, you still treat me with respect. your majesty.”
“Without you, we would not have been able to bring the Russian Empire this far. I don’t know if I would have given up on everything and even tried to get my body out.”
“Is that so?”
Stolipin’s face twitched.
are you smiling
“Then that’s good. It means that what I’ve been doing… wasn’t in vain.”
“You are the greatest in Russia……”
“no.”
Stolipin raised his eyes.
“The greatest and greatest people in Russia should be you and your children.”
“……”
“The fact that the word “head of the family” is added means that there can be no better person after that. And above all… I don’t think I would have done anything without you.”
“Prime Minister.”
“… you didn’t tell me. The second war is inevitable.”
“……”
“I hoped that the war would be over in my lifetime, so that I could finally see the empire prospering on the rock, but I guess I was too greedy. Cool! Cool!”
Stolipin had a dry cough.
“I am very fortunate that there is not going to be a war in such a short period of time, and that there is little room left for the Empire to take advantage of that opportunity.”
“dismissal.”
“Trust Alexander, just as you believed in me, he is a good enough substitute for me.”
“What’s next for Alexander?”
“Ivan… Ivan Strahovsky, he would be good. If Alexander is to step down, then there will be a second great war.”
“……”
“I believe in you. I believe that you will protect the empire. I’ve given you the most precious treasure I have, wouldn’t it be okay to accept it, ok!”
Stolipin, who had been coughing like crazy, calmed down a bit, and then lay down for a long time.
“Actually, the first time I lay down here, I only remembered things I couldn’t finish. The peasants who are still starving… I couldn’t put white bread in their mouths, and I couldn’t tell them the taste of meat.”
A self-righteous man who loved the people more than anyone else.
An unfortunate reformer who could not fully understand his intentions.
“But, thinking about it, I don’t think I would have gotten this far if I hadn’t even started… I think I’ve been lucky enough. And also to the empire. A lot of it probably stems from you, but…”
“That’s… no,”
“How would we have won the great war without you? Fighting against those idiots, I couldn’t trust the disgruntled army, so I raised the army by self-sufficient even with supplies, and finally won the victory… Without such existence, the empire would not have left traces by now. I don’t think it would.”
“……”
I couldn’t answer.
“I had a dream, in which an empire that had been effectively defeated miserably in a great war was burned by the communists, they killed millions, famine killed millions, Germany invaded again, and tens of millions died, corpses piled up in layers,” he said. dream.”
“……”
“I have told everyone I have to ask. I told that child to take care of His Majesty with everything he had to offer, but he’ll take care of it without having to say it. That child will never betray you, so please believe in me as if you believed in me, and so that the nation to which I was loyal may prosper for hundreds of years…
I was about to say something, but just nodded.
“Come as late as possible, slowly. When the Empire is stable, then it might be a good idea to look around a little bit. The world doesn’t just spread out in front of you, it’s spread out beside you, above and below. Flowers are blooming even on the roadside, and the wind blows everywhere… Don’t run too fast, I hope to see you later.”
Stolipin said quietly.
“I will go first.”
He closed his eyes at the end of those words.
Slowly, I traced his pulse.
But, I knew it before.
Reformer Prime Minister of an era, Stolipin will never open his eyes again.
***
The celebration of Victory Day was changed slightly due to the death of Pyotr Stolipin.
Precisely, due to Stolipin’s death just before the ceremony, the period of the coat of arms and the period of the ceremony overlapped, so the Russian government decided to hold the celebration of Victory Day and the coat of arms of Stolipin at the same time.
The funeral was to be held according to royal etiquette, given his many years of service to the empire, and of course diplomats from all over the world who were supposed to attend the Victory Day ceremony were also present.
“The secretary lady is nowhere to be seen.”
“I told you not to come.”
With those words, Princess Victoria Louise, the German envoy, turned her head and looked at me.
“Why? normally…..”
“I didn’t call him for a good reason. It’s not an international issue, it’s just personal, so don’t worry too much about it.”
Saying so, I looked at Stolipin’s coffin.
His coffin with the lid open was embroidered with numerous flowers over the flag covering his body.
“People judge him differently… but the fact that he is a patriot cannot be denied.”
I quietly laid a wreath in his memory and said,
“Left, right, nationalist, monarchist, communist party, social democrat, religious circle . There’s no denying that, and the fact that the method worked. If not, we will have to destroy this empire to prove it.”
Of course I wouldn’t let it be like that.
Stolipin’s most prized gem. I do not want to disappoint the Russian Empire, as I am responsible for maintaining it.
“okay.”
Louise quietly walked to the coffin and placed a single cornflower.
It was unusual, but not unnatural, for the national flower of the German Empire to be placed on the coffin of the Prime Minister of the Russian Empire.
“He is a hero.”
“You have been recognized as a hero, so surely you are.”
she said softly.
“Darkness is sweeping Europe, with frequent assaults, robberies and murders in cities around the world, which governments are encouraging, not preventing. Ron and the thugs were all beehives on charges of treason, but that doesn’t mean they abandoned their nature.”
“It’s nature.”
“You know, don’t you?”
At her words mixed with contempt, I laughed out loud.
“They are not that different from the socialists they curse. To put it bluntly, it’s a blue-rare steak. Brown on the outside and red on the inside.”
“Well… from the outside, it seems that the policies I am implementing are sufficiently red in color.”
“The case is different. Ron was purged quite a bit, but at least it was about subtracting a little more blood. Now I can only call it a rare steak. The current situation is not very different from the line struggle within the left wing, in my view.”
“then…..”
“In the end, it means that they are not very different from the red gang.”
“Well, they are a mix of the far-right and the far-left. The most extreme two sides of the left and right, the polarity and the polarity are the right thing to say.”
The Nazis were originally
There was no wavering in her eyes as she looked at the coffin.
“What are you moving for?”
“future.”
“……”
“My future, the future of my family, and the future of the German Empire.”
she said softly.
“As you know, there is a lot of hostility towards France in Germany. Nationalism is strong.”
“I thought it was Gree.”
“Levensraum, the megalomaniac of invading all the happy countries, beating them all, expelling them to other countries, and then allowing Germans to live in such a large territory. And the demagoguery who wants to turn that megalomania into reality becomes the prime minister, and for this purpose, they are talking about going to war with the whole world. All the lands inhabited by Germans are German territory, and they are talking about restoring the powers of Charles the Great, saying that they need additional territories, and they will invade France for this.”
“If all the land inhabited by Germans is German territory…”
“Alsace-Rothringen, Scandanavia, Switzerland, parts of Poland, Sudetenland, etc.”
“under.”
“In order to complete the revensraum that they claim, it includes France, and originally Italy, but it has been secretly removed for some time.
“Maybe it is because both Mussolini and Hitler believed in the same ideas.”
“Actually, all of Western Europe and Northern Europe, except for England, are the territories they want. And they’re afraid of you, so they’re just trying to avoid war, and if they think it’s worth it, they’ll attack you. Maybe after beating France.”
“……”
“I know that in the last great war, Russia was tolerant. And that the imperial family was only allowed to continue under your generosity.”
There is no next
Victory or defeat, what will happen if Germany loses?
“I couldn’t help but worry about it. So I volunteered to come here. As the last insurance for the empire and the last insurance for the imperial family.”
“Is this the common opinion of the imperial family?”
“This is my own opinion. I never really told anyone else. I just want to stop that madman from falling into the abyss, dragging the German Empire and the Hohenzollern Royal Family together. For that… please, it will probably be a pretty long stay.”