We went upstairs and wandered through
room after room. This part of the Palace had been entered also by
other detachments from the side of the Neva. The paintings, statues,
tapestries and rugs of the great state apartments were unharmed; in
the offices, however, every desk and cabinet had been ransacked, the
papers scattered over the floor, and in the living rooms beds had
been stripped of their coverings and ward-robes wrenched open. The
most highly prized loot was clothing, which the working people
needed. In a room where furniture was stored we came upon two
soldiers ripping the elaborate Spanish leather upholstery from
chairs. They explained it was to make boots with....
The old Palace servants in their blue and red and gold uniforms
stood nervously about, from force of habit repeating, "You can't go
in there, _barin!_ It is forbidden-" We penetrated at length to the
gold and malachite chamber with crimson brocade hangings where the
Ministers had been in session all that day and night, and where the
_shveitzari_ had betrayed them to the Red Guards. The long table
covered with green baize was just as they had left it, under arrest.
Before each empty seat was pen and ink and paper; the papers were
scribbled over with beginnings of plans of action, rough drafts of
proclamations and manifestos. Most of these were scratched out, as
their futility became evident, and the rest of the sheet covered
with absent-minded geometrical designs, as the writers sat
despondently listening while Minister after Minister proposed
chimerical schemes.
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