"The Committee says to wait. They have got
artillery behind the wood-piles in there...."
Here the street-cars had stopped running, few people passed, and
there were no lights; but a few blocks away we could see the trams,
the crowds, the lighted shop-windows and the electric signs of the
moving-picture shows-life going on as usual. We had tickets to the
Ballet at the Marinsky Theatre-all theatres were open-but it was too
exciting out of doors....
In the darkness we stumbled over lumber-piles barricading the Police
Bridge, and before the Stroganov Palace made out some soldiers
wheeling into position a three-inch field-gun. Men in various
uniforms were coming and going in an aimless way, and doing a great
deal of talking....
Up the Nevsky the whole city seemed to be out promenading. On every
corner immense crowds were massed around a core of hot discussion.
Pickets of a dozen soldiers with fixed bayonets lounged at the
street-crossings, red-faced old men in rich fur coats shook their
fists at them, smartly-dressed women screamed epithets; the soldiers
argued feebly, with embarrassed grins.... Armoured cars went up and
down the street, named after the first Tsars-Oleg, Rurik,
Svietoslav-and daubed with huge red letters, "R. S. D. R. P."
_(Rossiskaya Partia_) [*]. At the Mikhailovsky a man appeared with an
[* (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party).]
armful of newspapers, and was immediately stormed by frantic people,
offering a rouble, five roubles, ten roubles, tearing at each other
like animals.
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