In the morning we woke
to window-ledges heaped white, and snowflakes falling so whirling
thick that it was impossible to see ten feet ahead. The mud was
gone; in a twinkling the gloomy city became white, dazzling. The
_droshki_ with their padded coachmen turned into sleights, bounding
along the uneven street at headlong speed, their drivers' beards
stiff and frozen.... In spite of Revolution, all Russia plunging
dizzily into the unknown and terrible future, joy swept the city
with the coming of the snow. Everybody was smiling; people ran into
the streets, holding out their arms to the soft, falling flakes,
laughing. Hidden was all the greyness; only the gold and coloured
spires and cupolas, with heightened barbaric splendour, gleamed
through the white snow.
Even the sun came out, pale and watery, at noon. The colds and
rheumatism of the rainy months vanished. The life of the city grew
gay, and the very Revolution ran swifter....
I sat one evening in a _traktir_-a kind of lower-class inn-across
the street from the gates of Smolny; a low-ceilinged, loud place
called "Uncle Tom's Cabin," much frequented by Red Guards. They
crowded it now, packed close around the little tables with their
dirty table-cloths and enormous china tea-pots, filling the place
with foul cigarette-smoke, while the harassed waiters ran about
crying _"Seichass! Seichass!_ In a minute! Right away!"
In one corner sat a man in the uniform of a captain, addressing the
assembly, which interrupted him at every few words.
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