HI! 
 
THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cityoftroubleOObuchrich 
 
THE 
 CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 BY 
 
 RIEL 
 
 BUCHANAN 
 
 WITH A FOREWORD 
 
 
 BY 
 
 HUGH 
 
 WALPOLE 
 
 ' » ». J *. » ' ' : 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1918 
 
3^ 
 
 Copyright, 1918, bv 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published October, 1918 
 
COrr ADfED -^21 1994 
 
 OR\piN,\i TO BE 
 
 A FOREWORD 
 
 It has been one of the characteristics of the 
 Russian Revolution — ^perhaps of every revolu- 
 tion — that the spectators of its evolution have 
 named every fresh development a cHmax. Look- 
 ing back now through the events in Russia during 
 191 7, one sees the abdication of the Tsar, the 
 revolt of Komiloff, the Bolshevik coup d'etat as 
 successive climaxes; but none of them as, in any 
 sense, an ultimate climax. Although one is now 
 a year and a half from that first wonderful day 
 in March when the Cossacks lined the Nevsky 
 and reassured the people who pressed against 
 their horses that they would not shoot on their 
 ** brothers," the perspective is still not clear, and 
 the day is still too soon for the authority of his- 
 tory. 
 
 There is, however, one thing that may be done, 
 and I believe that I am speaking without any 
 exaggeration when I say that this book of Miss 
 Buchanan's is the first attempt of any writer in 
 any language to give to the world a sense of the 
 atmosphere of Russia imder the shock and terror 
 of those world-shaking events. By atmosphere 
 I mean the summoning of big and Httle things 
 
 38o332 
 
vi A FOREWORD 
 
 to form a mosaic — coloured, intricate, unique — 
 that may lie behind and beneath the outside ob- 
 vious events. We have read now in many books 
 accoimts of the policy of the Tsar, the first mag- 
 nificence of Kerensky and his later weakness, the 
 disintegration in the army, the speeches and 
 opinions of Lenin, Trotzky, and the rest, but 
 what we have not read as yet are the things that 
 the man who sells pies in EUisseieff *s, the provi- 
 sion-shop in the Nevsky, thought of it, how the 
 ladies who collected tickets on the trams looked 
 at the changing manners and customs of their 
 passengers, what the boys who ran up and down 
 the switchback railway on the farther side of 
 the Neva said when they saw a famous general 
 shovelling the snow for a rouble an hour. I do 
 not say that Miss Buchanan has actually in- 
 formed us of those particular things, but I do 
 say that she has given us a picture of human, 
 private life imder the pressiu'e of vast historical 
 events that is precious and permanent in its value. 
 She has given us this not only because she was 
 herself an actual observer of them, but also be- 
 cause she has the gift of imagination, the gift 
 of colour, and a philosophy that is more than 
 petulant. 
 
 I would not suggest that she has not also given 
 us her view of the larger, more historical, events. 
 Her picture of the Russian court is of the greatest 
 
A FOREWORD vii 
 
 interest, and her accoiint of the weeks immedi- 
 ately preceding the Bolshevik rising are of political 
 value; but it is for the smaller, more important, 
 things that her book is tmique. No one having 
 read it can deny that it is true, vivid, personal, 
 and moving. 
 
 Miss Buchanan has placed us all under a very 
 real and serious debt. She has also done Russia 
 a noble service. 
 
 Hugh Walpole. 
 
 August 12, 19x8. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Evening Review at Krassnoe . i 
 
 n. July 24 9 
 
 III. Declaration of War 14 
 
 IV. Moscow 21 
 
 V. First Days at the Hospital .... 30 
 
 VI. 191S 37 
 
 VII. The Second Winter 43 
 
 VIII. The Crimea 49 
 
 IX. Summer, 1916 56 
 
 X. The Court 63 
 
 XI. The Murder of Rasputin 70 
 
 XII. The Gathering of the Storm ... 78 
 
 XIII. Monday, March 12 85 
 
 XIV. The Emperor's Abdication 94 
 
 XV. The First Weeks of the Revolution ioi 
 
 XVI. Spring, 1917 109 
 
 XVII. The Women of Russia 117 
 
 ix 
 
X CONTENTS 
 
 CHAITER PAGB 
 
 XVIII. Bolshevik Rising of July 123 
 
 XIX. July 17 and 18 132 
 
 XX. The Taking op the Fortress ... 139 
 
 XXI. The Failure of the Russian Army . 147 
 
 XXII. The Coup d'£tat of Korniloff . . 152 
 
 XXIII. A Soldier 159 
 
 XXIV. Autumn, 1917 166 
 
 XXV. The Bolsheviks Strike 174 
 
 XXVI. The Bolsheviks in Power 183 
 
 XXVII. The Mockery of Government ... 191 
 
 XXVIII. Negotiations for Peace 197 
 
 XXIX. Rule of the Red Guard 206 
 
 XXX. Anarchy 212 
 
 XXXI. Last Days in Petrograd 219 
 
 XXXII. The Soul of Russia 225 
 
 XXXIII. The Journey from Russia 234 
 
THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
THE EVENING REVIEW AT KRASSNOE 
 
 The end of July, 1914, the French President, 
 accompanied by a large suite, visited the Russian 
 court, and in the same moorings near Kronstadt 
 where — scarcely ten days earlier — the Lion, the 
 Queen Mary, the Princess Royal, and the New 
 Zealand had lain, French battleships now cast 
 anchor; French flags fluttered from all the 
 houses. French officers and sailors crowded the 
 town, and on the Tuesday, July 23, the President 
 accompanied the Emperor at the evening review 
 of the troops at Krassnoe. 
 
 Down the straight road that led across the grey 
 level plains a stream of motors passed. Under 
 the cloudless splendour of the sky the fields lay 
 burnt iron-dry. An acrid smell of burning turf 
 filled the air, and low down on the horizon lay 
 a haze of smoke from some distant forest-fire. 
 
 Behind us Petersburg was hidden in a mist of 
 heat; Petersburg, where an undercurrent of un- 
 rest and trouble seemed to be brewing, where 
 workmen gathered at street comers, and where 
 whole factories were out on strike. But the little, 
 
r,;/; ,THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 faint chill of fear I had felt as we drove through 
 the town was forgotten out here on the plains 
 with, away to the right, the silver shimmer of 
 the sea and all arotmd the hurrying crowd who 
 seemed to have no care or trouble in the world. 
 One of the imperial motors flying the white flag 
 with the double eagle passed us in a cloud of 
 dust. An officer with the silver aiguillettes that 
 showed him to be an A. D. C. to some general 
 cantered by, intent evidently on some order to 
 be delivered; three or four soldiers sitting at the 
 doorway of a wooden barracks were drinking tea 
 out of little tin cans; a woman with a red-and- 
 white handkerchief over her head stood still to 
 stare at us. 
 
 From the distance came the sound of a military 
 band, somewhere a bugle rang out clearly, and 
 as we drew up on the top of the incline we could 
 see a stream of red and white pennons moving 
 along below us. Just here the eternal flatness 
 was broken, the ground sloped before us into a 
 broad, low valley, and opposite lay the little hill 
 with the village and church of Krassnoe and the 
 low wooden barracks, summer quarters of the 
 guard regiments of Petersburg. 
 
 The crowd of motors, soldiers, and brightly 
 dressed women was almost impassable. A wooden 
 estrade had been erected for the wives of officers, 
 the officials, and members of the diplomatic 
 
EVENING REVIEW AT KRASSNOE 3 
 
 body, while farther on a tent had been put up 
 for the Emperor and Empress and the French 
 President. 
 
 A flutter of talk and laughter, gay, vapid, 
 light as thistledown, filled the air. Outside the 
 wooden railings officers paused to stand a moment 
 in conversation, looking up into some smiling, 
 downward-bent face, and then moved on with 
 silver jingling of spurs. Opposite the estrade a 
 line of troops was drawn up, immovable and silent; 
 far away across the plain a regiment was passing, 
 and the dust raised by their marching feet made 
 a golden haze above them. 
 
 Disjointed and broken fragments of talk reached 
 me from the chattering crowd all rotmd me. 
 Somewhere in the background a woman's voice 
 complained bitterly about the carelessness of 
 a nurse who had allowed her little boy to get 
 nearly run over by a peasant's cart. On my 
 left a woman was discussing an evening frock 
 just received from a Paris dressmaker — there 
 was a rumour that skirts would be wider, but it 
 was probably not true, and no sleeves were to 
 be worn, just a diamond strap on the shoulders; 
 of course, if one had perfect arms it was all 
 right, but otherwise what a very trying fashion ! 
 A little in front of me two girls were whispering 
 and giggling, discussing some secret which I 
 could not help overhearing: **0f course I pre- 
 
4 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 tended that our meeting him was just a perfect 
 accident — Miss Evans never suspected for a 
 moment that it had all been arranged before- 
 hand. My dear — " Here the whisper became 
 inaudible, and then burst out again with a gurgle 
 of laughter: "Oh, Sonia, he has such adorable 
 eyebrows!** 
 
 I wondered vaguely what constituted the charm 
 of adorable eyebrows, and then forgot to answer 
 my own question as I watched a fat old general 
 with a red face come limping down between the 
 long lines of troops. Most evidently his brightly 
 polished boots were too tight for him, and it 
 made my own feet ache to think of the pain he 
 must be suffering, when the ground itself was 
 so baked by the sun that one seemed to feel the 
 heat of it rising up into one's face. Either that 
 or the extreme height of his collar had affected 
 his temper, for twice he paused to bark out some 
 harsh reprimand to the immovable soldiers down 
 the line, and once his fat, chubby hand flew out 
 to point with no gentle terms to the delinquency 
 of an unfastened strap. 
 
 The sun was nearing the rim of the Krassnoe 
 hill; the little church stood bathed in golden 
 radiance; high up in the sky an aeroplane htmg 
 like a bird of prey. Then suddenly, at some 
 unheard signal, a silence fell on all the waiting 
 crowd, and for a moment a hush of almost breath- 
 
EVENING REVIEW AT KRASSNOE s 
 
 less stillness held them as in a spell. Then from 
 very far away came a burst of cheering that, 
 drawing ever nearer, grew in sound and volume 
 like the slowly rising strength of a distant storm. 
 Something rose in my throat, and the serried 
 ranks of soldiers opposite to me wavered and 
 shook. A woman next to me whispered, **0h, 
 mon Dieu /" and softly dabbed her eyes with a 
 lace handkerchief. I saw the girl in front of me 
 clutch hold of her companion, and heard her 
 voice, shaken by a new note, say sharply: **Sonia 
 — I am afraid ! — ^Why am I afraid ?" 
 
 And then, riding on a white horse, the Emperor 
 passed in that tempest of cheering. I had a con- 
 fused impression of grave blue eyes, of a hand 
 raised in greeting, of a rustling of skirts as the 
 women roimd me bent in low obeisance, of a 
 crowd of officers who followed him on horseback, 
 grand dukes, generals, the varied uniforms of 
 the foreign military attach6s. 
 
 The cheering broke out again spasmodically 
 as the carriages with the Empress, the French 
 President, the heir apparent, and the young grand 
 duchesses passed slowly by. White horses with 
 outriders, white satin cushions, flower-wreathed 
 hats, and the smiling faces of young girls ! For 
 them the soldiers cheered, for them and for the 
 little boy in the sailor-suit, and for the whiter 
 haired old gentleman in the black frock coat and 
 
6 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 I top-hat. But for the woman with the hard, 
 I tragic face and haunted eyes — I wondered, and 
 then put the thought aside as the band burst 
 out into the national anthem and all that enor- 
 mous line of soldiers stretched away across the 
 plain stood stiffly at attention. 
 
 One after the other the officers representing 
 each regiment stood forward, with their sergeants 
 behind them, giving the day's report to the sover- 
 eign, who was their commander-in-chief and 
 represented to each soldier the "Little Father'* 
 for whom, if need be, they must fight and lay 
 down their lives. 
 
 The sun touched the rim of the Krassnoe hill, 
 
 the great plains lay bathed in golden light, the 
 
 troops, standing immovable, seemed shadow-like 
 
 and unreal. A woman on my right turned to me, 
 
 her eyes full of a sudden thoughtfulness. **I 
 
 wonder — what is an army for?" she whispered. 
 
 *'It's so immense, isn't it? And what we see is 
 
 I only, after all, such a little part." 
 
 . An officer standing by the balustrade just be- 
 
 1 low us looked up at her. **Just a toy for Kings 
 
 and Emperors to play with, madame," he said, 
 
 V his words half -grave, half -mocking. 
 
 The woman shook her head. "Rather danger- 
 ous toys," she answered, and even as she spoke 
 the crash of a gun broke the dreaming peace, 
 and she gave a Httle start, then mocked at her 
 
EVENING REVIEW AT KRASSNOE 7 
 
 own fear with a smile. *'I had forgotten. Of 
 course, it is only the sunset." 
 
 Again a hush fell on all the serried ranks of 
 troops, and in the profound, reverent stillness 
 the band struck up the soldiers* evening hymn. 
 The throbbing notes died out against the golden 
 sky, the aeroplane hovering over the hill swooped 
 down into the sunset and disappeared. 
 
 Released from the spell of silence, the crowd 
 burst out again into their laughing chatter. 
 Motors buzzed and hooted wildly, horses' feet 
 clattered on the iron-hard road, a cloud of dust 
 lay rosy and golden over the valley as the troops 
 marched back to camp. 
 
 There was a state banquet that evening in the 
 palace of Krassnoe, and after that a performance 
 in the Httle wooden theatre, where the best artists 
 of the opera and ballet were to take part. But, i 
 having had dinner with some friends, we drove | 
 back early, while the sky was still a bright, lumi- | 
 nous amber, with the church standing up against 
 it as if cut out of deep-blue paper. A white mist 
 stole ghostlike across the plain, the pall of smoke 
 still hung heavily on the horizon. And over 
 Petersburg a cloud of heat and smoke lay like a j 
 faint, violet veil pierced here and there by a 
 shimmering dome or a golden spire that seemed ' 
 to catch the reflection of the dead sunset and glow 
 like a burnished flame. 
 
8 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 Ever closer grew the air, the narrow, badly 
 paved streets seemed unbearably hot and suffo- 
 cating. A crowd of dirty, evil-looking men, gath- 
 ered at the comers, scowled at us as we passed. 
 A little boy with a torn red blouse shouted out 
 some unspeakable insult and threw an old bit of 
 stick at the motor. The town itself was omi- 
 nously quiet, hardly a cab was to be seen. The 
 trams were practically empty, soldiers with rifles 
 passed up and down the deserted streets. 
 
 The red glow in the sky had faded now, but the 
 magic of a summer night in the far north held the 
 town in a dream of opal-coloured light. The 
 river gleamed blue and luminous and dark be- 
 neath the cloudless sky; the great palaces along 
 the quay lay wrapped in sleeping mystery; the 
 little steamers passed like silent shadows on the 
 dreaming waters; in the black mass of the fortress 
 one solitary light burned dimly. 
 
II 
 
 JULY 24 
 
 That day the wave of almost tropical heat that 
 for over a month had been reigning in Peters- 
 burg seemed almost to reach its climax. From 
 early morning the sim blazed through a copper- 
 coloured haze, the river was like molten lead 
 with an oily reflection on its absolute stillness. 
 The little white passenger-steamers passing to 
 and fro hardly made a ripple on the smooth sur- 
 face ; even the fussy black tugs dragging the heavy 
 painted barges seemed oppressed by the weight of 
 the air, that was heavy with the stinging scent 
 of smoke from the forest-fires raging in Finland 
 and in all the surroimding districts of the town. 
 On the fortress the flag hung limp and dead; 
 not a leaf stirred on the great trees in the sum- 
 mer-garden ; the few children on the broad, shady 
 walks tried weakly to play their usual games, 
 only now and then to btust into fretful crying. 
 
 Out at Krassnoe the Emperor was holding the 
 big summer review of the troops, and all the sun- 
 baked arid plain was a mass of marching figures, 
 with only the magenta shirts of the Tirailleurs 
 de la Garde, and the scarlet-lined cloaks of the 
 
 9 
 
lo THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 imperial convoy of Cossacks to make a splash of 
 colour amid the tmiversal khaki-coloured same- 
 ness. 
 
 And as the day wore on the heat in the town 
 grew more and more oppressive. The burning 
 pavements seemed to scorch the feet, the walls 
 of the houses seemed like furnaces. Hardly a 
 cab was to be seen: now and then a tram-bell 
 clanged harshly, and the yellow cars, nearly 
 always empty, swimg noisily across the bridge. 
 Early in the afternoon a cart-horse dragging 
 sacks of flour had fallen down dead: and till 
 late in the evening a long line of carts still stood 
 on the square, while the weary horses struggled 
 vainly to drag the heavy loads up the steep 
 incline of the bridge. 
 
 Slowly the sun sank into the cloud of smoke 
 in the west ; the river lay like a streak of copper, 
 while the bridge spanning it seemed a colossal 
 shadow amid the deepening mist. 
 
 Sitting at my window after dinner that eve- 
 ning, I tried in vain to get a little breath of fresh- 
 ness, tried also in vain to fight against the sense 
 of oppression that seemed to lie so heavily on 
 everything. What this fear and dread was I 
 could not say. It was true that there were seri- 
 ous strikes in the town, that a director of one of 
 the big factories had been shot by a workman, 
 that Cossacks were quartered in many districts. 
 
JULY 24 II 
 
 that in some places there had been shooting, 
 that the windows of a tram had been broken. 
 But it was something far more stupendous and ; 
 vast that seemed to hover Hke an evil spirit on 
 the horizon. It may seem, of course, an easy- 
 thing to say after all these years, but, looking 
 back across many things that have since become 
 blurred and indistinct, I have such a very clear 
 recollection of that stifling summer evening, 
 of that still, turbid river, of the opal-coloured sky 
 and the indefinable choking smell of smoke. 
 
 And presently, as I sat there, too weary even 
 to turn on a light, there came out of the stillness 
 the dull, far-away sound of horses' feet on the 
 hard wood pavement. The trams on the bridge 
 had stopped, the few couples walking slowly along 
 the quay paused and turned to look in the 
 direction of that ever-approaching soimd. 
 
 Nearer it came, and nearer, and, bending out 
 of the window, I saw them at last, rank upon ' 
 rank of horsemen with long lances against the 
 sky — grey, ghostly figures in the twilight ! And 
 now they were passing beneath the windows and I 
 recognised them to be the regiment of the Cheva- 
 liers Gardes, and felt again a little throb of fear. 
 For I knew they were quartered out at Krassnoe 
 for another month, and it must surely be some- 
 thing very grave that called them up to town so 
 suddenly. 
 
12 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 On and on they came, weary horses and weary, 
 dust-stained riders. Dim and unreal as the mists 
 from which they came, or the mists that swallowed 
 them and left of their transient passing nothing 
 but the echo of their horses' feet on the baking 
 pavements. One of them, a boy I had danced 
 with often in the winter season, looked up as he 
 rode by, and, catching, I suppose, a glimpse of 
 my white gown at the window, raised his hand 
 in greeting and called out a laughing good night. 
 Was it a premonition of coming evil, or why, 
 as I bent forward to watch his passing, did sud- 
 den tears choke my throat ? The twilight haze 
 had swallowed him and his comrades, a shadowy 
 army — whence had they come, and what was to 
 be the end of their day's march ? 
 
 Through the silver dusk we drove up the quay 
 to a dance given on board a yacht belonging to 
 some Americans who were cruising in the Baltic. 
 The great topics of conversation were the strikes 
 and the calling up of the first Guard regiments to 
 the capital. And through the ragtime music 
 I seemed always to hear the echo of horses' feet 
 on the hard pavements, and always through the 
 shadows I seemed to see those dim figures pass- 
 ing on to some imknown and distant goal. . 
 
 The next morning Austria's ultimatum to Servia 
 woke the world from its dream of an idle summer. 
 
JULY 24 13 
 
 And scarcely three weeks later the boy who had 
 called up that laughing good night was shot 
 through the head by a wounded German he had 
 bent to help on one of the battle-fields in eastern 
 Prussia. 
 
 \ 
 
Ill 
 
 DECLARATION OP WAR 
 
 The days of the following week have become 
 blurred and dim in my mind. One seemed to 
 live in a constant state of strained expectancy, 
 at one moment filled with hope, daring to believe 
 that war would be averted, at the next crushed 
 by the certainty that it was inevitable. 
 
 On the Tuesday Coimt Pourtales, the German 
 ambassador, lunched with us, and I can well re- 
 member his hurried, nervous manner, his quick 
 movements of denial when my father warned 
 him that Germany would lead the world into the 
 most terrible war of history if she did not change 
 her attitude. War was the last thing Germany 
 wanted, and war with England was out of the 
 question. His words were emphatic, his voice 
 had an almost hysterical insistence, and there 
 was a very real look of trouble in his pale-blue 
 eyes when at last he said good-bye to my father 
 and went slowly from the room. 
 
 That evening, the situation seeming a little 
 more hopeful, I went down to Peterhof to stay 
 with a friend. There in the coolness and quiet 
 
 14 
 
DECLARATION OF WAR 15 
 
 the weight of dread seemed lifted, and the thought 
 of anything so stupendous as a world war seemed 
 impossible. We lived in a little wooden house 
 in the middle of the park and, being just four 
 women alone, scarcely saw any one or heard any 
 news except the contradictory reports in the 
 papers. 
 
