There were always three or four conventions going
on in Petrograd. At every meeting, attempts to limit the time of
speakers voted down, and every man free to express the thought that
was in him....
We came down to the front of the Twelfth Army, back of Riga, where
gaunt and bootless men sickened in the mud of desperate trenches; and
when they saw us they started up, with their pinched faces and the
flesh showing blue through their torn clothing, demanding eagerly,
"Did you bring anything to _read?"_
What though the outward and visible signs of change were many, what
though the statue of Catharine the Great before the Alexandrinsky
Theatre bore a little red flag in its hand, and others-somewhat
faded-floated from all public buildings; and the Imperial monograms
and eagles were either torn down or covered up; and in place of the
fierce _gorodovoye_ (city police) a mild-mannered and unarmed citizen
militia patrolled the streets-still, there were many quaint
anachronisms.
For example, Peter the Great's _Tabel o Rangov-_Table of Ranks-which
he rivetted upon Russia with an iron hand, still held sway. Almost
everybody from the school-boy up wore his prescribed uniform, with
the insignia of the Emperor on button and shoulder-strap. Along about
five o'clock in the afternoon the streets were full of subdued old
gentlemen in uniform, with portfolios, going home from work in the
huge, barrack-like Ministries or Government institutions, calculating
perhaps how great a mortality among their superiors would advance
them to the coveted _tchin_ (rank) of Collegiate Assessor, or Privy
Councillor, with the prospect of retirement on a comfortable pension,
and possibly the Cross of St.
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