 On the Friday afternoon, feeling too restless 
 to be away from the centre of things any longer, 
 I went back to Petersburg. The thoughts of a 
 common enemy and a common danger had sunk 
 all ideas of strikes or any sort of internal trouble. 
 Officers were cheered as they drove through the 
 streets, the Emperor's picture was carried in 
 procession roimd the town, the churches were 
 thronged with people. 
 
 On Satiu-day morning one still clung desperately 
 to the hope that some miracle might even now, at 
 the last moment, avert the catastrophe. But 
 that afternoon the German ambassador, arriving 
 at the Foreign Office, handed the declaration of 
 war to Monsieur Sazonoff, and then turned away 
 to the window, shaken by a storm of tears. 
 
 The same evening Monsieur Sazonoff, the 
 French ambassador, the Greek minister and his 
 wife, and one or two other men were dining 
 with us. Ordinary conversation was qtdte out of 
 the question; there was only one topic, and that 
 nobody yet seemed able to grasp — ^it seemed so 
 
l6 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 impossible to believe that it was really an accom- 
 plished fact. 
 
 My father had to leave in the middle of dinner 
 to motor down to Czarskoe for a special audience 
 with the Emperor. Four times during the eve- 
 ning Monsieur Sazonoff was called away; the bell 
 of the telephone pealed incessantly; the square 
 outside was a dense crowd of people singing the 
 national anthem. Till late on in the night 
 crowds besieged the doors of the embassy, cheer- 
 ing for the British fleet, and always asking the 
 same question — ^Would England help? Would 
 England join with them? My father, returning 
 after midnight, could hardly drive up to the 
 door. The motor was surrounded by a cheering 
 multitude of soldiers, officers, workmen, and well- 
 dressed women; eager hands were held out to 
 him, questions poured in on every side. 
 
 The next day all the officers of the garrison as- 
 sembled in the Winter Palace, and after a solemn 
 service in the royal chapel, the Emperor came 
 out onto the balcony and announced to the huge 
 crowd assembled on the square the declaration of 
 war. 
 
 All during the next two days crowds thronged 
 to the embassy, carrying French, Russian, and 
 English flags, waiting patiently for my father to 
 appear. Every moment the telephone-bell rang 
 and anxious voices inquired whether we had not 
 yet had any definite news. 
 
DECLARATION OF WAR 17 
 
 Once the report spread that England had de- 
 clared war, and almost at once an enormous 
 crowd assembled before the door and would 
 hardly listen to my father's message that, as yet, 
 we had no official confirmation of the news. It 
 was written up in the town, they said; it must 
 be true. And it was said that all the British fleet 
 had been ordered out to sea. They were sure 
 England would not desert them. 
 
 A little later that same afternoon, the servant 
 came to tell me that somebody wanted to see me, 
 and, going down-stairs, I found a dark-haired, 
 gentle-faced woman waiting, holding by either 
 hand a little boy and girl. In broken English 
 she asked me to excuse her, but they had heard 
 that England had thrown in her lot with Russia, 
 and nothing would satisfy her children but to 
 bring me some flowers in token of their admira- 
 tion and gratitude. 
 
 Such a small, pathetic buneh of flowers it was, 
 with a card tied on with blue ribbon and the in- 
 scription written in a round, childish hand: 
 "From Mimi and Petia." 
 
 As I bent to kiss the little dark-eyed girl I had 
 a sudden choke in my throat, and felt somehow 
 rather small as I had to acknowledge that we had 
 not yet had the telegram from England, but that 
 I thanked them very much and felt quite sure 
 that England would come in and that together 
 we should beat the Germans, 
 
i8 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 And all the time, quietly, steadily, unceasingly, 
 the soldiers were leaving for the front. There 
 was no ostentation and show about any of those 
 departures, no flags or blaring military bands, 
 and very little cheering. Only in the early morn- 
 ings long lines of khaki-clad figures marching 
 away with grim, set faces and unwavering eyes, 
 and sometimes tramping beside them a woman 
 with a shawl over her head and a child held in her 
 tired, patient arms, a woman whose eyes had shed 
 so many tears that now, when the final moment 
 had come, they had no tears left to shed, could 
 only stare out in front of them, facing the empti- 
 ness of all the future days with the weary, hope- 
 less apathy of despair. 
 
 And then at last, at five o'clock on the Wednes- 
 day morning, one of the secretaries came into my 
 father's room to tell him that the telegram we 
 had been waiting for had come, the telegram 
 that said in so few words such tremendous tidings 
 —"WAR GERMANY ACT." 
 
 When I telephoned to a Russian friend early 
 that morning, before the news had become public 
 property, she answered my call in a flat, tired 
 voice; then when she heard what I had to say, 
 burst into a storm of hysterical tears. 
 
 A little later in the morning I went with another 
 friend to write down my name for a course of first- 
 aid training in one of the big Russian hospitals. 
 
DECLARATION OF WAR 19 
 
 The sister who received us looked us over curtly. 
 There was no vacancy at present. We must 
 wait six weeks for the next coiu-se. "Oh, but, 
 please," — I felt that six weeks of inactivity was 
 not possible — "I am English, and we have just 
 heard that England has declared war on Germany. 
 Can't you make an exception ?'* 
 
 Her face changed instantly. *'You are Eng- 
 lish? I will ask Baroness Wrangel, who is the 
 superior of our hospital, what can be done. Will 
 you give me your name, please?" She dis- 
 appeared, and the line of other girls waiting 
 their turn glowered at us somewhat resentfully. 
 
 Within two minutes the sister returned. *'Will 
 you please come?" she said. "The superior 
 would like to speak with you herself." She led 
 the way down a narrow passage, and ushered us 
 into a big, dark room where we were received by 
 an old lady with a pale, worn face, made all the 
 more spiritual by her nunlike head-dress and 
 dark-brown robe. 
 
 "You are the daughter of the British am- 
 bassador?" She held out her thin, white hand, 
 her voice quivering with anxiety. "Tell me — 
 you have had news ?" 
 
 I had heard the question so often before; this 
 time I was able to answer freely that we had had 
 the official telegram, and that England was at 
 war with Germany. 
 
20 TH^ CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 *'God be praised!*' The white, trembling 
 fingers made the sign of the cross, the tired, faded 
 eyes filled with sudden tears, ^fter that, every- 
 thing was easy, and we left the hospital with our 
 names written down, having promised to come 
 and begin work the next morning. 
 
IV 
 
 MOSCOW 
 
 On August 23 of that summer, 19 14, the Em- 
 peror went down to Moscow to carry out the 
 tradition of celebrating a solemn service, pray- 
 ing for victory, in the Uspenski Cathedral, and 
 the French ambassador, my father, my mother, 
 and myself were asked to be present. 
 
 We arrived, after a night's journey, at about 
 seven in the morning and drove through grey, . 
 narrow, tortuous streets to the hotel. A light, i 
 filmy blue sky, trees just turning yellow, and all I 
 the wonder of gilded spires and jewelled domes t, 
 made Moscow seem a dream-city held in the spell 
 of some golden enchantment. Flags fluttered 
 and waved from every balcony and window, the 
 pavements were crowded by people who were all 
 hurrying in the same direction, whose faces all 
 had the same expression of a tense, restrained 
 emotion. A sense of expectancy seemed to hover 
 over everything, even the commonplace, comfort- 
 ably modem hotel was invested with the feeling 
 of something imusual, waiters and maids spoke to 
 each other in whispers, officers hurried to and fro 
 
 21 
 
22 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 with a subdued jingle of spurs to mark their pass- 
 ing, and now and then a court official blazing with 
 decorations made his way down-stairs. 
 
 A little after ten we drove up the crowded 
 streets and under the big arch of one of the Krem- 
 lin gates. And here, even more than in the town, 
 one felt that hush of listening, breathless silence, 
 as if the world were standing on tiptoe, athrill 
 with some great excitement. The rose-flushed 
 walls with their round and crooked, square and 
 painted towers — it is useless to try and describe 
 their wonder — the spell of dead centuries and 
 battle and fire and splendour that is theirs. The 
 spires and domes, silver and blue and green and 
 gold, the white magnificence of the modem palace, 
 the marvellous intricacy of the Church of St. 
 Basil, the solemn grey splendour of the Uspenski 
 Cathedral, the dim, red walls of the ancient 
 palace, surely no castle of legend history was 
 ever so beautiful ! 
 
 Driving across the enormous space of the Red 
 Square we passed imder yet another arch, and 
 then through courtyard after courtyard, till we 
 drew up at last at one of the palace doors. Led 
 through a bewildering maze of long passages 
 and huge, empty rooms, we were left in a great, 
 gilded hall where a little knot of ladies in waiting 
 and much-beribboned officials stood like a small 
 island in the middle of some vast sea. 
 
MOSCOW 23 
 
 For a long time we waited there, speaking 
 mostly in whispers, held by I don't know what 
 sense of awe. On the sill outside the great glass 
 windows a pigeon was preening its feathers, the 
 sun blazed in a cloudless sky and made of the 
 golden domes of the little white church just op- 
 posite a dazzling splendour one's eyes could hardly 
 bear. 
 
 At either end of the long room, high doors 
 studded with bronze and gold remained fast 
 closed; beyond them, and outside the tight-shut 
 windows, one felt rather than heard the distant 
 murmur of voices, the stir of a multitude of 
 people like the subdued beating of some great 
 human heart. 
 
 Then the doors at the farther end swung noise- 
 lessly open and a little gasp came from the group 
 of waiting people. But it was only a grey-haired 
 chamberlain, covered with gold lace and ablaze 
 with many decorations, who came out, closing 
 the doors gently behind him. Slowly, majes- 
 tically, he passed down the length of the long 
 room, the tapping of his white-and-gold stick the 
 only sound in the stillness. And silently the 
 doors at the other end of the room opened to 
 receive him, and as silently closed behind him, 
 leaving us to our patient waiting. 
 
 Two or three officers grouped together talked 
 in low voices about a rumoured skirmish of troops 
 
24 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 in eastern Prussia, and a white-haired old lady, 
 wife of the director of the palace, who stood next 
 to me, told me in whispers how she had witnessed 
 the coronation of the present Emperor's father. 
 
 Then a sudden hush, a stir in the farther room, 
 the doors swung open again by a negro servant in 
 crimson and gold. Slowly, amidst a silence that 
 was only broken by the rustle of women's dresses, 
 the Emperor and Empress passed, followed by 
 the young grand duchesses, and the Httle heir 
 apparent, carried in the arms of an enormous 
 Cossack of the imperial convoy. A little group 
 of chamberlains and gentlemen in waiting came 
 after, and paused to make way for my father 
 and the French ambassador, while my mother and 
 the mistress of robes followed. The little old 
 lady on my left laid a frail, trembling hand on 
 my arm. *'Come," she whispered, her blue eyes 
 full of a mist of tears. * ' We have to go with them ; 
 you are to walk with me.'* 
 
 The doors had swung open, giving access to 
 yet another room and beyond that to an enor- 
 mous hall where a waiting crowd of officers, town 
 officials, and police dignitaries with their wives 
 and families were assembled. The silence was 
 broken by a swelling burst of cheers as the Em- 
 peror passed through; the dense throng of peo- 
 ple joining up behind us, making one enormous 
 procession. 
 
MOSCOW 25 
 
 Through hall after hall, passage after passage, 
 we passed, and now, leaving the modem part of 
 the palace, we came to low-ceilinged rooms, 
 painted with dim old mosaics, and wonderful 
 burnished gold. 
 
 And then suddenly wide-open doors giving out 
 onto a terrace, and the wonderful stone flight of 
 steps known as the Red Staircase, and all the 
 square below as far as eye could reach a vast con- 
 course of people, a crowd that thronged up the 
 steps of the surrounding churches, that stretched 
 away to the encircling walls of the palaces, that 
 filled up all the comers between the sacristy 
 and the distant rose-red monastery, leaving in 
 the midst of all that seething darkness one 
 narrow pathway, raised just a foot's space from 
 the ground, covered with a strip of crimson 
 carpet. 
 
 And when the Emperor appeared on the top 
 of the long flight of stairs, as if at some unspoken 
 signal, all that great crowd, workmen and citizens, 
 merchants and peasants, soldiers, women and 
 children went down on their knees and from them 
 rose a sound that broke against the ancient walls 
 like the waves of a tremendous sea that echoed 
 and re-echoed, swelled, died down, and burst out 
 again. For some of them were cheering, some 
 were sobbing, some — with streaming eyes fixed 
 on that small majestic figure descending the great 
 
26 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 stairs — were singing the national anthem, the 
 hymn for the sovereign's safety. 
 
 Slowly between that kneeling throng of people, 
 the Emperor passed, so near that by stretching 
 out a hand those close to the pathway kept for 
 him could have touched him. And there was 
 nobody to guard that path, no policeman or sol- 
 dier with fixed bayonet to keep back that seeth- 
 ing, overwhelming mass of people. 
 
 By now nearly all the crowd were singing the 
 national anthem, singing it in broken, faltering 
 voices, with tears choking their utterance, while 
 here a woman lifted a child up in her arms, there 
 a soldier bent his head low over his clasped hands 
 as if he dared not look, and an old woman near 
 the pathway bent to kiss the ground as the Em- 
 peror passed. 
 
 Then after that glare of sunlight, after that 
 swelling roar of sound came the dusky golden 
 shadow of the old cathedral, and as the great doors 
 swung to behind us, a sudden startling silence. 
 
 The vast nave seemed a living casket of jewels 
 — dim, old mosaics on the walls, carpets of 
 wonderful, faded colours stretched on the cold 
 stone floors, jewelled ikons priceless in workman- 
 ship, little points of candle-light catching the 
 reflection of some precious stone, making it bum 
 with hidden fire. And golden and yellow, black 
 and silver, deep purple and glowing crimson, the 
 
MOSCOW 27 
 
 sheen and shimmer of the priests* cloaks, and, all 
 pale blue and gold, the stiff, high-collared robes of 
 the choir I 
 
 The little old lady on my left clung on to my 
 arm crying silently; on my right a woman with 
 the crimson order of St. Katherine on her breast 
 stood with a pale, set face, the tears running tin- 
 heeded down her cheeks. 
 
 And then, breaking the hush, the deep, low 
 voice of one of the silver-haired priests chanting 
 the beginning of the service, and rising above it, 
 silver-clear, unbelievably pure, the young, fresh 
 voices of the choir. 
 
 A long shaft of sunlight streamed through one 
 of the high glass windows ; it fell across the figure 
 of an old, bent chamberlain, woke to glowing 
 colours the corner of a priest's brocaded^cloak, and 
 fell on the fair hair of one of the boys in the choir, 
 making of that young face, framed by the high, 
 jewelled collar, the face of an angel in some old 
 picture. 
 
 Up by the golden doors leading to the altar a 
 mass of burning candles made a blaze of orange 
 light amidst the blue haze of incense-smoke. And 
 as the dense crowd swayed and shifted one caught 
 now and then a glimpse of the Emperor's motion- 
 less figure, of the huge, bearded Cossack bearing 
 the frail form of the little, pale-faced boy, of the 
 Empress's hard, set features, of the wonderful 
 
28 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 spiritual figure of her sister, the Grand Duchess 
 Elizabeth, clad in the straight white robes of a 
 nun. 
 
 On and on went the glorious service, the mar- 
 vellous music of those boys' voices, falling now to 
 the low, passionate note of an organ, rising now 
 clear and high in the triumph of youth and per- 
 fect training. 
 
 And then in a sudden hush the rustling of 
 women's dresses as they fell on their knees, here 
 and there the sharp rattle of a sword striking the 
 stone floor, and then in the deep silence above 
 that kneeling multitude the low, deep voice of 
 a grey-haired priest, his trembling hands raised 
 in supplication, his face very pale beneath the 
 weight of his wonderful jewelled crown. A prayer 
 for yictory, for strength, for unity, for patience 
 and endurance; a prayer for the arms of Russia 
 and her allies; a prayer for the fulfilment of the 
 world's liberty and for an ultimate glorious peace. 
 
 The beautiful old voice died away, and in the 
 silence that followed a muffled sobbing was the 
 only sound. Then, as in a jubilation, the clear 
 young voices of the choir breaking out again, 
 and a burst of dazzling sunshine as the great 
 doors swung open. 
 
 Once more the long procession formed, and as 
 the Emperor left the church a great roar of cheer- 
 ing broke out from the patiently waiting crowd. 
 
MOSCOW 29 
 
 and high above it against the soft blue sky the 
 mighty clamour of the bells — silver bells that 
 laughed and rippled, great bronze bells that cried 
 a solemn warning to the idle world, golden bells 
 that seemed to call to prayer. 
 
 And between that tempest of sound, the hurri- 
 cane of cheering, that thimder of bells, the Em- 
 peror passed out and the dim old church sank 
 back to its dreams of long-dead magnificence, 
 while the walls of the Kremlin echoed and re- 
 echoed to that timiultuous cheering that beat 
 itself out against their strength and died at last 
 to silence. 
 
V 
 
 FIRST DAYS AT THE HOSPITAL 
 
 For six weeks after the declaration of war my 
 friend and I went every morning to the big yel- 
 low Hospital of St. George. I don't think I shall 
 ever forget the first morning, when Baroness 
 Wrangel, leading us through dim corridors, 
 brought us to the ambulance ward, where we were 
 to start work, and introduced us to the sister in 
 charge. 
 
 It was a big, light room divided into two sepa- 
 rate partitions for men and women. High glass 
 windows gave out into the walled-in, imtidy 
 courtyard of the hospital, low wooden benches 
 stood against the walls and all down the centre 
 of the room. At one end stood a plain deal table 
 with instruments and a big metal dish of boiling 
 water, on another table stood jars of ointments 
 and liniments and big cases of bandages. 
 
 And on all the wooden benches a crowd of men, 
 women, children, babies — a throng of humanity, 
 poor, dirty, suffering, with dumb, patient eyes 
 that watched the sisters come and go, and looked 
 with terror on all that paraphernalia of instru- 
 ments, bandages, and medicines which to them 
 
 30 
 
FIRST DAYS AT THE HOSPITAL 31 
 
 meant nothing but torture unknown and terrible, 
 whose healing power they trusted in but could 
 not understand. 
 
 At that time I knew hardly a word of Russian, 
 I had never been in a hospital before, I had never 
 seen anything worse than, perhaps, a cut finger. 
 My first feeling when I stood in the middle of all 
 that suffering was one of sheer, helpless despair, 
 and I think I very nearly just sat down on that 
 stone floor and burst into tears. The sister in 
 charge, however, saved me from disgracing my- 
 self in this way by thrusting a btmdle of bandages, 
 cotton-wool, and a pot of ointment into my hands 
 and telling me to hold them for her while she 
 attended to a man with an abscess in his ear. 
 Not in the least understanding her rapid words, 
 and feeling rather sick and very wobbly about the 
 knees, I stood by her, watching her swift, ^deft 
 fingers, and wondering whether I could ever get 
 used to touching anything so dreadful. 
 
 How my friend and I got through that long 
 morning I don't know. I remember vaguely 
 being told to bandage up a man's leg after the 
 sister had dressed his wound. I hadn't the 
 vaguest idea which end of the bandage to use or 
 where to begin. Patiently the sister showed me, 
 more by signs than by words, how to proceed, 
 while the man watched me, smiling in amused 
 tolerance at my clumsiness, taking an intense 
 
32 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 interest in the sister's directions, and not in the 
 least resenting it when I hurt him. 
 
 At one o'clock my friend and I tottered weakly- 
 home, wondering whether we really could ever 
 continue the work. The next morning I went 
 there with a cold feeling of dread, but having got 
 there, very soon forgot all about it, and after a 
 very few mornings we had both got used to the 
 routine and work. Gradually, too, I picked up 
 enough Russian to understand the sister's orders 
 and to be able to ask for explanations. We all 
 had our favourite patients and took a sort of 
 pride in doing as much work as we possibly could 
 in the morning. 
 
 Twenty people were admitted at a time, and 
 those of us who were free at the moment always 
 stood near the door and took possession of what 
 we thought looked an interesting case. Heads 
 and arms were the chief favourites and I remember 
 my friend teasing me as, on the first morning, 
 when we were shown into that room, I had ex- 
 claimed rather weakly, my eyes fixed on a sister 
 on her knees before a rather particularly filthy old 
 man: *'0h, I don't mind what I do, but I don't 
 want to have to wash people's dirty feet !" And, 
 somehow, it nearly always fell to my lot in the 
 m^l6e when the doors were opened to be behind- 
 hand and have to do just what I had said I did 
 not want to do. 
 
FIRST DAYS AT THE HOSPITAL 33 
 
 Nearly all the patients were workmen from the 
 factories in the neighbourhood, and, sometimes, 
 a cab-driver, a porter, or shopkeeper would be 
 amongst them. Most of them were cases of badly 
 poisoned abscesses that had been neglected till 
 they swelled to a terrible size, or sometimes, 
 even gangrene set in. Often, too, we would have 
 accident cases, and I remember one poor old man 
 who tottered in, his hand wrapped up iipi a dirty, 
 bloodstained rag. In between gasps of tears he 
 told the sister how his finger had been cut off in 
 a machine just an hour ago and then producing 
 a battered old purse, fumbled in it clumsily and, 
 drawing out a small packet of very dirty news- 
 paper, told us: "There is my finger. Now 
 will you please put it on again?'* The sister, 
 her voice not quite steady, her kind blue eyes 
 misty between tears and laughter, told him 
 gently that she was afraid that was quite impossi- 
 ble, and the old man broke into sobs, crying 
 bitterly: *'My finger, my finger!" 
 
 There was one man with a badly poisoned hand 
 who always waited for me at the door of the hos- 
 pital and refused to let anybody else touch 
 him. An old beggar I had often seen in the 
 streets, whose whole leg was a mass of sores, 
 gave me very precise instructions exactly how he 
 wished to be bandaged, and when I had finished, 
 told me that he was very pleased with me and 
 
34 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 would I in future always attend to him, as it 
 saved him the trouble of having to explain the 
 somewhat complicated treatment of baths, dis- 
 infectants, and ointments that he required. There 
 was a little boy with mischievous blue eyes who 
 had a bad abscess on his heel and brought a 
 baby brother of three with a poisoned finger. 
 That poor little soft, podgy hand was the most 
 difficult thing in the world to bandage, and the 
 elder brother, watching one, would make remarks 
 all the time — not always complimentary. The 
 poor little babies were, perhaps, the most pitiful 
 of all, such miserable, weak, ailing things, who 
 already at such an early age had to learn the 
 penalty of pain, too soon, perhaps, to suffer 
 much, just lying there on their mothers' laps with 
 large, dumb, questioning eyes and tiny hands 
 that beat the air. It was, indeed, the absolute, 
 silent patience of all those men and women that 
 struck one the most — a childlike faith that how- 
 ever painful the treatment was, it was necessary — 
 and besides that a most wonderful fortitude and 
 resignation. 
 
 Having worked for six weeks in the ambulance 
 ward, my friend and I were moved up to a new 
 part of the hospital, where there were two wards 
 of ten beds each, for soldiers, and two more for 
 officers. Not knowing enough Russian, we could 
 not go in for the lectures and technical examina- 
 
FIRST DAYS AT THE HOSPITAL 35 
 
 tion, but, having been taught the first principles 
 of bandaging, we had now to leam the ordinary 
 routine of ward-work. 
 
 I was on duty chiefly in the one ward for soldiers 
 with the head sister and a younger probationer 
 over me, and there was one soldier there I clearly 
 remember — a huge, fair giant of a man with 
 gentle blue eyes and an angelic smile. He had 
 a big piece of shrapnel in his knee, and besides that 
 had a slight wotmd on the chest where the bullet, 
 glancing off a little metal cross he wore on a string 
 round his neck, had just merely grazed the skin. 
 His chief anxiety during his dressing was that his 
 leg should not be too heavy for us to hold, and 
 during all the time the doctor was examining his 
 wound he kept on watching my face with tor- 
 tured eyes, repeating now and then in a whisper: 
 *'It is too heavy for you, little sister — you will be 
 tired." 
 
 His wife, a stout, well-to-do lady in a tight 
 bottle-green gown, came to see him very often, 
 bringing him sweets in paper bags, apples, and 
 cigarettes. The first time she came after he was 
 brought in I happened to be in the ward, and when 
 she saw him lying in bed, she caught hold of my 
 arm in a sudden, helpless burst of tears. *'He is 
 going to die — surely he is going to die," she sobbed. 
 Raising himself as well as he could, he held out his 
 hands to her. ' ' You mustn't cry, ' ' he told her, his 
 
36 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 own voice shaken by tears. * * You see I am getting 
 much better.'* 
 
 I was by this time feeling rather like crying my- 
 self, so I placed the good lady in a chair by his 
 side and hurriedly left the ward. 
 
 About two weeks later the little hospital started 
 by the British colony was opened and very few 
 days after that the first convoy of wounded was 
 brought in, and, leaving the Hospital of St. George, 
 my friend and I took up our new work. 
 
 Among that first batch of wounded there were 
 two men ill with pneumonia, and though none 
 of the others were seriously hurt there were several 
 with rather nasty-looking wounds. There was 
 one man in particular whose hand had been shat- 
 tered by an explosive bullet, and I remember the 
 first time his bandage was being removed, the 
 doctor who had, I think, not much opinion of 
 volunteer nursing, looked up at me quickly. 
 **You are not going to be afraid," he snapped 
 and, evidently not quite believing my reply, stood 
 by me all the time, watching my face with alert, 
 suspicious eyes. 
 
 It was this doctor who, speaking French per- 
 fectly, examined my friend and me in some of 
 the technical details we had not been able to 
 learn in Russia, and later on passed us as volunteer 
 war nurses. 
 
VI 
 
 1915 
 
 Of all the time that followed I really have very 
 little recollection and there is hardly anything 
 that stands out in my mind with very clear dis- 
 tinctness. 
 
 The first few weeks of the war the advance of 
 the Russian troops in eastern Prussia held one 
 inthralled, then came the terrible losses, the re- 
 treats, the long, long months of waiting and 
 watching. And now and then to break the grey 
 monotony a little ray of light. The action of 
 Admiral Beatty's squadron off Heligoland, and 
 the battle of the Dogger Bank, the taking of Lvoff 
 and Przemysl by the Russians. Then a burst of 
 enthusiasm, crowds parading the streets with 
 flags, manifestations in front of the embassy, 
 speeches, cheering, congratulations. Then silence 
 again and another long, dreary time of wait- 
 ing, during which slowly, gradually, bit by bit 
 and inch by inch that enthusiasm waned and died 
 away, and the doubts, the questions that had at 
 first been only rare and occasional grew more and 
 more frequent: ** Where is the British navy? 
 What is the British army doing ? When our sol- 
 
 37 
 
38 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 diers advance over the terrible strongholds of the 
 Carpathian Mountains, when they are beaten 
 back, when they are killed in hundreds and thou- 
 sands and ten thousands, what are the English 
 soldiers doing, sitting in their trenches?" 
 
 Questions very hard to endure in patience, 
 very hard to answer when the questioners would 
 not understand or try to see the reason and logic 
 in our reply. 
 
 And during all those long, long months the hos- 
 pital was always full, the endless routine of 
 work went on. And there were storms and times 
 of calm, and many, many wounded who came 
 and went. And sometimes a soldier died and the 
 men's footsteps in the wide, light passages were 
 hushed, and there would be a service in the little 
 wooden chapel at the back of the garden, candles 
 burning, an open coffin, a tortured face at peace. 
 And sometimes there were feast-days when the 
 hospital buzzed like a hive, and the soldiers had 
 butter on their bread and huge spoonfuls of jam 
 in their tea — as is the invariable custom of Rus- 
 sian soldiers who put everything one gives them 
 into the beloved cup of tea, from oranges, lemons, 
 or apples, down to jam and sweets. And in the 
 sisters* room with its English chintzes and pink 
 curtains all signs of work were put away, and 
 perhaps there would be some flowers or a choco- 
 late cake on the tea-table. And Sister Anna 
 
1915 39 
 
 walked about in a brown silk gown and a big 
 gold cross hung on a broad blue ribbon round her 
 neck, and beamed on everybody and forgot to 
 scold. 
 
 Poor Sister Anna with her kind, yellow, wrinkled 
 face, her rigorous fasting, her strict religious prin- 
 ciples which made her sometimes send a soldier 
 barely strong enough to sit up in bed, to stand 
 during a long hour's service in church. I remem- 
 ber, also, how one day when we were all being 
 rather frivolous at luncheon, she turned on us and 
 told us that it was a sin to talk so much dining 
 meals. That food was given us from heaven and 
 consequently must be eaten in silence and gravity. 
 One of us ventured to suggest that after all 
 laughter was also a gift of God, but she would 
 not hear of that and insinuated that it came 
 from the devil, and consequently was not to be 
 encouraged under any circumstances. 
 
 And during all those days of work the Russian 
 soldiers held their places in our hearts. Patient, 
 uncomplaining, gentle as children, they lay there 
 in the quiet blue-and-white wards with tired, 
 suffering eyes that welcomed one's coming al- 
 ways with a smile. "It is nothing, little sister," 
 that was the invariable answer when one asked 
 how they were. And with the knowledge of all 
 that has come after, with the picture of the Rus- 
 sian soldier as I saw him last before my eyes, I 
 
40 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 can still, looking back across the years, see those 
 other figures that I knew before. Petroff, who 
 was one of the first patients we had, who died 
 after he had been in the hospital two days, whose 
 poor, pale lips never told us the secret that seemed 
 to haunt him through the shadows of his delirium 
 when he called out desperately: "Let me go — 
 I tell you this isn't my battery — I know it isn't. 
 Give me back my clothes and let me go." Fir- 
 schenke, who had to have a desperate operation 
 eight hours after he had been brought in to us, 
 whose wide, grey, childish eyes gave me one wild, 
 appealing glance as the doctor put the mask over 
 his face, who during the long hours of untold 
 agony after that operation lay in patient silence, 
 clinging onto my hand, and when at last, late in 
 the evening, I rose to go, whispered huskily: 
 *' Thank you — God bless you, little sister." Pav- 
 loff, the boy with the golden curls and the dark- 
 blue eyes, who, shot through the lungs and 
 paralysed as well, lay there for months growing 
 every day weaker, thinner, paler, suffering more 
 and more intensely, always with that patient, 
 tragic smile in his eyes, the husky, tired voice 
 that whispered so pathetically: "If only I was 
 not in such pain, how comfortable I should be 
 with so many people looking after me ! Just as 
 if I was a gentleman." Sokoloff, gentle, low- 
 voiced, always smiling, whose leg had been so 
 
1915 41 
 
 badly amputated in some field-hospital that he 
 had to have several more operations and was with 
 us for nearly a year. And not once during all 
 that time did he complain, and whatever he might 
 be suffering, there was always the same sweet 
 smile to answer one's question: **0h, it is better, 
 little sister — it is much better." Valkakoff, des- 
 perately badly wounded and dying of inflamma- 
 tion of the lungs, his soft brown eyes wistful with 
 the shadow of death, who late one evening when, 
 already in my outdoor things, I looked into 
 the ward to say good night to the head sister, 
 called me up to his bed and pulled down my 
 muff to his cheek. "So soft," he whispered 
 hoarsely and, still holding onto it, fell asleep. 
 
 There are many others whose patient, suffering 
 eyes look at me out of the shadows of those times, 
 whose faint voices call to me, whispering that 
 they fought and gave of their best, youth and 
 strength and soundness of limb and life itself. 
 Where have they gone now and, living or dead, 
 what are their thoughts ? 
 
 And all through those summer months the Ger- 
 mans advanced and, fighting steadily, inch by 
 inch, the Russians retreated, and as they retreated 
 hordes of refugees flooded Petrograd, men, women, 
 and children, housed in filthy wooden barracks, 
 dying of dirt and disease and want, herded to- 
 gether indiscriminately. 
 
42 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 Pitiful stories they had to tell. Here a small 
 baby, whose mother had died or been lost on the 
 way; here a woman, distraught and wild, seek- 
 ing everywhere for a little girl three years old, 
 whose fate no one knew; here an old man, broken, 
 helpless, half-blind, whose wife and daughter 
 had both died during that terrible retreat. 
 
 A feeding-point, where the English ladies took 
 it in turn to be on duty and hand out soup and 
 bread was quickly started, then a lost-baby home 
 where some of those nameless little ones were fed 
 and clothed and cared for, and a maternity home 
 where the mothers were tended and nursed by 
 English sisters. 
 
 The short, grey days of autumn grew ever 
 shorter and greyer, the coldest winter we had had 
 for many years held Petrograd in snow-bound, icy 
 quiet. There were no cheering crowds about 
 the streets now, no flags carried round in triumph. 
 Only silent throngs on the Nevsky Prospect 
 reading the telegram posted in the windows, 
 and already everywhere those long lines of patient 
 women waiting through slush and snow and 
 bitter cold for bread and milk and meat. 
 
VII 
 
 THE SECOND WINTER 
 
 It seemed sometimes as if that long winter of 
 1915-1916 would never end. Looking back at 
 my diary, I find long gaps between the days and 
 then just a sentence, perhaps: "Nature's new — 
 colder than ever — the hot-water pipes near the 
 dining-room have burst and we now have our 
 meals either in my father's study or the little 
 anteroom. It's snowing again." 
 
 In many of the houses the central heating 
 would not work with wood, and the shortage of 
 coal was already beginning to make itself felt. 
 People sat and shivered in their fur coats or tried 
 to get a little heat from badly burning oil-stoves. 
 In the hospital the big wards could hardly be 
 kept warm, the soldiers lay covered up under a 
 multitude of blankets and patchwork quilts. 
 Sister Anna walked about in a grey woollen shawl, 
 her yellow, wrinkled face enframed in her nun- 
 like head-dress, a little more wrinkled, her temper 
 a little more trying. 
 
 Down by the Warsaw station the suffering 
 among the refugees increased. The wooden sheds 
 
 43 
 
44 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 would not hold the ever-increasing numbers, 
 hundreds of men, women, and children were 
 housed in filthy cellars which could not be heated. 
 Many of the children had nothing but little cotton 
 frocks, nearly all of them had no shoes, most of 
 the babies died of cold and want of proper care. 
 A clothing fimd was started and once a week the 
 names, numbers, and ages of about sixty or 
 seventy families were written down, then the 
 various bundles of frocks, shirts, and petticoats 
 were made up at the embassy and given out at 
 the feeding-point on Saturday morning. A great 
 many of these little dresses were made at the 
 weekly sewing-party, but bundles of old clothes 
 were also sent to the embassy and sorted out and 
 distributed in the various parcels. Two or three 
 of the English ladies came once a week to help 
 in the sorting and packing, and the room re- 
 sembled nothing more than an old rag-market. 
 Every kind of garment was on view there from 
 old battered straw hats to baby's socks and warm 
 woollen jerseys, old cloaks, shawls, stockings, and 
 petticoats. How tired we used to get by the 
 time we got beyond the fortieth parcel. I re- 
 member the viciousness I sometimes felt when 
 my mother's secretary read out the names from 
 her big account-book: "Proskovia Platnin — 
 one girl of twelve, one boy ten, one girl eight, 
 three boys six, four, three, baby eight months old." 
 
THE SECOND WINTER 45 
 
 Really people ought not to have so many children 
 — and there aren't enough boys' shirts — must 
 they each of them have a pair of woollen stockings ? 
 
 One day a week also we had the loan of one of 
 the military bath-trains, and several of the Eng- 
 lish ladies themselves undertook the bathing and 
 dressing of the babies and smaller children. I 
 went down on one of my free days from the hos- 
 pital and rather enjoyed drying the little, wet, 
 clean bodies, until a friend who had come there 
 with me came up to me very pink after her exer- 
 tions of scrubbing a small boy of five. *'Meriel, 
 his head was absolutely alive," she said with a 
 little gasp. I had at that moment got an angeli- 
 cally pretty child on my knee whose hair clustered 
 ii;i delicious golden curls all over her head. Care- 
 fully I rubbed it with the clean towel I held in 
 my hand, and when I looked at it discovered that 
 my friend had been only too right, and immedi- 
 ately began to feel myself itch all over, and I 
 remember that I had a very hot bath when I 
 went home late that evening. 
 
 The hospital took up nearly all my days and 
 I very seldom had time to go down to the feeding- 
 point, and I can only say that the English ladies 
 who worked there steadily for nearly a year have 
 all my admiration, as for the most part it was 
 rather a thankless task and exceedingly tiring, 
 as well as entailing a constant risk of infection of 
 
46 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 all kinds. I can remember very distinctly that 
 long, low wooden shed, the steam of damp and 
 heat on the windows, the two huge caldrons of 
 boiling soup, the big baskets filled with great 
 pieces of black bread, and the crowd — old men, 
 women, children, dressed in the oddest assort- 
 ment of clothes — shufHing, pushing, jostling each 
 other, eager, trembling hands outstretched for 
 their basin of soup, querulous voices asking for 
 just a Httle more, begging for a bottle of milk to 
 take home to a dying baby, telling long, rambling, 
 pitiful stories of want and misery and cold. 
 
 Whether it came from the refugees or not I 
 don't know, but I remember it was this winter 
 that there was a perfect epidemic of measles, both 
 German and otherwise. Every family in the 
 British colony had it, and then one after the other 
 the whole embassy succimibed to it. If it had not 
 been rather trying it really would have been very 
 comic, the care with which we examined ourselves, 
 the dismay with which we perceived anything 
 approaching a spot on our noses. I was one of the 
 last victims, but I don't think I was very much 
 to be pitied, and I think I really rather enjoyed the 
 enforced rest and laziness. 
 
 Looking back at my diary, I see that it was this 
 winter, also, that I met General Polivanoff, the 
 new minister of war. "We dined yesterday eve- 
 ning with the Sazonoffs and I sat next to Poliva- 
 
THE SECOND WINTER 47 
 
 noff Politically I know really nothing about 
 
 him, but personally I immediately took a great 
 sympathy to him. He is one of those grand, old 
 Russians, enormously tall, with a wonderfully 
 commanding, imposing presence, a rugged face 
 framed in a short, dark beard, and deep-set grey 
 eyes, keen and very bright and yet unspeakably 
 kind. He asked me all about the hospital and my 
 work and, when I said I loved the soldiers, beamed 
 on me delightedly and promised me very soon to 
 come and visit them himself.'* 
 
 I think I hardly expected him to keep his prom- 
 ise or remember anything about me, but two 
 days later his secretary telephoned to me saying 
 that fifteen places had been reserved at a special 
 performance at the People's Palace and would I 
 bring some of the soldiers from the British Hos- 
 pital. I was unfortunately unable to go with 
 them myself, but one of the other sisters took 
 them, and the next morning the soldiers, who, I'm 
 afraid, were not quite devoid of snobbishness, 
 told me with delight and pride how after the per- 
 formance an officer had come up and asked which 
 were the soldiers from the British colony hos- 
 pital, and how then the minister of war had sent 
 foi them and talked to every one of them in turn, 
 and how the soldiers from all the other hospitals 
 had looked on in envy. 
 
 About ten days later, also General Polivanoff 
 
48 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 drove all the way out to our hospital and his 
 kindness, the wonderful charm of his manner, 
 the ease with which he seemed to find the right 
 thing to say to each individual man, as if for each 
 one he had a special interest, made his visit stand 
 out a red-letter day in the soldiers* memory. 
 
 A patriot and an honest man, he spent himself 
 heart and soul in an endeavoiir to retrieve the fatal 
 mistakes of the past. The terrible lack of am- 
 munition • that had led to disaster after disaster, 
 the awful waste of human life, the bad general- 
 ship, the bribery, treachery, and intrigue, it all 
 surrounded him like a web which he tried in vain 
 to break and sunder,' while the kind eyes, seeing 
 the suffering of the soldiers he looked on as his 
 children, grew tired and sad, the broad shoulders 
 a little bent under the weight of care. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE CRIMEA 
 
 The end of February, 191 6, my father, who had 
 been ill off and on during all the winter, was given 
 three weeks' leave to go to the Crimea. We left 
 Petrograd with snow-bound streets, with the thick 
 mass of ice still blocking the river, though here 
 and there great cracks showed a gleam of water, 
 dark and still beneath the frozen whiteness. A 
 special saloon-carriage had been given us and we 
 travelled in the greatest ease and comfort. And 
 slowly, gradually during those four days we left 
 winter behind us, though the spring we found was 
 but a grey, dim ghost of bleak grass and leafless 
 trees. All the last day it rained and the cotmtry 
 showed nothing but miles and endless miles of 
 bare, brown fields, a few straggling birch-trees, 
 a yellow river, some wretched green-roofed vil- 
 lages. V/aking the next morning was like com- 
 ing suddenly into fairyland — a flood of sunshine, 
 a sea bluer than anything one can imagine or had 
 ever dreamt of, here and there fruit-trees in full 
 blossom, a town perched on the top of a brown 
 rock like some old citadel of Italy. 
 
 We spent a day and a night in the quaint little 
 
 49 
 
50 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 town of Sebastopol, with its steep, narrow streets, 
 its wide blue harbour, where the great grey battle- 
 ships lay at anchor, and its French and English 
 cemeteries, where the graves of those soldiers who 
 had fallen so far from their own coimtry were 
 covered all the year round with flowers. 
 
 Amidst so many new impressions all jostling 
 each other in my mind I find it hard to remember 
 each thing clearly, but just one or two things 
 stand out as vividly as if I had seen them only 
 yesterday: The little white, green-roofed mon- 
 astery of St. George, the wonderful brown and 
 amber rocks that dropped down into a sea so blue 
 that it made one catch one's breath in almost 
 physical pain. Through the dark doorway of the 
 French church an almond-tree in full blossom 
 against the deep blue of the bay, and the sotmd of 
 a bugle rising small and clear from one of the dis- 
 tant battleships. And Balaclava — who having 
 once seen Balaclava could ever forget it? The 
 narrow green valley where the Light Brigade 
 charged the Russian guns, and on the right the 
 little bay, blue as a fallen aquamarine, closed in 
 by towering rocks; behind the one street along 
 the shore pink and white houses that straggled 
 up the hillside in no definite order or sequence, 
 and high above them the red-brown ruins of a 
 fortress built by the men of Genoa thousands of 
 years ago. 
 
THE CRIMEA 51 
 
 So still it was that one hardly dared to speak 
 above a whisper; not a ripple broke the surface 
 of the water, smooth as a sheet of glass; an old 
 Tartar with a face burnt almost black smiled at 
 us from a dark doorway, two or three little boys 
 played at some mysterious, silent game close by 
 the water's edge. Then, climbing the narrow 
 track up the hill, we came with almost startling 
 suddenness upon the open sea and met a rush of 
 intoxicating air. Far below us the waves whis- 
 pered together as they broke in foaming white- 
 ness at the feet of the huge brown rocks; above 
 our heads masses of black and white gulls wheeled 
 and circled, watching us with restless yellow eyes. 
 At the very edge of the cliff a sailor sat on guard 
 in a wooden shed, and farther up the cliff a soldier 
 stood, leaning on his gun, gazing out to sea with 
 steady, iniblinking eyes. Turning away at last, 
 we went back down the rough-hewn path, the 
 soimd of the sea dying to a whisper behind us, 
 the bay below us, and the tiny^'pink and white 
 houses seeming held in an enchanted spell of 
 eternal silence. 
 
 The next day, having been lent motors by the 
 governor of Sebastopol, we started on the three 
 hotus' drive to Yalta, a drive that led one for the 
 first hour across the plain, where here and there a 
 monument marked the spot of some ancient battle- 
 field, and then on through valleys and golden 
 
52 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 hills till, mounting even higher, we came out 
 through an old grey gateway, miles and miles 
 above the sea. 
 
 On and on went the road, round interminable 
 comers, through little crowded Tartar villages, 
 past great white villas and low houses with stone- 
 walled gardens and baby cypress- trees. The 
 driver of the motor I was in was a sailor of the 
 Black Sea Fleet, who entertained me with a stream 
 of conversation, whisked me round comers, and 
 incidentally ran the motor into one of the little 
 open Tartar carriages that trail up and down the 
 road, dragged by tired ponies with blue harness. 
 Having extricated ourselves amidst a chorus of 
 shrieks and curses with no further harm than a 
 broken mud-guard, we sped on again, down the 
 winding, twisting road, till we came slowly to 
 the level of the sea, and through the noisy, crowded 
 street to the hotel. 
 
 We stayed for a fortnight at Yalta, a white 
 town huddled imtidily along the shore, a quay 
 crowded with overdressed women, rich bankers 
 from Moscow or Kieff , gaily dressed ntirses and 
 babies, and in between them a painted Tartar 
 cart, a group of brown-faced peasants, here and 
 there a solemn oriental child with stiff braids of 
 hair under her high gold cap, and great sombre 
 vacant eyes staring out of a round brown face. 
 
 And behind all the bizarre mixtiu*e of Etu*ope 
 
THE CRIMEA 53 
 
 and the East the hills rose in wild beauty, miles 
 upon miles of forests filled with a marvel of wild 
 flowers of all kinds, great, swaying pine-trees with 
 rare flushed, amber trunks, grey rocks that towered 
 up into the clouds. And in their walled-in gar- 
 dens great white palaces stood in silent majesty, 
 and always there was the marvel of that sea — 
 high up in the forests a glimpse of vivid blue be- 
 tween the trees — from the gardens of Livadia a 
 sheet of turquoise above a glowing bed of tulips, 
 in the Bay of Ghurziif huge waves that broke 
 against the grim, brown rocks. 
 
 That time in Yalta seems just a dream of lazy 
 golden days, of drives through the whispering 
 solitude of the woods, a visit to some wonderful 
 palace in the midst of an enchanted garden, a 
 rambling walk amongst the low brown hills and 
 through strange, half-savage Tartar villages. 
 
 Then at last the day came to leave, and there 
 was the long drive up the mountain through the 
 dark mystery of pine-forests, with the blue of the 
 sea sinking ever farther and [farther away into a 
 dim, dreamlike distance till at last, crossing the 
 bleak summit of Aie Petri, where patches of snow 
 still lingered, we began the descent on the other 
 side into the green, fruitful valley. 
 
 We stayed to Ixmcheon at the wonderful little 
 Tartar palace of Prince Gusupoff, set in mosaics 
 of dim greens and blues in the middle of a fairy 
 
54 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 orchard of flowering apple-trees. Above the 
 wonderful mass of rose-tipped blossoms the blue 
 of the sky and nothing to break the stillness but 
 the song of innumerable birds. It seemed a little 
 bit cut out of the "Arabian Nights," and the Tar- 
 tar village huddled outside the walls, the crowd 
 of dark-eyed, brown-faced peasants, the mosque 
 with its slender minaret, only added to that sense 
 of some magic spell of unreality that surroimded 
 it. 
 
 Reluctantly we tore ourselves away and drove 
 across a baking, golden plain to the ancient Tartar 
 capital of Bakschi Serail with its perfect old palace 
 of rose-red walls. We were received here with 
 great pomp and ceremony by the mayor and the 
 governors and many other solemn Tartar digni- 
 taries, were driven out to a dead city of some old 
 religious sect, were pursued through the ruins by 
 a barbaric Tartar band, and in a vault-like hall 
 given strange and wonderful things to eat — rose- 
 leaf jam, hot honey-cakes, and some delicious 
 stuff like Devonshire cream. Then after a dinner 
 in the old palace of Bakschi Serail we were taken 
 to a mosque to see a sect of dervishes, strange, 
 tiirbaned figures sitting in a ring on the floor, 
 swaying backward and forward, ever faster and 
 faster, their voices rising to a scream that echoed 
 weirdly in the empty shadows. 
 
 Then, at last, in the blue darkness of the hot, 
 
THE CRIMEA SS 
 
 still night, we drove through the narrow winding 
 streets to the small crowded station, where the 
 train and oiir special carriage waited for us — 
 and so left behind us all the heat and colour of 
 the East, arriving back to find Petrograd grey 
 under a grey, bleak sky, half-drowned in a sea of 
 slowly melting snow and slush. 
 
IX 
 
 SUMMER, 1916 
 
 It was a grey and rainy summer, with just one 
 fortnight of hot weather, when the long days 
 passed in cloudless splendour, followed by eve- 
 nings of magic; when out on the islands the trees 
 stood shrouded in mystery against the tender 
 sky, and across the water, smooth as glass, the 
 green-painted boats stole to and fro like silent 
 shadows; and up above the trees, where the 
 faint gold of the sunset faded into palest green, 
 and so to blue, hung a young, young moon whose 
 primrose pallor was just touched with rose; and 
 in the phantom, silver-grey shadows a crowd that 
 laughed and talked and whispered, and carriages 
 and motors and tumble-down cabs that passed 
 up and down and round and round in an endless 
 circle till the light faded to a ghostly, shadowed 
 dawn. 
 
 Sometimes on those summer evenings we went 
 out in a little steam-launch belonging to the 
 minister of marine's state yacht, and passing by 
 the crowded islands, steamed out into the Gulf of 
 Finland. Behind the line of the coast the sky 
 
 s6 
 
SUMMER, 1916 57 
 
 burned all dull rose, and as the wind freshened the 
 smoothness of the water was broken into little 
 choppy waves of opal-tinted grey that broke over 
 the bows in clouds of spray. Then at about eleven 
 we turned homeward, and before us the towers of 
 the town glimmered faintly, with here and there 
 on some spire or dome a flash of gold. And com- 
 ing out of the shadows behind us, a seaplane 
 passed close over our heads, turned and wheeled, 
 and then came swooping down on us, the sudden 
 stopping of the engines making a silence that 
 caught one's breath, till the great wings met the 
 water, and with a roar the engines started again, 
 sending the bird-like, fish-like marvel forward 
 in a rush of speed that left us far behind. 
 
 But all too soon the evenings began to draw in, 
 and when we turned back toward the town, the 
 moon, all her slim, pale youthfulness forgotten, 
 swung, a great ball of copper, in the faint mauve 
 mist, and slowly as we steamed on, the light on 
 the water died and everywhere the damp lay low 
 in wreaths of ghost-like mist. Ever deeper grew 
 the shadows, and slowly as the moon rose above 
 the clouds she paled to gold, and from some cheap 
 restaurant along the shore a brass band broke the 
 silence with harsh gaiety. 
 
 Meanwhile from all sides came the complaints 
 of a people wearied by the war, disillusioned, lost 
 in what seemed an endless circle of mistakes. 
 
58 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 General Polivanoff had been replaced by a weak, 
 colourless man who did nothing to stem the rising 
 tide of discontent in the army. Monsieur Sazo- 
 noff , who had been minister of foreign affairs for 
 close on six years, whose love for his country and 
 for England had helped draw the two great na- 
 tions together, was supplanted by Sturmer, the 
 man with the German name and German sym- 
 pathies. 
 
 Food was growing ever scarcer, the queues out- 
 side the bread-shops stretched right down the 
 length of the streets. It was said in all directions 
 that the merchants and shopkeepers were building 
 up huge profits at the expense of the people. 
 Scandal whispered even that the Empress traf- 
 ficked with Germany, even the Emperor was no 
 longer held in the same awe and reverence. Ras- 
 putin's power at court seemed to increase every 
 day, his name had become a byword, though many 
 people, held in a kind of superstitious fear, dared 
 not pronounce it, believing that by so doing they 
 brought down ill luck on their heads. "The 
 Unmentionable" — "The Nameless One" — so they 
 would whisper about him, with nervous glances be- 
 hind them, as if they feared even then the power 
 of some evil presence. 
 
 And still the endless trains of wounded and 
 sick came in. There were advances and retreats 
 and long periods of almost inaction. The lack 
 
SUMMER, 1916 59 
 
 of ammunition had been slightly bettered, but 
 still there was not enough, or what there was 
 did not get to the front. Organization failed, 
 mistakes were made that caused a useless sacrifice 
 of thousands of lives, more and more every day 
 the signs of trouble multiplied and yet nothing 
 was done to save the inevitable catastrophe. 
 
 Hundreds of soldiers, escaping from German 
 prisons, enduring innumerable hardships, braving 
 death and torture and hunger, returned to Russia, 
 to be herded together in some great barrack 
 without a bed, with hardly enough food, with only 
 one shirt to their back, to be left there for days, 
 sometimes for weeks, while officials discussed what 
 was best to be done, and in discussing forgot them. 
 
 They came in hundreds to the embassy, each 
 of them with the same story to tell. In England, 
 in Denmark, in Sweden even, wherever their 
 wanderings had led them they had been treated 
 with kindness and consideration, but here in their 
 own country, they were received with suspicion, 
 neglected and forgotten. They only wanted to 
 go back to their village, just for a week or even 
 two days; then they asked nothing better but to 
 go back to the front and have a chance of killing 
 a few Germans. Only not to be left in inaction, 
 in dirt and want and discomfort. It was not for 
 this they had escaped from a German prison, 
 lying hidden all day in a wood with nothing to eat 
 
6o THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 but grass and herbs, walking all through the night 
 across an unknown country of countless perils, 
 or perhaps spending days in some little boat on 
 the sea, not knowing where they were drifting, 
 buffeted by storm and wind and rain. It was 
 not for this they had fought in the early days of 
 the war, without sufficient clothes in the bitter 
 cold, with only, perhaps, one rifle between ten 
 men. Did we know what that meant ? That 
 while one man had that rifle the other nine stood 
 behind him praying that he might soon be killed 
 so that their chance might come to fire a shot. 
 It was not for this that they had lain woimded 
 on those terrible battle-fields, alone and untended, 
 until f otmd and taken prisoners by the Germans. 
 They would fight still for the "Little Father,'* 
 but they wanted to go home first and see their 
 wives and children and the old parents in the 
 village. Was there nothing we could do for them ? 
 The English were kind and imderstood. England 
 was' a great coimtry. 
 
 It took a long time to get the authorities to do 
 anything and even then it was only very little, 
 only very slowly that better conditions were made. 
 And meanwhile we gave them shirts and socks and 
 parcels of clothes to take home when at last they 
 were allowed to go, a shawl and a brightly 
 coloured handkerchief for their wives, a few little 
 frocks for their children. And that they were 
 
SUMMER, 1916 6i 
 
 grateful was shown by the many letters that came 
 every day to my mother from all parts of Russia. 
 Letters rather touching in their simple wording, 
 that prayed for all good to come to her in this 
 *' white world" calling her *'Dear Giver of Gifts," 
 showing here and there a sudden touch of humour 
 or pathos, giving a human glimpse of those far-off 
 Russian villages. Telling how, when the parcel 
 or clothes had been unpacked, the children had 
 put on the new dresses and gone to church, and 
 how the neighbours had envied and admired them. 
 How nobody had believed that they came from a 
 great English lady. How little Katia had asked: 
 ''But, father, why does she send me things when 
 she does not know me ? " And had been answered : 
 "Because she has a kind and good heart and pities 
 the sorrows of the soldiers." And how they 
 prayed every day for England and the English 
 King, and the high and gracious lady who had 
 been so good to them. 
 
 The short simimer drew to an end and another 
 winter campaign faced the Russian army and the 
 tired, discoiu*aged soldiers. And still in all the 
 churches, in wayside chapels, in dim old cathe- 
 drals, hundreds of candles burnt daily before the 
 golden ikons, and the air seemed stirred with the 
 wings of prayers that hovered over the kneeling 
 crowds. And perhaps on a distant field, in a 
 low, outlying trench, a soldier lay dumb and mute 
 
62 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 beneath the cold, grey sky, and yet back in the 
 church of some country village a little wax candle 
 burnt every day before his patron saint and a 
 woman prayed with patient Hps for his return. 
 
THE COURT 
 
 And meanwhile the evil tongues continued their 
 gossip, catching here and there a shadow of truth, 
 embroidering on it, exaggerating it, and insinuat- 
 ing even more terrible things that were left unsaid. 
 
 In great shadowed drawing-rooms, in the more 
 intellectual circles, where men with long hair and 
 scrubby beards gathered round tables to discuss 
 profound philosophy over innumerable cups of 
 tea, and in smoke-filled cabarets in the lower 
 quarters of the town — everywhere the slander 
 spread and ripened. 
 
 There was nothing bad or vile enough that was 
 not insinuated. The dark powers behind the 
 throne! German influence at court! The sus- 
 picion of a separate, treacherous peace ! The 
 power of Rasputin ! Infamous stories about the 
 Empress ! Scandalous rumours about the young 
 grand duchesses ! 
 
 Evil influences there were no doubt at work and 
 yet they were perhaps not quite what the world 
 imagines. The tragedy is real enough, but for its 
 cause one would have to look deeper than the 
 
 63 
 
64 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 melodramatic scandal that has been spread broad- 
 cast through the world. One must look further 
 back, one must take into consideration a thousand 
 causes, a thousand, thousand reasons. And above 
 all one must account for the Russian character 
 with its childlike simplicity and utterly bewilder- 
 ing complexities. It is impossible for us to try 
 and judge them after our own standards, just as 
 it is impossible for us to really understand them. 
 
 Yet I have heard people with temerity doing 
 both since I got back to England, and doing it 
 too with a great deal of arrogance and self- 
 confidence. But when I asked these same people 
 whether they had ever been to Russia, they an- 
 swered generally, '*I was there once for a week" — 
 or still more frequently: **0h, no — I've never 
 been there." 
 
 *' Russia has betrayed us! Russia has let us 
 down ! We really don't care what happens to 
 Russia!" How often does one not hear those 
 phrases — but do the people who say them know 
 what Russia has suffered? Do they know all 
 the cause and reasons of that terrible war-weari- 
 ness ? Have they lived in Russia those first years 
 of the war, seen the shortage of every kind of 
 ammimition, the appalling suffering of the troops, 
 the heart-breaking losses during those retreats 
 when the soldiers, having no guns with which to 
 defend themselves had to fight with sticks and 
 
THE COURT 6s 
 
 stones ? Have they worked in the hospitals and 
 seen the wounded pouring in, and not even quarter 
 enough bandages to dress those terrible wounds, 
 and no beds for them to lie on, and no sheets to 
 cover them ? Do they know the fearful sacrifice 
 of human life with which each victory was bought ? 
 Do they know of the breaking hearts that waited, 
 and perhaps still wait — ^for those thousands of 
 nameless dead, who gave their lives for some 
 general's mistake, and whose sacrifice has never 
 been recorded ? Do they know what the gradual 
 breakdown of the railways, the lack of transport, 
 the shortage of factories meant ? Have they seen 
 those long, long queues of patient women stand- 
 ing from three on some ice-cold winter morning 
 till ten or eleven to obtain even the bare neces- 
 saries of life ? 
 
 I think hardly any other soldiers in the world 
 would have endured what the Russian soldiers 
 endured, or would have fought under the same 
 conditions without questioning the powers that 
 seemed to look on them, not as an army of human 
 men, but just so many cattle whose sufferings 
 were of very little accoimt and whose lives were 
 of no value. 
 
 And Germany, with her marvellous organisa- 
 tion, knew how to make Russia's agony serve 
 her own ends, and one can hardly wonder that 
 the Bolsheviks' promises of ''Bread — peace — and 
 
I 
 
 66 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 freedom** should have tempted a people unedu- 
 cated and untaught and worn out by three years 
 of untold suffering. 
 
 But most assuredly the Emperor never for one 
 moment hesitated in his loyalty to the Allies, 
 and his name would never have been signed on a 
 treaty of separate peace. Neither is it true that 
 the Empress was in German pay or worked for 
 German interests. Her one wish was to hand the 
 autocracy down intact to her son, and for this 
 reason she forced the Emperor to carry out a 
 reactionary policy, and chose ministers who would 
 help her in this form of government. And Ger- 
 many used her as an unconscious tool, encourag- 
 ing this government of repression while they 
 preached revolution through all the coimtry. 
 Protopopoff, suspected of German sympathies, 
 was allowed a free hand, and his restrictions of 
 the press and general policy provoked the most 
 serious dissatisfaction. Stiirmer was hated for his 
 German name and pro-German influence. And 
 Rasputin, whose power seemed supreme, was 
 loathed and dreaded throughout all Russia. A 
 palace revolution was openly spoken of, and even 
 in political drawing-rooms the assassination of the 
 Empress — and, perhaps, the Emperor — was men- 
 tioned as being the only way of saving Russia. 
 
 Nevertheless, the sensational novels that are 
 being published in England have little foimdation 
 
THE COURT 67 
 
 of truth. The Empress looked on Rasputin as a 
 saint, and believed that by his prayers he would 
 save the life of her son. She was encouraged in 
 this belief by her lady in waiting Anna Kylubova, 
 who had wormed herself into her confidence and 
 was a devoted follower of Rasputin. The life 
 the royal family led at Czarskoe was the very 
 simplest. Ever since the revolution of 1905 the 
 Empress had held to an almost rigid seclusion, 
 and had kept the Emperor apart, not allowing 
 him to come into touch with his subjects. By 
 this and by her stiffness and aloofness she had 
 alienated all circles, and the court of Russia, that 
 had been the most brilliant in the world, was now 
 only a forgotten splendour, the myth of a fairy- 
 tale. 
 
 The Emperor's daughters were brought up 
 just like English girls, and the life they led re- 
 sembled very much the life in some big, secluded 
 country house. They were never seen in Petro- 
 grad society, but, nevertheless, entered whole- 
 heartedly into anything that offered itself in the 
 way of amusement. 
 
 I copy here an extract from a diary, of 191 4, 
 during the visit of the English fleet to Kronstadt 
 a few short weeks before the war. 
 
 *'At the ball on board the Lion and the New 
 Zealand I heard a great deal about the Emperor*s 
 daughters. They had been having luncheon on 
 
68 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 the Lion and every English officer and middy in 
 the whole squadron seems to have fallen a victim 
 to their charm. After lunch they seemed to have 
 explored the other ships and the amount of photo- 
 graphs they have promised and the amount of 
 hearts they have broken is really enormous. 
 *What a beastly shame that they weren't allowed 
 to stay on for the ball/ as one little middy said 
 to me with — ^very nearly — tears in his blue eyes.'* 
 
 Through what dark hours of danger and de- 
 spair they have passed since then ! And, I wonder, 
 do they ever think of that golden summer day, 
 and of the great, grey ships on the blue water — 
 and of the little middy who spoke of them with 
 such devotion, and who went down with his ship 
 in the battle of Jutland ? 
 
 So completely had the Empress alienated the 
 country's feelings that when the revolution came 
 piteously few remained true to the royal family. 
 But the splendid example shown by Count 
 Benckendorff — brother of the late ambassador in 
 L/Ondon — Prince Polgoroukoff , and a few others 
 shows that they never swerved for a moment in 
 their devotion to the Emperor. Both Count and 
 Coimtess Benckendorff shared the long, tedious 
 months of imprisonment at Czarskoe, and when 
 the order came for the removal to Siberia, Count 
 Benckendorff, though old and feeble, begged to 
 be allowed to follow the Emperor into exile. 
 
THE COURT 69 
 
 Nicholas II, however, refused to accept this sacri- 
 fice, and Prince Polgoroukoff and one lady in 
 waiting were the only ones to accompany the 
 royal family. 
 
 What they have suffered — what the end of 
 that dark chapter will be — History will one day tell 
 us, and, perhaps, then we shall judge less harshly 
 of what was never treason, but only a mistaken 
 weakness. 
 
XI 
 
 THE MURDER OF RASPUTIN 
 
 Very early that year a grey, drizzling autumn 
 set in, a quick falling of yellow leaves, now and 
 then a -little flurry of snow, a whistling wind 
 that drove down the quay and across the wide 
 squares, rain that beat itself against the windows, 
 half-frozen ice drifting down the river in thin, 
 grey flakes. The little steamers fussed and hur- 
 ried up-stream, great stacks of wood were piled 
 along the quays, the waiting crowds before the 
 food-shops were larger than ever — no longer pa- 
 tient and silent, but grumbling and complaining 
 in ever-growing dissatisfaction. It was said that 
 in each of these queues were women paid by 
 German money to incite the people against the 
 war, whispering insidious words against the 
 Allies, full of plausible arguments the people were 
 only too ready to believe. 
 
 And everywhere, high and low, there seemed 
 a rising feeling of restlessness, a disquiet that 
 shadowed even the most ordinary every day ac- 
 tions, a discontent that would not be kept hidden. 
 
 Stunner was still in office despite all the ru- 
 .70 
 
^ THE MURDER OF RASPUTIN 71 
 
 mours concerning his pro-German policy, the 
 feeling against the Empress had risen to an in- 
 tense degree, the stories about Rasputin that were 
 freely repeated would hardly bear publication. 
 And yet his power seemed ever on the increase. 
 No warnings from friends or relatives seemed able 
 to shake the Empress's belief in him. Ministers i 
 were made or immade according to his wish, his 
 advice was listened to in everything, his house 
 was guarded day and night by special detectives. 
 
 Late in December, at last, the spell of that I 
 endless grey auttimn was broken. Masses of j <^ 
 ice, drifting down the river from the Ladoga lake, ■- 
 froze to a dazzling surface of white purity, the ^ 
 slush and dirt of the streets was covered by a ' 
 heavy fall of snow, the heavy weight of clouds 
 was lifted, and the golden spires and snow-covered 
 roofs shone beneath a clear, cold sky. 
 
 And yet the curse of some impalpable evil lay 
 over the town. The murder of Rasputin during 
 the night of December 29, instead of lifting that 
 shadow, seemed only rather to intensify it, to add 
 to the feeling of strained suspense which brooded 
 \_oveT everything. 
 
 Out of the many stories circulated concerning 
 that murder it is almost impossible to know which 
 really is the true one. Even the facts related 
 by an eye-witness do not account for everything, 
 and there is supposed to be half an hour missing 
 
72 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 between the actual firing of the last shot and the 
 final removal of the body that has never been 
 accotinted for in any of the narratives. 
 
 Hardly possible to believe, that murder, with 
 all its details and horror, seems a page out of 
 some old Byzantine history. All around, the 
 sleeping houses, the quiet streets, now and then 
 perhaps a motor passing, a little open sledge 
 slipping silently like a shadow across the snow. 
 And behind the sheltered windows of the great 
 yellow palace on the Moika a crime that was to 
 save Russia ! 
 
 For some time past Prince Felix YusupoflE had 
 seen a great deal of Rasputin, wishing personally 
 to discover how far the stories circulated about 
 him were true. The utter baseness and common- 
 ness of the man's character, the way in which he 
 boasted about his power at court and his influence 
 over the Empress, decided him finally, at all costs, 
 to rid the coimtry of the priest's malignant in- 
 fluence. 
 
 Up to the evening of December 29, Rasputin 
 had, however, never been inside the palace on the 
 Moika, Prince YusupofT always making excuses 
 whenever he had asked to come, saying that his 
 mother did not approve of his friendship with 
 him, and would be very angry if she knew that he 
 had received him at home. 
 
 On the evening of the 28th, he, however, tele- 
 
THE MURDER OF RASPUTIN 73 
 
 phoned saying that his parents were away and if 
 Rasputin would come to supper at his house the 
 next night he would fetch him in his motor at 
 eleven o'clock. Rasputin declined at first, say- 
 ing that he had been warned not to go out, but 
 finally allowed himself to be persuaded and prom- 
 ised to come. 
 
 When, however, Prince Yusupoff arrived at his 
 house the next evening the priest met him saying 
 that he had decided not to go out that night as 
 he had again been warned that there would be 
 grave danger for him if he did. Prince Yusupoff 
 argued that no possible harm could come of it. 
 His parents were away, no one would know any- 
 thing about it, his own motor was at the door and 
 would take Rasputin there and bring him home 
 again. Some stories relate that a woman's name , 
 was mentioned, that it was the wish to see her I 
 that finally induced Rasputin to accept the in- 
 vitation, and to ignore the warning he had been 
 given, and the promise he had made to the de- 
 tectives who guarded him, not to go out that eve- 
 ning. 
 
 Be that as it may, he accompanied Prince 
 Yusupoff to the big yellow palace on the Moika, 
 and was led by him to the dim, undergroimd 
 room, decorated in the old Russian style, with a 
 small winding staircase that led into another 
 room on the floor above, where the Grand Duke 
 
74 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 Demitri Pavlovitch, Piirishkewitch, a doctor, and 
 one or two other young men were sitting. On a 
 table was spread out a little repast, some tea, 
 a bottle of port, two plates of chocolate, and pink 
 cream-cakes. A harmless-looking meal, and yet 
 both the port and the pink cakes had been care- 
 fully prepared beforehand and filled with a deadly 
 poison. 
 
 Sitting down near the table, Prince Yusupoff 
 asked Rasputin to have some tea, but the priest 
 at first refused and sat for a long time talking 
 about his future plans. Finally he poured him- 
 self out a cup of tea and took a pink cake, and, 
 remarking how good it was, another and another, 
 ending up by drinking glass after glass of the port. 
 There was no sotmd to break the silence of the 
 winter night, the palace seemed a house of the 
 dead. Sitting opposite that huge peasant priest, 
 watching his face, listening to his overbearing 
 talk. Prince Yusupoff began to wonder whether 
 , the man was really mortal, whether the tales of 
 ^ his bearing a charmed life were not true. How 
 was it possible that, where another would have 
 died after eating one of those deadly poisoned 
 cakes, this man could finish a whole plate, and 
 drink nearly a bottle of poisoned wine and yet 
 be sitting there immoved, apparently completely 
 unharmed ? 
 At last, in despair, Prince Yusupoff got up and 
 
THE MURDER OF RASPUTIN 75 
 
 went up the little winding stair to the room 
 above, where the others were waiting impatiently. 
 "What am I to do?'* he asked almost wildly. 
 *'He has eaten all the cakes. He has drunk 
 nearly the whole bottle of wine and nothing has 
 happened." 
 
 After a few moments' hurried consultation the 
 Grand Duke Demitri pulled out his revolver and 
 said he would go down-stairs and shoot him. 
 But Prince Yusupoff refused to allow him to do 
 this and finally, taking the revolver from him, 
 and holding it in his left hand behind his back, 
 he went down-stairs again. 
 
 Rasputin sat at the table just in the same place, 
 and sitting down opposite him Prince Yusupoff 
 took up the conversation once more, watching 
 the monk all the time, wondering at what part 
 of that huge body he was to aim and how he was 
 ever going to accomplish it. 
 
 At last, feeling that the strain was becoming 
 impossible, he asked Rasputin to look at a won- 
 derful old crystal crucifix which htmg on the 
 wall. Getting up slowly the priest went across 
 the room to examine it and, following him. Prince 
 Yusupoff slipped his right hand behind his back 
 and taking his revolver shot straight at his heart. 
 
 With a scream Rasputin fell forward on the 
 floor, and, going over to the staircase, Prince Yusu- 
 poff shouted to the others to come down. Hastily 
 
76 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 making an examination, the doctor declared that 
 the death agony had begun and all would be over 
 in a few seconds, and, going up-stairs again, they 
 began to make arrangements for getting the 
 motor roimd and taking away the body. 
 
 And yet all the time Prince Yusupoff felt that 
 something was not right, that something kept 
 drawing him down-stairs, and presently, the feel- 
 ing getting too strong for him, he left the others 
 and returned alone to the undergroimd room. 
 
 The huge form of the priest lay exactly as they 
 had left it, half lying on a beautiful white bear-skin 
 rug that was stretched on the floor. For a few 
 minutes Prince Yusupoff stood motionless looking 
 down at it, then with a sudden sense of horror 
 he saw how first one eye slowly opened and then 
 the other. And as he still stood, too paralysed 
 to move, Rasputin roused himself and with a 
 sudden inhtiman strength threw himself upon 
 him, screaming out the most awful curses. 
 
 So fiuious was the priest's mad assault that 
 Prince Yusupoff was nearly borne to the ground, 
 and before he could recover himself or the others, 
 attracted by the sudden noise, cotild get down- 
 stairs, Rasputin had made for a small door lead- 
 ing into an outer court, and tearing it open, stag- 
 gered out into the darkness. 
 
 Pursuing him, they found him at last climbing 
 the railings of the garden, and, pulling out his 
 
THE MURDER OF RASPUTIN 77 
 
 revolver, Purishkewitch fired at him and hit him 
 mortally. 
 
 The police, attracted by the sound of the shots, 
 appeared at the gates and demanded an explana- 
 tion, and, hastily covering the body of the priest 
 with some snow Prince Yusupoff opened to them, 
 and telling them that One of the guests at a sup- 
 per-party he was giving had shot a mad dog, gave 
 them a hundred roubles to go away, which they 
 accordingly did. 
 
 A little later a closed motor drew up at a side 
 door, something wrapped in a dark cloth was 
 placed inside, and before the police, their suspi- 
 cions again aroused, could arrive on the scene, the 
 motor swung' away into the darkness. 
 
XII 
 
 THE GATHERING OF THE STORM 
 
 The morning of December 30 a soldier, passing 
 across the Petrowsky bridge leading out to the 
 islands, saw tracks of blood on the snow, and, 
 after a prolonged search, a body was found tmder- 
 neath the ice and transported to the mortuary, 
 where it was discovered to be the body of Ras- 
 putin. 
 
 The excitement caused was intense, the murder 
 was the one topic of conversation, and the wildest, 
 most contradictory rimiours were circulated. One 
 story had it that the Empress herself, dressed as 
 a Sister of Charity, went to the mortuary to see 
 the body, another story, on the contrary, declared 
 that, on hearing the news, she had fallen into a 
 dead faint and remained imconscious for twenty- 
 two hours, but neither of these stories can be 
 vouched for as being in the least authentic. 
 
 Reports as to how the murder was actually 
 committed differed also in the wildest degree, 
 and those who had been present refused stead- 
 fastly to throw any light on the situation. 
 
 Prince Yusupoff , telephoning to the Grand Duke 
 Nicholas Michaelevitch at the Yacht Club, said 
 
 78 
 
THE GATHERING OF THE STORM 79 
 
 only, "I have been accused of murdering Ras- 
 putin because last night at a supper-party at my 
 house a black dog went mad and had to be shot," 
 and preserved a stubborn silence when questioned 
 further as to the doings of the night. The Grand 
 Duke Demitri swore oh his oath that he had not 
 committed the murder, but was, nevertheless, by 
 order of the Empress, placed imder arrest in his 
 palace on the Nevsky Prospect. 
 
 Returning from the Staff, the Grand Duke Paul 
 begged the Emperor to give his son back his free- 
 dom, but the only reply he got was: "The Em- 
 press cannot allow him to be released." And 
 when he asked, that at least his son might be 
 allowed to come down to his palace at Czarskoe, 
 this request was also categorically refused, and 
 on the night of January 2, the young grand duke, 
 without being allowed to make any preparations, 
 was sent off to a small village on the Persian 
 frontier. So hurried was his departure that he 
 did not have time to take any provisions with him, 
 and the special train had been given orders not 
 to stop an3rwhere, so that he was forced to travel 
 for two days without any food or drink. 
 
 Meanwhile the body of Rasputin was buried in 
 the park of Czarskoe, and it was affirmed that the 
 Emperor and Protopopoff carried the coffin, while 
 the Empress followed behind with the Czarevitch. 
 
 Protopopoff was now minister of the interior, 
 
8o THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 a small, grey-haired man, with restless, nervous 
 movements and bright, wild eyes that shifted all 
 the time. A follower of Rasputin, and certainly 
 not quite sane, he played on the Empress's feeHngs, 
 affirming constantly that the priest had appeared 
 to him in person warning him that great trouble 
 w^s coming to Russia, and that the people would 
 be ptmished for his murder. 
 
 The treatment of the Grand Duke Demitri 
 had aroused a storm of indignation, the feeling 
 against the court was rising every day. The 
 Grand Duke Alexander Michaelevitch went to 
 the Emperor warning him of the consequence if 
 something was not done to arrest the course of 
 events, and a new government formed with a few 
 good men having the confidence of the people. 
 But the Emperor remained obdurate and replied 
 only that he could do nothing without consulting 
 the Empress. 
 
 On January ii, the grand dukes and grand 
 duchesses held a meeting and sent a signed peti- 
 tion to the Emperor begging him to release the 
 Grand Duke Demitri. The letter was returned 
 with a few curt words, saying that no one had 
 the right to take away life, written across the 
 comer, and the Grand Duke Nicholas Michaele- 
 vitch, at whose palace the meeting had been held, 
 was exiled to one of his estates in the south of 
 Russia. 
 
THE GATHERING OF THE STORM 8i 
 
 On the 1 2th of January my father had an audi- 
 ence with the Emperor and implored him to con- 
 sider what he was doing, telling him that he had 
 come to the parting of the ways, and that it rested 
 with him either to lead Russia to victory and a 
 permanent peace or to revolution and disaster. 
 The Emperor replied that my father very much 
 exaggerated the seriousness of the situation and 
 that he could count on the army to support him 
 in any crisis. At the end of the audience he, 
 however, shook my father's hand and thanked 
 him for all he had said, but, apparently again fall- 
 ing under the Empress's influence, he continued 
 to allow her full power and the situation grew 
 daily more acute. 
 
 In the Duma, which had reassembled on Novem- 
 ber 14, Monsieiu* Miliukoff had made a scathing 
 attack on Sturmer, and the latter, finding his 
 position tmdermined, shortly afterward tendered 
 his resignation. He was succeeded as prime 
 minister by Trepoff, who, though a reactionary, 
 was honestly determined to see the war through, 
 and as minister of foreign affairs by Pokroffsky, 
 who had up to then held the important post of 
 comptroller of the empire. Though Sturmer had 
 gone, Protopopoff, whose head had been turned 
 by his sudden rise to power, still remained, and 
 Trepoff, who found himself hampered at every 
 turn by the baneful influence of the all-powerful 
 
82 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 minister of the interior, endeavoured to induce 
 the Emperor to a reconstruction of the cabinet. 
 In the end, however, it was TrepoflE and not 
 Protopopoff who had to go, and after holding 
 office for six weeks he was replaced by Prince 
 Golitzin, a member of the Extreme Right. 
 
 After the murder of Rasputin, the Empress's 
 heart was hardened and she held firmly to her 
 determination to give no concessions to the peo- 
 ple, a course of action in which she was supported 
 by Protopopoff who w^as becoming daily more 
 insane, and assured her that she alone could save 
 Russia, declaring even at one of his audiences 
 with her that he saw the figure of the Saviour 
 behind her chair. 
 
 The arrival of the Allied missions in the early 
 part of February placed the internal political 
 questions for a moment in the background, and 
 in between the conferences and sittings a rush of 
 sudden gaiety swept over the town. Court car- 
 riages with beautifully groomed horses and the 
 crimson and gold of the imperial liveries passed 
 up and down the streets. An endless stream of 
 motors stood out at all hours of the day before 
 the H6tel d'Europe, where the missions had been 
 lodged. Dinners and dances took place every 
 night, the big royal box at the ballet was filled 
 with French, English, and Italian imiforms. For 
 a brief moment it seemed to the unheeding world 
 
THE GATHERING OF THE STORM 83 
 
 as if the shadow that lay so darkly on the horizon 
 had been lifted, or, if it was still there, people 
 shut their eyes to it with a careless shrug of the 
 shoulders, and an all-too-ready easiness of putting 
 away unpleasant thoughts. 
 
 But after the departure of the Allied missions 
 the cloud gathered again more darkly than ever. 
 The Duma was to be reassembled the end of Febru- 
 ary, and some anxiety was felt as to whether 
 there would not be serious riots on the date of its 
 opening. Protopopoff , however, assured the Em- 
 peror that all measures had been taken to quell 
 any rising of the people. Machine-gims had been 
 secretly placed on the roofs of all the big build- 
 ings, and the police had instructions to fire on the 
 people, and clear the streets of any crowds that 
 assembled. 
 
 The bread shortage was reaching a critical 
 point and the complaints of the people increased, 
 yet the Dirnia was assembled in perfect quiet 
 and not a shot was fired. My father who had 
 waited for its opening went to Finland the next 
 day for a week's leave, and I had already gone to 
 stay with a friend in the Baltic provinces. It was 
 just a square-built red house in a clearing among 
 miles of forest, all roimd the imtrodden purity of 
 the snow, the voiceless quiet of pine-woods, the 
 frozen sleep of dozens of little lakes. The war, 
 and all the many anxieties and troubles, the 
 
84 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 treachery and intrigue, seemed to belong to an- 
 other world— this world was all white and blue 
 and gold, and there seemed no shadow to dim the 
 radiance of the sunshine. Long mornings spent 
 trying to ski, long afternoons driving through 
 those imending woods all sunk in the breathless 
 stillness of winter, now and then the sledge up- 
 set into a ditch, a laughing extrication of legs and 
 arms and cushions, a retiun through the blue 
 twilight to the house with the golden glow of 
 lighted windows beckoning a welcome across the 
 snow. 
 
 And already in Petrograd the storm was gather- 
 ing, and on Thtu-sday evening, March 8, a bread- 
 shop in a poorer quarter of the town was looted, 
 and the first little band of Cossacks patrolled the 
 Nevsky. 
 
XIII 
 MONDAY, MARCH 12 
 
 On the Sunday, March ii, the revolution had 
 begun in earnest. By order of the government 
 posters were stuck up at all the street comers for- 
 bidding any more demonstrations. Nearly a 
 hundred imarmed people were shot down on the 
 Nevsky. Rodzianko, telegraphing to the Em- 
 peror, begged him to invest some one who enjoyed 
 the confidence of the people with power to form a 
 new government, adding that no time must be 
 lost, as any delay might be fatal. It has since 
 been ascertained that this telegram never reached 
 the Emperor, but was stopped by General Voyei- 
 kov, commander of the palace; and that evening 
 the government, hopelessly imdecided how to 
 deal with the situation, finally settled to prorogue 
 the Duma, whereupon some of the members, 
 shutting themselves up in a separate room, refused 
 to be prorogued and elected a provisional com- 
 mittee of their own. 
 
 In the coimtry we knew nothing of the events 
 of the past few days, no news having reached us 
 from the outside world, and the papers only saying 
 
 8s 
 
86 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 that a few shops had been looted, and that some 
 of the workmen in the factories were striking. But 
 we had settled to return to Petrograd on Sunday- 
 night, and swallowing down our dinner hurriedly, 
 we left the warmth of the lighted hall with its 
 comfortable chairs and blazing fire, and packed 
 ourselves into the waiting sledge. The servants, 
 standing shivering by the lighted door, bowed 
 their farewells, the huge fur rug was fastened 
 firmly roimd us, the coachman, muffled in his 
 shapeless coat, shook the reins, and with a sudden 
 silver jingle of bells, we started off. 
 
 There was no moon, but the deep darkness of 
 the sky was sown with stars, and the pure- white 
 stretches of snow gleamed like sheets of silver on 
 either side. On and on we drove through the 
 breathless silence, down the winding road, past 
 the frozen lakes, through the blue darkness of the 
 woods. Here and there the little wooden houses 
 standing back from the road seemed, with their 
 windows gleaming orange in the darkness, like 
 the huts of some witch or magician, weaving spells 
 for good or evil over the leaping fire. 
 
 Then, at last, the lights of the little station, 
 the waiting-room full of soldiers and peasants in 
 evil-smelling sheepskins, the hoot and whistle of 
 the engine. The train, coming from Reval, was 
 full to overflowing, even the corridors packed 
 with people sleeping on stools or on the floor, 
 
MONDAY, MARCH 12 87 
 
 but the head of the district police had reserved 
 us a compartment, and Httle knowing it was the 
 last time we should be allowed such privileges, we 
 locked our door and settled down for the night. 
 
 We arrived at Petrograd the next morning at a 
 quarter to eight, the train being for a wonder 
 only ten minutes late. The big dark station wore 
 somehow a disturbed and somewhat perturbed 
 air, and the sight of one of the English officers in 
 full tmiform caused us a little alarm. *'I have 
 come to meet you," he told us, "because there 
 have been riots here the last two days and the 
 police won't let motors go about without a pass." 
 
 With all our luggage dumped on the platform 
 we stood shivering in the cold of that bitter winter 
 morning. "The maid had better bring on the 
 things in a cab," I said, "and we can all go to- 
 gether in the motor." 
 
 * ' There are no cabs, ' * I was told gently. * * They 
 have all gone out on strike." 
 
 "Can't the two maids go in a tram ?" my friend 
 suggested, "and then we can take the luggage 
 with us." 
 
 "There are no trams," came the same answer 
 decisively. "We shall have to get everything into 
 the motor somehow or other." 
 
 The other passengers were now all crowded on 
 the station steps, some of them sitting discon- 
 solately on their boxes, others talking in ex- 
 
88 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 cited voices, arguing with the porters, who only 
 shrugged their shoulders and repeated stolidly 
 that there were no cabs. One man, more energetic 
 than the others, had managed to get hold of a 
 little hand-sledge, and having piled his luggage 
 on it was pulling it along, his wife — a pretty, fair- 
 haired woman wrapped in furs — ^walking by his 
 side. 
 
 At last the three of us with our various bags and 
 wraps, the English officer, the two maids and the 
 rest of the luggage managed to crowd into the 
 motor, leaving the other passengers gazing after 
 us enviously. 
 
 Hardly four yards away we passed a tram with 
 all its windows broken, standing desolate on the 
 lines. A few minutes farther on a soldier with 
 a rifle and bayonet stopped us, and then after a 
 prolonged conversation allowed us to continue on 
 our way. 
 
 In the bleak, grey light of that early morning 
 the town looked inexpressibly desolate and de- 
 serted, the bare, ugly street leading up from the 
 station with the dirty stucco houses on either 
 side seemed, after the snow-white peace of the 
 country, somehow the very acme of dreariness. 
 The few soldiers we passed eyed us suspiciously; 
 here and there a woman with a shawl over her 
 head hurried along, looking furtively round as if 
 she feared at every comer some hidden danger. 
 
MONDAY, MARCH 12 89 
 
 But beyond that the streets seemed completely 
 empty, nearly all the shops were boarded up, not 
 a face showed at the windows of any of the houses. 
 
 Avoiding the big thoroughfares of the Nevsky 
 and the Moskaia, we made a d6tour by St. Isaac's 
 and drove back along the quay. One solitary 
 policeman with a white, set face watched us pass 
 but made no movement to stop us. A strange 
 spell of silence and dread lay over the frozen 
 river, the palaces all along the quay seemed to 
 be holding their breath in a terrible suspense, on 
 the opposite shore the fortress with the imperial 
 flag fluttering against the iron-grey sky looked 
 grim and desolate, the huge bridge spanning the 
 river was absolutely empty. 
 
 My father and mother had returned from Fin- 
 land the day before, and met me at the embassy 
 with obvious relief, and a very little later the 
 breathless silence, that had been so intense and 
 almost uncanny when we drove through the town, 
 was broken and the first real fighting began. 
 
 Not very far away from us the soldiers of the 
 Preobrajinsky regiment turned out and shot their 
 officers, while on the other side the military arsenal 
 was stormed and the rifles, guns, and ammimition 
 fell into the hands of the people. 
 
 Shut up now in the house and forbidden to go 
 out, I think I spent most of my time that morning 
 sitting on the big staircase of the embassy gleaning 
 
90 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 what information I could from the various people 
 who came and went. Up till now nobody had 
 quite believed in the seriousness of the situation, 
 but by eleven that morning people began to reaHse 
 that what was happening was more than a rising 
 for food and bread, more than the going out on 
 strike of the workmen of a few factories, more 
 than the desultory shooting of a few policemen. 
 
 The regiments sent out against the people 
 joined them one by one. At eleven the law-courts 
 situated on the Liteinia Prospect were set on fire, 
 a barricade of machine-guns was placed in front of 
 them, and the whole street became a kind of 
 battle-field. We could hear the firing in the dis- 
 tance, but round near us it was still fairly quiet, 
 though it was a quiet that held a sense of unrest 
 and dread. 
 
 In the afternoon a few English ladies, braving 
 the very real dangers of the streets, came to the 
 weekly sewing-party and sat talking in hushed 
 voices of what might be the result of all this. 
 The news that the Duma had been prorogued 
 the evening before, and that some of the mem- 
 bers had elected a committee of their own, had 
 filtered through, though nobody yet knew for 
 certain the names on that committee. 
 
 A little later in the afternoon the first motor- 
 lorries, with which we were afterward to become 
 so very familiar, passed across the bridge in front 
 
MONDAY, MARCH 12 91 
 
 of us, filled with soldiers, and here and there a 
 woman with a handkerchief tied round her head, 
 or a sister of charity, her white veil fluttering in 
 the breeze. 
 
 Occasionally one could hear little bursts of 
 firing in the distance, and news was brought us 
 that the fortress, after very little resistance, 
 had surrendered to the people and that all the 
 police-stations in the town were being raided and 
 burnt. More and more motor-lorries began to 
 pass, and the sotmd of firing seeming to become 
 more persistent, mother sent the English ladies 
 home early while it was still quite light. 
 
 It is ctuious how sometimes quite little things 
 stand out in one's mind, and of all that day of 
 tremendous happenings there is just one par- 
 ticular incident I can see most clearly. The grey 
 daylight was giving place to a greyer, bleaker 
 dusk, but as yet no street-lamps had been lit, 
 and three or four huge motor-lorries drawn up 
 at the comer in front of our house looked like 
 huge shadowy monsters, the gims of the soldiers 
 that filled them pointing darkly against the sky. 
 Quite what it was they were expecting I don't 
 know, but after they had stood there for some 
 time the solitary figure of a Cossack rode up the 
 quay toward them, and braving all the rifles im- 
 mediately pointed at him, stood still to argue out 
 some point we were too far off to hear. What- 
 
92 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 ever it was, it ended abruptly in a sudden out- 
 burst of angry voices, and the sharp crack of a 
 shot as a soldier in one of the motors let off his 
 gun. Near as the range was, he evidently missed 
 his aim, for the Cossack wheeled his horse roimd, 
 and bending low in the saddle, made off down the 
 quay, the snow rising in a silver cloud beneath 
 his horses* flying feet. An angry outbiu-st of 
 firing followed him, then the soldiers in the lor- 
 ries shrugged their shoulders, and, after a few 
 moments* indecision, drove off in the opposite 
 direction to find something, perhaps, more worthy 
 of their attention. 
 
 Darkness settled on the town, but all during 
 the night the firing continued. From a house 
 almost opposite us came the sharp bark of a 
 machine-gun, a sound that came to an end with 
 a startling suddenness, as the police officer hidden 
 up on the roof was foimd and killed by the sol- 
 diers. Once or twice armoured cars swung across 
 the bridge engaged in a mimic battle, which 
 generally ended in either one or the other scuttling 
 away into the darkness, leaving the victory tin- 
 decided. 
 
 Rodzianko, meanwhile, had sent another tele- 
 gram to the Emperor in which he begged him to 
 take immediate steps, adding: ''The last hour 
 has come in which to decide the fate of the 
 country and the dynasty.'* 
 
MONDAY, MARCH 12 93 
 
 But again no answer came from Nicholas II, 
 who, kept in ignorance by those around him of the 
 true state of affairs and beHeving the whole thing 
 to be a riot it needed only a strong hand to re- 
 press, commanded General Ivanoff to proceed 
 with an army to Petrograd and put down the 
 disorder. 
 
XIV 
 
 THE EMPEROR'S ABDICATION 
 
 One woke on the Tuesday morning with a 
 feeUng that all that had happened on the previous 
 day must be a dream, and it was not till the sharp 
 crack of a rifle just outside made me go to the 
 window that I was really sure that I wasn't still 
 asleep. The great square in front had an in- 
 describable desolate air, the tram-lines were 
 blocked up with snow, not a cart or a cab of any 
 kind was to be seen, to the right across the frozen 
 river the fortress stood bleak and grey with no 
 flag fluttering against the sky to give a sign of 
 life. Bands of workmen and soldiers were com- 
 ing across the bridge in small companies of three 
 or four, and it seemed to me as I watched them 
 that already something had changed about those 
 splendid, well-drilled soldiers, that there was a 
 looseness and a slackness even about the way 
 they walked that had not been there before. 
 They carried, both workmen and soldiers, a 
 motley collection of every kind of weapon. One 
 or two had officers' swords buckled on, some car- 
 ried two rifles tied on with a bit of string, others 
 
 94 
 
THE EMPEROR'S ABDICATION 95 
 
 had huge pistols stuck in their belt. A boy of 
 not more than sixteen was carrying one rifle slung 
 across his shoulder and brandishing another as he 
 walked along, and occasionally, just apparently 
 for the pure joy of the thing, firing into the air 
 in an aimless, light-hearted way. Now and then 
 motor-lorries, bristHng with soldiers and rifles, 
 like enormous hedgehogs decked with huge red 
 flags, lumbered past, and, as the day wore on, one 
 began to see private cars, that had evidently been 
 commandeered, filled with a motley crowd of 
 soldiers, sailors, and workmen, two men, perhaps, 
 lying on the mud-guards with their fingers on the 
 triggers of their rifles, and very often the back 
 window broken with the wicked-looking nose of 
 a machine-gim sticking through the opening. 
 
 That same morning the Astoria, the military 
 hotel of the town, was stormed and taken by the 
 revolutionary troops. During the night the place 
 had been searched and the general at the head 
 had given his word that there were no arms hidden 
 in the hotel. But at nine the next morning when 
 a regiment marched past with a band playing, a 
 sudden volley of shots was fired at them from the 
 roof of the hotel and, maddened, the soldiers 
 stormed the building, breaking the big plate- 
 glass windows with the butt end of their rifles to 
 force an entrance. All the Russian officers re- 
 siding in the hotel were arrested, and an old 
 
96 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 general who tried to fire on the soldiers was killed 
 in the hall. For a few moments it seemed as if 
 the whole place would be ruined, and it was ow- 
 ing to the calmness and presence of mind of the 
 English and French missions that the women an-d 
 children were got safely away and that the build- 
 ing was not completely demolished. 
 
 At midday the admiralty, which had held out 
 against a determined siege all during the night 
 and morning, was forced at last to surrender, a 
 message being sent from the fortress that if they 
 did not give in within twenty minutes, the big 
 guns would be used and the whole building razed 
 to the ground. Knowing what incalculable dam- 
 age such an event would mean to the fleet, Admiral 
 Grigorovitch finally decided to give himself up 
 into the hands of the revolutionary troops, who, 
 though they divested him of his office, treated 
 him with every consideration. He had been 
 minister of marine all the time of our stay in 
 Russia, and many times had shown us great 
 kindness. A tall, dignified, grey-haired man with 
 a grave face and deep, sad, mournful dark eyes, 
 his whole heart was bound up in the navy, and an 
 English officer who saw him four months after 
 the revolution told me that he was hardly to be 
 recognised, so aged and worn had he become, 
 so utterly heart-broken at the ruin of the fleet. 
 
 All during that Tuesday the fighting in the town 
 
THE EMPEROR'S ABDICATION 97 
 
 continued. The state prisons were sacked and 
 burned and all the prisoners set free. Several of 
 the regiments had arrived from Czarskoe and had 
 immediately gone over to the people, as had the 
 troops of General Ivanoff , but some of the police 
 still held the roofs with their machine-guns, and 
 it was against them that the chief animosity of 
 the crowd was directed. Cruel and tyrannical 
 as they had been, one can't help feeling a stirring 
 of pity and admiration for these men who, stick- 
 ing to the posts they had been given by a minister 
 who, having volimtarily submitted himself pris- 
 oner to the Duma, was already addressing the 
 young advocate Kerensky as "Excellency," were 
 the only ones to hold out against irresistible 
 odds. Nearly a week after the revolution, in 
 the attic above Faberge's shop on the Moskaia, 
 the body of a policeman was found, who evi- 
 dently died by his gun of cold and starvation. 
 Many others were caught by the crowd and 
 tortured and murdered, many died fighting at 
 their posts, just a few escaped, and I remember 
 almost the last week I was in Petrograd recognis- 
 ing an old police sergeant who, covered with 
 orders, had always held guard on the quay be- 
 fore the palace, sweeping the steps of a shop on 
 the Nevsky. 
 
 On the afternoon of Tuesday, March 13, the 
 house of Count Fredericks, who had been the 
 
98 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 Emperor^s right-hand man, was looted and burned 
 to the ground. Here the cruelty of the crowd 
 showed itself to its full degree, and when the 
 frightened servants tried to lead the horses from 
 the burning stables they were ordered to take 
 them back and the doors were locked on the 
 wretched animals. An English girl, who was 
 living in the same street, told me, also, how she 
 had seen a soldier stick his bayonet into a dog 
 that ran out of the burning house. And the old 
 Coimtess Fredericks, who was dangerously ill at 
 the time, only escaped by the promptitude of her 
 servants, who carried her out on a stretcher by 
 a back entrance while the angry mob stormed the 
 front of the house. 
 
 The Emperor, meanwhile, had at last decided 
 to come to Petrograd and, all unknowing of the 
 situation there, had started on his way only to 
 find the line stopped by a workman's committee, 
 and he himself virtually a prisoner. Realising 
 then how he had been deceived, he turned to 
 those around. ''Why was I not told of all this 
 earlier?" he asked, and who knows what bitter- 
 ness of spirit was in the simple words. 
 
 On March 14, M. Gutchkoff, who had been 
 elected member of the new provisional govern- 
 ment, and M. Shulgin, a delegate of the Executive 
 Committee of the Duma, went to meet the Em- 
 peror with the proposal that he should abdicate 
 
THE EMPEROR'S ABDICATION 99 
 
 in favour of the little Tsarewitch with the Grand 
 Duke Michael as regent. But, to the surprise 
 of those present, when M. Gutchkoff laid this 
 suggestion before the Emperor he answered very 
 quietly: "I have decided to abdicate, and I had 
 meant to do so in favour of my son, but I find now 
 that I cannot be parted from him." 
 
 Gutchkoff, feeling that he could not go against 
 the Emperor on such a subject, gave in to his 
 wish, and it was settled that the Grand Duke 
 Michael shoiild be elected Tsar, the Emperor 
 signing the abdication in his favoiu*. M. Gutch- 
 koff and M. Shulgin then took leave of him and on 
 the 1 6th the imperial train returned to Mohileff, as 
 Nicholas II had expressed the wish to take leave 
 of his staff. 
 
 By this time Petrograd had returned to a state 
 of normal quiet. The streets were crowded with 
 people all wearing red favours, red flags fluttered 
 from all the houses. In many places the wires of 
 the electric trams had been cut and broken by 
 shots, and the trams were not yet nmning, nor 
 were there yet any cabs to be had, and no motors 
 were allowed to circulate without a special pass 
 from the Dimia. Low peasant sledges with straw 
 at the bottom were the only means of locomotion, 
 and one saw them filled with a strange medley of 
 soldiers, well-dressed women, officers, and work- 
 people. The imperial arms that hung over some 
 
loo THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 of the shops were torn down and burnt. A 
 crowd assembled on the square before the Winter 
 Palace to watch a red flag hoisted on the staff 
 from which the Emperor's yellow flag with the 
 imperial eagle had been wont to float. And in all 
 that silent crowd just one man clapped, while 
 the others stood stolidly looking up at that scrap 
 of red that fluttered against the sky, so small 
 a S5mibol of an overwhelming change. 
 
 Meanwhile the Soviet had sprimg into power, 
 and was steadily gaining groimd. The Grand 
 Duke Michael had refused to accept the throne 
 at his brother's hands, declaring that he would 
 wait to succeed until unanimously elected by the 
 wish of the people. 
 
 And what was it the people wished? A re- 
 public — the word they were being taught by 
 the Socialist party, which day by day was becom- 
 ing more powerful? But how little the people 
 understood it must be judged by the conversa- 
 tion overheard between two soldiers: ''What 
 we want," declared one of them, *'is a republic." 
 "Yes," returned the other, nodding his head, 
 **a republic, but we must have a good Tsar at 
 the head of it." 
 
XV 
 
 THE FIRST WEEKS OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 And during all this time the Empress, still liv- 
 ing in the palace at Czarskoe, refused to believe 
 in the real state of things, exclaiming when she was 
 told of them: ''Those are newspaper lies, I have 
 faith in God and the army. '* And only a few days 
 later the Provisional Government ordered the 
 arrest of the Emperor at Mohileff, and, chiefly 
 from a desire to satisfy the people, who were be- 
 ing worked up by the Extremists, decided to place 
 the Empress likewise imder arrest. 
 
 General Komiloff , who had been made com- 
 mander of the forces of the Petrograd district, 
 came to Czarskoe with three assistants and asked 
 to see the Empress. Dressed in deep mourning 
 she came out to him, and when he told her that 
 he had received orders from the government to 
 place her imder arrest, tears started to her eyes. 
 *'A11 my children are ill," she told him. **My 
 son was better yesterday, but to-day he is again 
 in danger." 
 
 General Komiloff asked to be left alone with her 
 for a few moments and the Empress gave way to 
 
 lOI 
 
I02 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 a hysterical fit of tears, but, presently mastering 
 her emotion, said to him quietly: "I am at your 
 disposition. Do with me what you will." ^ 
 
 The general thereupon gave orders for the 
 arrest of all the people surrounding the Empress 
 and, having put guards at all the telephones, re- 
 turned to Petrograd. A few days later the Em- 
 peror's train arrived at Czarskoe from Mohileff 
 and Nicholas Romanoff was a prisoner in his own 
 palace. 
 
 At this time it was still thought possible to 
 send the Emperor and Empress out of the coun- 
 try. In a speech he held at Moscow, M. Kerensky 
 told the people: "The former Tsar is now in my 
 hands. Comrades, the Russian revolution passed 
 bloodlessly, and I do not wish and shall not per- 
 mit it to be darkened. I shall never be the Marat 
 of the Russian Revolution. But in the very near 
 future Nicholas II will be taken to a seaport and 
 from there sent to England." His speech was 
 received with enthusiasm, but there was a strong 
 faction of the people who, worked upon by the 
 Extremists, called for the Emperor to be punished, 
 and it is very possible that but for the abolish- 
 ment of the death penalty by M. Kerensky on 
 March 20 this party would have succeeded. 
 
 As it was, a delegation of about a hvmdred and 
 fifty of the Extreme Socialist party went down to 
 Czarskoe and demanded that the Emperor should 
 
FIRST WEEKS OF REVOLUTION 103 
 
 be handed over to them; and, when they were 
 told that the Emperor was a prisoner of the Pro- 
 visional Government and could not be given over 
 without a permit signed by some member of the 
 government, threatened to turn machine-gtms on 
 the palace. The guards replied that machine- 
 guns would be likewise turned on them, but the 
 leaders of the delegation still insisted that they 
 must see Nicholas II, if only to assure themselves 
 that he was really there, and at last they were 
 taken to a room in the palace and were told that 
 the Emperor would pass through in a few moments. 
 And presently, after they had waited for a short 
 time, the doors were opened, and very slowly 
 Nicholas II walked through the room. Some- 
 thing, perhaps a stirring of old-time loyalty, or 
 a feeling of awe in front of that perfect dignity 
 and calm, brought the revolutionaries with one 
 accord to their feet. In silence they saluted the 
 Emperor, whose life they had been threatening, 
 and returned to Petrograd without demanding 
 anything further. 
 
 One wonders what that life of captivity and idle- 
 ness must have meant to the man who had been 
 all-powerful. There is a story relating how one 
 day a soldier was seen clearing away the snow in 
 a part of the park where the Emperor was allowed 
 to walk. One of the officers on guard called out 
 to him and demanded to know what he meant by 
 
I04 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 working without orders. Looking up, the man 
 answered quietly, "I am trying to kill time," 
 and the officer recognised him to be the Emperor 
 himself. 
 
 When he was told that the death penalty had 
 been abolished, the Emperor, seeing with a clear 
 judgment the result of such an act, exclaimed: 
 **That is a mistake! It will ruin the army. If 
 it is done to save me from danger, tell them that 
 I am ready to give my life for the good of my 
 coimtry." 
 
 And meanwhile, in Kronstadt, in Reval, in 
 Helsingfors, the sailors had mutinied and mur- 
 dered their officers. Admiral Nipenin, the com- 
 mander-in-chief of the Baltic Fleet, a man of ex- 
 ceptional talent and strength, was shot as he 
 landed in Helsingfors, having gone there from his 
 flagship at the request of the Soviet of the town. 
 The atrocities committed in Kronstadt were horri- 
 ble, and the place became an island of terror and 
 a hotbed of Bolshevism and anarchy. Admiral 
 Viren, the commander-in-chief is supposed to 
 have been burnt at a stake, many officers were 
 thrust alive under the ice, over two hundred 
 were kept in the dungeons of the Kronstadt 
 fortress, where they had to submit to the most 
 brutal treatment. 
 
 In the army also discipline had been aban- 
 doned. On the northern front many soldiers had 
 
FIRST WEEKS OF REVOLUTION 105 
 
 deserted and things were going badly. Follow- 
 ing the example of Petrograd, Soviets had been 
 started all through the army, committees of sol- 
 diers who elected or dismissed the officers and 
 decided, according to their own lights, all ques- 
 tions regarding the regiment, and, realising that 
 at this moment an attack might only draw the 
 Russian army together, the Germans had started 
 fraternisation, a system that spread like a deadly 
 disease all down the long line of the frontier. 
 
 On April 5, the victims of the revolution were 
 buried on the Champ de Mars not far from the 
 embassy. The fimeral had been put off several 
 times, as the government feared anti-revolution 
 demonstrations, and when finally it took place, 
 most of the red wooden coffins were supposed to 
 be only filled with stones. No reli^ous cere- 
 mony was permitted and no priest was allowed to 
 officiate. The procession, passing all through the 
 town, lasted from ten in the morning till nine in 
 the evening, and as each cofiin was placed in the 
 huge, trench-like grave dug on the Champ de 
 Mars, the guns from the fortress fired the salute, 
 and the procession passed on across the bridge 
 singing the Russian Marseillaise. No disorder 
 of any kind occurred, and, contrary to all ex- 
 pectations, the day passed in perfect quiet and 
 peace. 
 
 But during all that spring of 191 7, streams of 
 
io6 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 demonstrations, carrying red flags and singing 
 the Marseillaise, paraded the streets of Petro- 
 grad on the slightest excuse. I remember par- 
 ticularly one of these demonstrations when the 
 square in front of the embassy was a seething mass 
 of women, children, workmen, and soldiers, all 
 carrying crimson banners at different angles, all 
 singing the Marseillaise in a different time and in 
 a different key; and, hurried, pushed, jostled by a 
 careless crowd, a pilgrim who had come from who 
 knows what far-away monastery and had found 
 himself caught up and carried along in the stream, 
 an old, old man in a dusty brown robe, with a long 
 pilgrim's staff and a flowing, white beard. At 
 the corner of the bridge he managed to extricate 
 himself from the crowd, and as he passed us com- 
 ing down the quay I saw his pale-blue eyes full 
 of tears that ran unheeded down his cheeks, while 
 with a trembling hand he crossed himself over and 
 over again, murmuring in a half- whisper : "God 
 have mercy on us — God have mercy on us !" 
 
 The spirit of the old Russia and the new — it 
 faced one everywhere! In the dusty red flags 
 that waved above the fortress and the Winter 
 Palace, in the white-and-gold Opera House, where 
 the imperial boxes were filled with a motley crowd 
 of soldiers in leather jackets, women in bright- 
 coloured blouses, wild-looking men with spectacles 
 and straggly beards. The spirit of change — it 
 
FIRST WEEKS OF REVOLUTION 107 
 
 met one in the fine old palace turned into offices 
 for committees and meetings, filled with soldiers 
 and workmen who spat on the floor and lay with 
 muddy boots on the brocade sofas. One saw it 
 again at all the government buildings, where 
 soldiers slept on guard by the doors, their rifles 
 carelessly propped against them. 
 
 But the poison had not yet spread completely, 
 the name of Liberty had not yet been dragged 
 through the dust. The Death Battalion was 
 formed of men who were true to their ideals and 
 had sworn to fight in the cause of the Allies till 
 the last drop of their blood. And early in April 
 a deputation from eleven troops of Cossacks rode 
 up to the embassy, fierce-looking men, sitting 
 their horses like no other men on earth, with fear- 
 less, honest eyes and bronzed, bearded faces. 
 Drawing up in a long line that stretched right 
 down the quay, they sat waiting while some of the 
 officers dismounted, and coming up into the em- 
 bassy, presented my father with an address, which 
 ended in simple, straightforward language: *'We 
 bear witness that the Cossacks . . . will fight still 
 more vigorously for their liberty and for that of 
 the peoples allied with them. That they will de- 
 fend their coimtry against all disturbances liable 
 to weaken our common fighting powers, no mat- 
 ter from what side they arrive. The whole of 
 the Cossacks, a people not skilful at philosophising 
 
io8 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 nor cunning in the use of speech, but mighty in 
 their word of honour and in their deeds on the bat- 
 tle-field, claim the right to greet, in your person, 
 the victorious British navy, first in the world, not 
 only in numbers, but also in might, and the grow- 
 ing millions of yoiu- noble army. Long live the 
 Mistress of the Seas of all the world, glorious, 
 honourable, proud old England." 
 
XVI 
 
 SPRING, 1917 
 
 Kerensky was at this time at the very height 
 and zenith of his power, enjoying a popularity 
 that was ahnost unequalled. I remember, dur- 
 ing some big charity entertainment, his appear- 
 ance in one of the boxes causing the whole audi- 
 ence, oblivious of the performance then going on, 
 to rise in a sudden burst of enthusiasm, many 
 people even leaving their seats and flocking to 
 the middle of the theatre the better to be able to 
 see him. In the entr'acte some half-dozen soldiers 
 carried him through the theatre on a chair which 
 they finally placed on the stage. Dressed in the 
 little black workman's coat which he always wore 
 — prompted by his love of a somewhat theatrical 
 appearance — his right arm in a sling owing to a 
 slight accident, his face paler and more cadaverous 
 than ever, his deep, fierce eyes sweeping the 
 crowd that thronged, cheering and clapping, to 
 the very edge of the stage, he stood there a 
 moment in silence, and then in the midst of a 
 sudden hush began to speak in that harsh, im- 
 musical voice that was yet so strangely compelling 
 and inthralling. His speech was short and full 
 
 109 
 
no THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 of fire and enthusiasm, but it was above all the 
 man*s personality that was so arresting, in spite 
 of the fact of its not being sympathetic. His 
 thin, cruel-looking face stood out from all others 
 as a painted face of extraordinary vividness on 
 a dark canvas, his small, deep-set eyes held one 
 with the quick power of their shifting glance, 
 his voice rapped out his words with a sharp in- 
 cisiveness that wasted nothing but went straight 
 to the point with a brutal swiftness. A storm 
 of cheering that seemed to rock and shake the 
 theatre greeted his speech and he was carried 
 back to his box in triimiph. The revolution was 
 still yoimg in those days, the people had not lost 
 their faith, and were ready to fight for the liberty 
 they had won. 
 
 Yet already, on May 3, the government was in 
 danger of falling, in consequence of a note pre- 
 sented by M. Miliukoff to the Allies in which he 
 affirmed that Russia would maintain a strict 
 regard for the engagements entered into with her 
 allies, and would recognise no peace that did not 
 guarantee the impossibility of a recurrence of a 
 sanguinary war in the near future. The words 
 *' decisive victory" which he used raised a storm 
 of indignation in the Bolshevik parts of the Soviet. 
 A huge meeting took place in front of the Marie 
 Palace and cries of "Down with Miliukoff" 
 resoxmded on all sides. 
 
SPRING, 1917 III 
 
 On May 4 an order, supposed to come from the 
 Soviet, but in reality having been sent from some 
 member of the Extremists, commanded all the 
 workmen not to go to the factories, and all dur- 
 ing the day the town was in a turmoil. Bands 
 of men carrying rifles met one at every cor- 
 ner; once more motor-lorries filled with workmen 
 and soldiers swung down the streets. Some of 
 them bore huge red flags with the inscription, 
 **Down with the Government — Peace at Once," 
 written on them in white letters. Others, on the 
 other hand, were inscribed: "War to the End — 
 Support the Government." Meeting each other, 
 the two opposing parties hurled insults at each 
 other, in one or two cases even fired at each other, 
 and several tmarmed soldiers were killed by the 
 workmen on the Nevsky. 
 
 Several times during the evening big demon- 
 strations halted in front of the embassy and, 
 declaring themselves loyal to the government, 
 called for my father to come out and speak to 
 them. One or two patriotic speeches were held, 
 and the crowd cheered my father and some of 
 the English officers who had come round to the 
 embassy. And yet there was a ttirbulent spirit 
 of imrest in the midst of all the enthusiasm. 
 Once or twice from different parts of the swaying 
 crowd a voice was raised in angry vehemence, 
 calling on them not to believe in England, that 
 
112 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 she was fighting the war for her own ends and 
 was using Russia as a tool. Then there would 
 come a clamour of shouts and hisses, a sudden 
 turmoil, a heated argument, perhaps here and there 
 a raised fist. Later during the evening two huge 
 lorries drove up and halted just in front of the 
 embassy. A crowd of soldiers and sailors filled 
 them to overflowing, big flags swayed above them 
 in the wind, rifles and bayonets gleamed here and 
 there as the lights from the open windows caught 
 them. A little nervously, not knowing to which 
 side they belonged, the crowd made way for them, 
 and then, as they declared that they came from 
 the coimcil with the news that the Soviet had 
 come to an agreement, broke out into enthusiastic 
 cheers, and amidst acclamation and the waving 
 of handkerchiefs the motors drove off down the 
 quay. Presently the huge, shadowy mass of 
 people melted away also, and the soft grey dark- 
 ness of the early-spring night wrapped the river 
 in dreaming peace, broken only now and then by 
 the faint echo of distant cheering. A few days 
 later, however. Monsieur Miliukoff was forced 
 to resign, his place being taken by Monsieur 
 Terestchenko; Monsieiu* Gutchkoff also had sent 
 in his resignation, Kerensky becoming minister 
 of war. 
 
 Even in the hospital the effects of the revolu- 
 tion were beginning to make themselves felt. 
 
SPRING, 1917 113 
 
 A few of the soldiers still retained the gentleness 
 and courtesy of manners that had been so pro- 
 nounced a characteristic, a few still lay with pa- 
 tient, smiling eyes, unquestioning and uncom- 
 plaining. But one or two evil influences were 
 beginning to spread the seeds of discontent and 
 revolt, discipline was a thing forgotten and put 
 aside, the doctors' orders were neglected, the 
 sisters' requests treated with contempt. Hardly 
 any fresh wounded were coming in from the front, 
 only train after train of men with scurvy, generally 
 such light cases that after a week or two in hos- 
 pital they were able to leave again — that week, 
 however, giving them time to spread their doc- 
 trine of freedom of speech and manners. The 
 Russian Red Cross would or could do nothing to 
 help. When we telephoned to them to ask them 
 to remove a man from the hospital who was 
 inciting the others to sedition, they replied that 
 they had not the power and could do nothing by 
 force. Two deputies, however, came from the 
 Soviet and argued with the man in question, 
 persuading him to leave the hospital of his own 
 free will, as he was now almost completely re- 
 covered. He gave his word to do so and then, as 
 soon as the deputies had gone, snapped his fingers 
 at their backs and said that he was very comfort- 
 able where he was and certainly intended to stay. 
 Oh, yes, he had given his word, but that did not 
 
114 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 matter; that was only so as not to have to argue. 
 The matron then told the soldiers that, tinless 
 they gave up following this man's evil influence, 
 the hospital would be closed. But they only 
 laughed and continued to allow themselves to be 
 led on like a flock of sheep, and, at last, the situa- 
 tion became unbearable, the committee of the 
 hospital reluctantly decided to shut it up for six 
 weeks. The dismay of some of the men when 
 they were told of this was almost pitifully comic. 
 **0h — but we didn't know you really meant it, 
 we thought it was not serious — if we had known 
 we would have acted differently." There were 
 tears in their eyes; they wandered about the blue- 
 and- white wards like lost souls; the man who was 
 the originator of all the trouble was shunned as 
 if he had some disease. But it was too late now 
 to go back on the decision, and after the men had 
 been comfortably settled in various Russian hos- 
 pitals the poor little British lazaretto for woimded 
 Russian soldiers was closed. Only temporarily, 
 so we told each other as we said good-bye ! And 
 yet there was an aching feeling of finality about it 
 all, a sense of desolation about those empty wards 
 that caught at one's throat, and all the time the 
 monsters of chaos and confusion spread the shadow 
 of their power over the country and day by day 
 the old landmarks crumbled away and vanished. 
 On July 2, however, a gleam of hope lit up the 
 
SPRING, 1917 IIS 
 
 darkness. The Russian offensive had been glori- 
 ously begun, over ten thousand prisoners had been 
 taken and the troops were still advancing. A 
 wave of new-born enthusiasm swept over the 
 town, once more processions paraded the streets; 
 only there, where the Emperor's portrait had been 
 carried in triumph, Kerensky's picture now held 
 the place of honour, and instead of the blue- 
 white-and-red flags of the great Russian Empire 
 the scarlet flags of liberty were carried in pro- 
 cession. 
 
 Now that the offensive had begun the govern- 
 ment, feeling that they had popular feeling on 
 their side, began to take stronger measures against 
 the mass of agitators who were spreading dissen- 
 sion and anarchy all over the country. Cossacks 
 surrounded the villa of General Doumovo which 
 had been taken possession of by a band of an- 
 archists, and the whole lot of them were taken 
 prisoner, and there were rumours of further arrests 
 of Bolshevik leaders. 
 
 The town seethed with processions and dem- 
 onstrations of all kinds; at every street comer 
 little knots of people stood listening to some 
 patriotic orator, or perhaps to a follower of Lenin 
 who was declaiming on the folly of continuing a 
 capitalist war. Untaught and unread as they 
 mostly are, the Russian peasants seem to have a 
 special gift of speech. I have seen a whole theatre 
 
Ii6 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 held spellbotind while a simple soldier standing 
 on the stage in his dusty, war-stained uniform 
 spoke to them for over half an hour with a per- 
 fectly easy flow of eloquence.. These street- 
 orators swayed their audience one way or another 
 by their arguments, and if one stayed to listen 
 one could hear the most diverse doctrines and 
 politics propounded within a short space of time 
 and applauded with equal enthusiasm. There 
 is a story of a soldier who had been listening so 
 to two speeches, the first of which had upheld 
 the government and the war, the second, on the 
 contrary, having urged the people to demand a 
 separate peace and the resignation of all the 
 ministers. One of the passers-by asked the sol- 
 dier which of the two speeches he considered 
 the best. Slowly, and after much deliberation, 
 the soldier replied: "Eh, barin ! they were both 
 good speeches, but the second one was the best — 
 it was ten minutes longer than the first." 
 
XVII 
 
 THE WOMEN OF RUSSIA 
 
 So the spring of " Russia's glorious Revolution " 
 passed, and summer came — summer with the 
 magic of long, golden evenings; the enchantment 
 of dreaming nights, when the sky behind the 
 fortress was like a rose-flushed mother-of-pearl, 
 and the broad river gleamed like a pathway of 
 deepest aquamarines, and sunrise followed sun- 
 set so swiftly that the marvellous spire of Peter 
 and Paul still glowed with the reflection of the 
 one when the other flashed it again to gold. 
 
 Every year the wonder of those summer nights 
 struck one afresh, every year they seemed to bind 
 themselves round one's heart with a deeper, more 
 subtle charm. 
 
 But this year we had no excursions into the gulf 
 or round the island. The sailors on Admiral 
 Grigorovitch's yacht had politely told their 
 officers that they did not require their services 
 any more, the ''tovarisches" used the yacht for 
 their own purposes — ^whatever they might be — 
 and the little motor-launch that used to come and 
 fetch us had disappeared. Out on the islands 
 
 117 
 
ii8 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 there were fewer carriages and motors, though the 
 water was crowded with a multitude of rowing- 
 boats, which, as the rowing of the tovarisches 
 was defective and their steering even more so, 
 bumped into each other without ceasing, calling 
 forth squeals, giggles, and curses. 
 
 Now that the hospital was shut up I had more 
 free time and was able to get down to Finland for 
 a week of lovely summer weather, when we were 
 able to bathe every day and sit out by the sea till 
 past eleven watching the opal-coloured water 
 change to grey beneath the softly changing sky. 
 
 Later in the summer I spent another fortnight 
 in the Baltic Provinces. Unexpected little lakes, 
 that had been hidden under the snow, smiled here 
 and there in vivid glimpses of blue between the 
 tall, dark trees. The whispering pine-woods held 
 a new enchantment now, and it was difficult to 
 say when they were more beautiful — in their 
 golden, shadowed fragrance or in their silver 
 silence of imtrodden snow. Now in those long 
 summer evenings they were full of whispering 
 ghosts, and sighing voices that died weirdly in the 
 silence. One night we lit a huge bonfire in their 
 midst and sat watching the sparks that lost 
 themselves in the darkness over our heads, while 
 the light of the flames danced on the silent, watch- 
 ing trees and made odd shadows waver and re- 
 treat all roimd us. We spent two days at Reval, 
 
THE WOMEN OF RUSSIA 119 
 
 the little sleepy grey town with its steep, narrow 
 streets, and overhanging houses, and the big, 
 grim citadel that faced the dreaming sea, with the 
 golden domes of the cathedral gleaming above its 
 walls. 
 
 There was fighting again on the Russian front 
 during those summer days. Fighting that fluctu- 
 ated and died away once more into passive in- 
 activity. And the women of Russia joined hands 
 in a supreme act of self-sacrifice, a vain endeavour 
 to save the honour of their coimtry's manhood. 
 Led by a peasant woman, who almost from the 
 beginning of the war had fought as a soldier in 
 the ranks of the army, the Woman's Battalion 
 was enrolled as part of the BattaHon of Death. 
 
 "When the soldiers see their women fighting, 
 surely they will be struck by shame and follow 
 us," so the women argued, and girls of all classes 
 cut their hair and put on soldiers' imiforms and 
 went through all the training of ordinary soldiers. 
 And the men watched them with furtive eyes, 
 half ashamed, half angry, and the German agents 
 sneered and fanned the anger. 
 
 I remember going to a solemn service at the 
 Kazan Cathedral when the first battalion of 
 women were ready to start for the front. Stand- 
 ing in the dark doorway of the church, we looked 
 down at the silent, khaki-clad ranks of these women 
 and girls, who were going out to face the horrors 
 
120 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 of the most awful war in the history of the world. 
 Laden with all a soldier's heavy paraphernalia, 
 they stood there still and motionless in the soft 
 drizzle of rain, and the old priest who had come 
 out to bless them, looked at them, the tears 
 nmning tmheeded down his cheeks. And, broad- 
 shouldered, square, resolute, the black-and-orange 
 ribbon of St. George on her breast, the peasant 
 woman who was to lead them knelt at his feet, 
 her firm, brave lips quivering in sudden emotion 
 as she kissed the golden cross he held out to 
 her. 
 
 People have said that the women of Russia 
 stood aside during their country's agony, and 
 certainly there were many who continued their 
 usual round of bridge and gossip and flirtation. 
 But all the same it is unjust to say they did not 
 work, and the hospitals were fiill of girls who had 
 probably never known how to make a bed before 
 the war. 
 
 Many of them began their training in the same 
 hospital that I did, and I remember the first day 
 I was there meeting a woman who had been one 
 of the spoilt beauties of Petrograd society. She 
 was standing irresolute before a particularly tm- 
 appetising old beggar with sores on his leg. 
 *'What am I to do to him ?" she asked, catching 
 hold of me. ''The sister told me I was to wash 
 him — but how?" 
 
THE WOMEN OF RUSSIA 121 
 
 I looked at the beggar's leg and I looked at her. 
 She looked just as sick as I felt, and the beggar 
 sat on the bench and watched us with stolid 
 indifference. He had paid his three kopyeks to 
 have his sores washed, and that was all that 
 mattered to him. 
 
 ''What am I to do ?" the woman repeated des- 
 perately. "The sister just said, 'Wash him,' 
 and that's all, and she's so busy that I daren't 
 ask her again." Somehow between the two of us 
 we managed to do it, the beggar himself giving us 
 most of the instructions, and when at last it was 
 finished the woman said, with a little gasp, her 
 face even whiter than it had been before: "I 
 shall never be able to stick it — never." But all 
 the same she did, and worked for two years at a 
 field-hospital right up at the front. 
 
 Some of them, of course, did not stick to it; 
 some of them joined just because the uniform 
 was becoming; some of them never even got as 
 far as passing the exams. But a lot of them con- 
 tinued to work right on — even after the revolu- 
 tion, when the soldiers themselves settled how 
 many hoiu-s the sisters were to be on duty, and in 
 one hospital I know of decided that it was not 
 necessary for them to have tea in the afternoon. 
 
 And that the women of Russia have suffered 
 nobody can gainsay. There is not one of them 
 that has not been called upon for sacrifice, and 
 
122 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 what the war has not taken the revolution has — 
 in blood and iron and fire. 
 
 When we blame Russia and cry her down let 
 us try and remember what her women are suffer- 
 ing. What we give we give for our country, 
 but they must stand by and see their husbands 
 and sons and brothers murdered cruelly and 
 wantonly by their own people, see their homes 
 burnt and pillaged, their children dying of famine 
 and disease. And all this not for a cause of right 
 and freedom, but for the shame and dishonoiu: 
 of Russia in the eyes of the world. 
 
XVIII 
 
 BOLSHEVIK RISING OF JULY 
 
 Just opposite the embassy, across the enor- 
 mous breadth of the river spanned by the Troitzky 
 bridge, stood the big, white house of Tches- 
 kinskaia, the first dancer of the imperial ballet. 
 Early in the spring, Lenin, after travelling through 
 Germany in a sealed carriage, took possession 
 of this palace, filling it with a crowd of his fol- 
 lowers. A monster red flag waved from the roof; 
 every night lights blazed from all the windows; 
 every day crowds surged all round the house, 
 while, from a little kiosk at the comer of the 
 garden, Lenin spoke to them inciting them against 
 the war, against the government, against the 
 Allies. 
 
 For a short time, during the momentary ad- 
 vance of the Russian troops, the flag was taken 
 down from the roof, the windows were darkened, 
 the house seemed to be empty. There were ru- 
 moiurs that Lenin had disappeared to Sweden, 
 whispers even that he had been secretly arrested 
 by the government. But on the evening of the 
 1 6th of July, sitting at my window after dinner, 
 
 123 
 
124 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 I saw that huge red flag being slowly hoisted once 
 more from the roof and heard faintly across the 
 distance the sound of cheering. 
 
 Already during the eariier part of the day the 
 first signs of a coming trouble had shown them- 
 selves, so faint, so small, that at the time one did 
 not notice them or take heed, and it was only 
 afterward, looking back, that one remembered. 
 The cadet members of the government had re- 
 signed and a few people shook their heads and 
 looked grave. In the morning a long, slow pro- 
 cession of the soldiers over forty, who were ask- 
 ing to go back to their villages for the summer, 
 marched through the town, dreary, slouching, 
 hopeless-looking men with sullen faces. During 
 the afternoon I went to see a friend who lived 
 almost opposite the military arsenal. Before 
 the doors a big crowd of workmen were collected 
 listening to a man in a dirty yellow shirt who was 
 making a speech. It was such a common sight 
 that I paid no attention to it at the moment, but 
 when I came out nearly an hour later and foimd 
 the crowd stiU there and even grown larger, I 
 wondered vaguely what they were doing. The 
 speaker in the yellow shirt had gone now, and the 
 men just stood about, talking in excited voices, 
 shouting, gesticulating. They looked so angry 
 that I did not quite like to stay too long to try 
 and listen to what they were saying, and I went 
 
BOLSHEVIK RISING OF JULY 125 
 
 on down the cool, shaded street. A woman stand- 
 ing in a dark doorway shook her head as I passed. 
 "There will be trouble again," I heard her mutter 
 half to herself. Again I wondered what they were 
 doing, but forgot then all about it till, as I was 
 dressing for dinner, I saw a motor-lorry with some 
 soldiers waving red flags shoot past the window. 
 *'What is happening ?" I asked my maid, but she 
 only shrugged her shoulders. "God knows,'* 
 she answered despondently. "They are surely 
 all mad, barishnia." 
 
 After dinner again we saw a motor-lorry pass, 
 and then another and another, the people in the 
 streets standing still to watch them with puzzled, 
 disturbed faces. My father, who had not been 
 able to go out all day, was going out for a drive 
 after dinner. The chasseur, coming up to say 
 that the carriage was ready, stood a moment 
 hesitating at the door. "It would be better for 
 your Excellency not to go out," he said at last. 
 "The streets are not quiet." 
 
 "But what is happening?" my father asked. 
 The man shook his head. "I don't know, Ex- 
 cellency. It would be better not to go." 
 
 My father, however, insisted, saying that he 
 would not go far, and he and my mother started 
 out. 
 
 Sitting working at my window, I saw how they 
 tried to get across the bridge, but were imable to 
 
126 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 advance, owing to a dense block of trams and 
 motors, and had to turn back and drive along the 
 quay, which was practically deserted. But, mean- 
 while, as I sat there, that flag was hoisted from 
 Tcheskinskaia's palace and fluttered a patch of 
 brilliant scarlet against the grey shadow of the 
 mosque behind. The shore opposite seemed 
 black with people, and some of them came hurry- 
 ing across the bridge, glancing nervously behind 
 them as if they feared pursuit. Meeting the 
 other crowd trying to get to the other side, they 
 were told : * * It is no good. You can't get across. ' * 
 "But what has happened?" came the excited 
 question, and always came the same answer: 
 **God knows — there is trouble coming." More 
 and more motors began to pass bristling with guns 
 in all directions, filled with soldiers who were 
 shouting out : "Down with the government, down 
 with the capitalists ! " 
 
 My father and mother came back shortly 
 afterward, saying that farther along the quay 
 everything was perfectly quiet, but meanwhile 
 the crowd in front of the embassy grew ever 
 denser, all the trams had stopped, the bridge was 
 a seething mass of people, and several private 
 motors that passed were held up by soldiers 
 who turned out the occupants without any cere- 
 mony and took possession of the cars themselves, 
 swarming into them like a lot of insects, five or 
 
BOLSHEVIK RISING OF JULY 127 
 
 six inside, two on either step, two or three on the 
 box, two more lying along the mud-guards. And 
 presently two fully armed regiments came march- 
 ing across the bridge, carrying banners inscribed 
 in flaring white letters with: ''Down with a 
 Capitalist War — Down with the Upper Classes. 
 Long Live Anarchy. Bread, Peace, Freedom.** 
 
 My father, getting a little anxious, made me 
 telephone to General Knox, the head of the Mili- 
 tary Mission, to ask whether he knew what was 
 happening. But the quarter of the town where 
 he lived was perfectly quiet and he had heard 
 nothing, knew nothing, of any disturbances. A 
 little later, however, as another regiment came 
 across the bridge, followed by a lot of armed 
 workmen, my father telephoned again, asking 
 General Knox to come round to the embassy, as 
 something must certainly be happening. 
 
 Armed motor-cars were buzzing in all directions 
 now, and as slowly the sunset faded into a soft 
 grey dusk the crowd grew denser and denser. 
 General Knox, arriving with one or two other 
 English officers, tried to telephone to the General 
 Staff, but could get no information. Nobody 
 knew what was the matter — oh, yes, something 
 was evidently wrong, but what it was, or why, 
 nobody could tell. At last, about eleven o'clock. 
 General Knox went round to the Staff himself 
 to try and gather a little more definite news. 
 
128 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 A little later one of the correspondents telephoned 
 to say that they were fighting on the Nevsky, 
 and at about half past eleven a sudden volley of 
 firing came up from somewhere on the Champ de 
 Mars, and the square in front of the embassy, that 
 had been a black mass of people, was cleared as 
 if by magic as the crowd scattered in all direc- 
 tions, some of them taking shelter behind the 
 marble palace just opposite, others hiding behind 
 the embassy itself, others again flying across the 
 bridge. The firing, however, died away as sud- 
 denly as it had begun, and General Knox, coming 
 back from the Staff, said that General Popovtzoff 
 was quite calm and did not consider the trouble 
 serious. The Cossacks were ready to come out 
 if there were any very grave riots, but as yet it 
 was thought there was no definite need and the 
 government had given no orders. 
 
 And meanwhile, on the Nevsky, some fierce 
 fighting took place, the soldiers turning their 
 machine-guns on the crowd without any reason 
 or excuse, driving up and down the street, firing 
 wildly and indiscriminately as they went. 
 
 And later, during the evening, a crowd of armed 
 workmen and soldiers surrounded the house of 
 Prince Lvoff, where Monsieur Tereschenko and 
 some of the other ministers were having dinner. 
 "We have come to arrest the members of the 
 government who are here," so ran the message 
 
BOLSHEVIK RISING OF JULY 129 
 
 the crowd sent in. The ministers sent back word 
 inviting them to enter and discuss with them, 
 but, though the house was unguarded and un- 
 protected, the crowd feared that a trap was being 
 laid for them and melted away, merely requisition- 
 ing the ministers' motors that stood at the door. 
 
 During the early hours of the next day the 
 town appeared almost peaceftil. There were 
 very few people in the streets, the trams made an 
 attempt to run as usual, a few carts lumbered 
 across the bridge as if nothing had happened. 
 But presently the trams stopped running alto- 
 gether, armed motors began to tear about again, 
 any private car that dared show itself in the street 
 was immediately stopped and taken possession of, 
 and, in spite of an order from the government for- 
 bidding any kind of demonstration or procession, 
 huge bands of workmen with rifles and fixed bay- 
 onets kept on coming across the bridge. And a 
 little after twelve, three thousand of the Kron- 
 stadt sailors marched past the embassy, an end- 
 less stream of evil-looking men, armed with every 
 kind of weapon, cheered by the soldiers in the 
 fortress, though the ordinary public in the streets 
 shrank away at sight of them. 
 
 Looking at them, one wondered what the fate 
 of Petrograd would be if these ruffians with their 
 unshaven faces, their slouching walk, their utter 
 brutality, were to have the town at their mercy. 
 
I30 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 And the government seemed to be quiescent; 
 nothing was heard of them; nobody seemed to 
 know anything. Kerensky was at the front; 
 the other ministers seemed to be in hiding. Peo- 
 ple said the Cossacks were ready to come out, 
 but so far nothing had been seen of them. 
 
 Early in the afternoon there was again some 
 heavy fighting on the Nevsky. Somebody had fired 
 at the sailors from a window, with the result that 
 they traversed the street with their machine-guns, 
 and over a hundred people were killed. A little 
 later, when I was sitting with my mother, bands 
 of armed workmen came down the quay and, 
 aiming their rifles at all the houses, commanded 
 in a threatening manner that every window be 
 closed. Still a little later a crowd of soldiers 
 surrounded the embassy and a Russian friend of 
 mine who came to see me at that moment and 
 had had some difficulty in getting through them, 
 told us that they were saying they had come to 
 demand the publication of all the secret treaties, 
 and that their intention was to attack the em- 
 bassy. However, presently the whole crowd of 
 them melted away, something having evidently 
 changed their mind, and about half an hour later 
 the first Cossacks rode past — great, bronzed men, 
 riding through the crowd of soldiers and motor- 
 lorries full of armed workmen and sailors as care- 
 lessly as if there were not over a hundred rifles 
 
BOLSHEVIK RISING OF JULY 131 
 
 ready to fire on them at any moment. Several 
 of the workmen shook their fists at them as they 
 passed, muttering curses under their breaths, 
 but nobody stirred, and not a shot was fired, and 
 one began to feel that after all there was, per- 
 haps, still a government and a power in the 
 coimtry. 
 
XIX 
 
 JULY 17 AND 18 
 
 That evening of July 1 7 stands out very clearly 
 in my memory, not perhaps so much for the 
 actual events but for a rather unexplainable 
 atmosphere of dread that seemed to brood over 
 the town. I suppose the weather really had 
 something to do with this feeling, for heavy thun- 
 der-clouds lay piled in ominous masses behind the 
 fortress; the river lay dark and sullen, with an oily 
 reflection on the grey waters and only now and 
 then little puffs of a hot, dry wind blew clouds of 
 yellow dust up from the Champ de Mars across 
 the square. 
 
 One or two people were dining with us that 
 night, and at the beginning of dinner Monsieur 
 Tereschenko rang my father up on the telephone 
 warning him that some severe fighting might take 
 place in the town during the next two or three 
 days, and begging him to go away for a little. 
 When my father came back to the dining-room 
 and announced this little item of news. General 
 Kiiox looked sternly at me. **Well, at any rate, 
 the child must go," he said. I made a face at 
 
 132 
 
JULY 17 AND 18 133 
 
 him across the table, but prudently said nothing. 
 At such moments I always found that a policy 
 of masterly inactivity and apparent submission 
 generally carried the day, helped out by very care- 
 fully temporising and promising to go away — the 
 next day. 
 
 We continued our dinner peacefully, but we had 
 just reached the pudding when the chasseiu* — 
 rather white and agitated — appeared in the door- 
 way. ** Excellency, the Cossacks are charging 
 across the square," he announced. 
 
 Leaving our pudding imtasted, we made a 
 slightly tmdignified rush to my father's study, 
 from where a good view of the square could be 
 obtained, but only arrived at the windows in time 
 to see one or two sailors hastily disappearing round 
 the comer of the marble palace, while line upon 
 line of Cossacks swept up from the Champ de 
 Mars and turning the comer by the embassy rode 
 down the quay toward the Stimmer Gardens. 
 They had, as a matter of fact, driven a crowd of 
 Kronstadt sailors full tilt before them up from the 
 Nevsky, forcing some of them to take refuge in 
 the marble palace, while others scattered across 
 the bridge. One of our housemaids declared that 
 she had seen a Cossack cut a sailor's head clean 
 off with one sweep of his sword, but I cannot 
 vouch for the truth of this story, and I saw no 
 signs of a headless body on the quay. 
 
134 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 We stayed for a minute or two to watch the 
 remaining Cossacks ride past, clouds of dust 
 sweeping up under their horses' hoofs, the points 
 of their long lances standing out against the angry 
 sky. Then we returned to the dining-room to 
 finish our pudding, but we had hardly done so 
 when a sharp volley of firing brought us again 
 to our feet, and once more we hurried back to 
 my father's room. 
 
 The firing seemed to be coming from the 
 direction of the Summer Gardens, and for a few 
 minutes it continued with imabated violence, but 
 on the quay itself there was nothing to be seen, 
 only a Httle group of loitering soldiers by the cor- 
 ner of the bridge, all looking in the direction of 
 that turmoil that we could not see. Then sud- 
 denly above the crack of the rifles came the re- 
 port of a field-gim, and the soldiers scattered in 
 all directions, two of them flinging themselves 
 flat on their faces in the road. And hardly a 
 minute later, with a wild scurry of flying hoofs, 
 two riderless Cossack horses dashed past, knock- 
 ing down a man who tried to stop them, disap- 
 pearing down the quay in a cloud of dust. 
 
 The firing had died down to an almost startling 
 silence, broken only by a low rtimble of distant 
 thimder and the patter of one or two heavy 
 drops of rain. Presently one of the English 
 officers, who had gone out to try and gather news 
 
JULY 17 AND 18 135 
 
 of what had happened, came back to say that the 
 Cossacks had fallen into a Bolshevik ambush 
 in the Summer Gardens, and that several of them 
 had been killed. They were supposed to be 
 fighting again in the Liteinia, though which side 
 was gaining the upper hand nobody knew. 
 
 Unable to tear ourselves from the windows, we 
 wandered aimlessly from room to room, while 
 rapidly the thimder-clouds darkened behind the 
 fortress, and the wind-driven dust whirled across 
 the bridge. The crowd of loitering soldiers at 
 the comer had thickened. Arguing angrily to- 
 gether, they stood gathered in little groups, and 
 now and then a word or two drifted up to us 
 through the heavy stillness — "the government — 
 freedom — the Soviet — the capitalists — Germans— 
 the Allies." Evidently their conversation turned 
 on the same eternal subjects that had been dis- 
 cussed for so long and yet remained always im- 
 decided. 
 
 Suddenly, however, they stopped arguing, drew 
 back a little, all staring down the quay, and pres- 
 ently a huge Cossack appeared leading by the 
 arm a ragged, disreputable-looking soldier. In 
 a silence that was curiously tense, the crowd by 
 the bridge watched them come, and, unarmed 
 save for the sword that clattered on the pavement, 
 the Cossack faced them and dragged the cring- 
 ing soldier after him. Then — when they had 
 
136 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 almost passed — the soldier made a frantic effort 
 to free himself from the restraining hand. **To- 
 varische !" (comrades) he cried, his voice rising 
 to a hysterical scream, ''Tovarische ! " 
 
 The silent Httle crowd of watching soldiers 
 surged forward; hastily the Cossack tried to draw 
 his sword, but before he could do so one of the 
 surrounding soldiers wrenched it away from him 
 and dealt him a terrific blow on the head. For a 
 second as he fell to the ground we caught our 
 breath, thinking we were going to see him cut to 
 pieces, but with a surprising agility he got to his 
 feet again, and, charging head foremost into the 
 surrounding crowd, got clear and made off down 
 the quay, 'pursued by screams of rage and two 
 or three bullets; apparently, however, none of 
 them hit him. 
 
 Providentially, too, at that moment the rain 
 came down in a sudden blinding sheet, and the sol- 
 diers, their collars turned up, made off in various 
 directions, and peace and silence fell over the town. 
 
 General Knox and Major Thomhill were living 
 in the embassy, and a guard of thirty soldiers, 
 under the command of a very talkative little 
 Russian officer, had arrived apparently from no- 
 where and taken up their quarters. 
 
 The night passed perfectly quietly, but early 
 the next morning two or three armoured cars sud- 
 denly appeared and stationed themselves on the 
 
JULY 17 AND 18 137 
 
 quay, and while we watched them with a certain 
 anxiety, motor after motor full of soldiers drove 
 up and halted by the bridge, while the soldiers 
 getting out lined up in front of the embassy. 
 Nobody seemed quite to know to which side they 
 belonged, or for what purpose they had come, but 
 presently our little Russian officer bustled in to 
 tell us that they were loyal troops and that the 
 government had decided to take up all the bridges 
 and try to isolate the rebels and prevent their 
 passing to and fro. At the same time he warned 
 us that the Bolshevik troops quartered in the 
 fortress might try to prevent this measure being 
 taken, might even use their big guns, in which 
 case he begged us to go at once to the back of 
 the house — all this with a tremendous flow of 
 volubility and eloquence. Of course, there was 
 no real danger — none at all — but still it was al- 
 ways best to be prepared — ^it might be better even 
 to have a bag packed ready in case it were neces- 
 sary to leave the embassy altogether, though 
 certainly he hoped that no such need would arise. 
 Accordingly, feeling rather as if we were taking 
 part in some half-tragic, half-comic cinema film, 
 we each of us packed a little hand-bag — and I 
 realised then how very difficult it is to know what 
 things are really indispensable, when one is only 
 allowed a very limited choice. My chief anxiety 
 at the moment I think was my Siamese cat, who 
 
138 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 was put into her travelling-basket, protesting 
 loudly against such, to her understanding, very 
 unnecessary treatment. 
 
 However, the Bolsheviks offered no resistance 
 whatever. The big arch of the bridge was slowly 
 swung open, guards were stationed along the 
 quay, and climbing back into their motors the rest 
 of the soldiers drove off, and a dead calm seemed 
 to settle down on everything. 
 
 Occasionally an armoured car showed itself 
 on the opposite shore ; on the walls of the fortress 
 soldiers could be seen looking across the river, 
 but nothing happened — a cloudless sky shone 
 above the town, the spires and domes flashed with 
 unbearable brilliance in the sunshine, the river 
 lay as smooth and still as a sheet of deepest aqua- 
 marine. 
 
 Late in the afternoon I went out along the quay, 
 soldiers stood on guard at all the street comers, 
 every motor that passed was stopped and ques- 
 tioned, curious crowds were gathered before the 
 closed bridges looking across to the opposite shore. 
 And here and there groups of rather angry-looking 
 men stood talking together, watched by the rest of 
 the passers-by with a certain suspicion. "Bolshe- 
 viki," one heard them whisper, and they edged a 
 little closer, perhaps trying to hear the low-toned 
 discussion, then, being met with a muttered curse, 
 shrank back and looked hastily away. 
 
XX 
 
 THE TAKING OF THE FORTRESS 
 
 Slowly the day passed into evening, the sun- 
 set tinged the river to the colour of molten flame. 
 Dark and tall and unbelievably slender the spire 
 of Peter and Paul stood out against the burning 
 sky. From gold to rose the changing colours 
 throbbed and glowed. A little tender violet mist 
 shrouded the walls of the fortress, and behind 
 Lenin's white palace the big shadow of the Tar- 
 tars' Mosque stood up as if cut out of black 
 paper. 
 
 The little Russian officer dined with us and 
 talked a constant stream which quite did away 
 with the chance of anybody else being able to 
 say a word. During dinner my father had a 
 private warning that the government were pre- 
 paring an attack against the Bolsheviks, that 
 would probably take place during the night. 
 After dinner, in order to try and get away from 
 the little Russian's flow of conversation, I sat on 
 the window-sill and looked out on the wonderful 
 peace of the empty square that was generally such 
 a pandemonium of trams and carts and motors. 
 
 139 
 
I40 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 The soldiers on guard at the bridge stood leaning 
 on their rifles, talking in low tones, and now 
 and then some curious passer-by would pause 
 to look across the river. Once two Cossacks with 
 rifles slung across their shoulders rode slowly past, 
 the clatter of their horses' hoofs ringing loudly in 
 the intense silence, and once a little motor-boat 
 sped with incredible swiftness down the river, 
 churning the dreaming waters to a sudden life 
 and motion. 
 
 Slowly the sunset fire and splendour paled to 
 a dusk that seemed to hold the colours of mother- 
 of-pearl, and soft-footed shadows stole down the 
 riverside, and a few faint stars shone dimly in the 
 tender sky. 
 
 It was an unbearably hot night and I remember 
 getting up at about three in the morning to open 
 the window a little wider. A pale-gold light was 
 stealing along the sky, the crimson flag on the 
 fortress himg limp in the intense stillness, two 
 soldiers sat fast asleep on the bench by the bridge, 
 while three others walked slowly to and fro, the 
 points of their bayonets catching the faint reflec- 
 tion from the brightening sky. And as I stood 
 there trying in vain to get a little breath of air, 
 the whir of a motor broke the silence and gal- 
 vanised the sleeping soldiers into sudden alert- 
 ness. Puffing and snorting, the motor drew up 
 and two officers followed by a sailor and a Cos- 
 
TAKING OF THE FORTRESS 141 
 
 sack got out and walked up to the bridge, standing 
 there in earnest conversation. Presently I saw 
 our own little Russian officer join them, and I 
 was filled with a very violent curiosity to know 
 what it was they were discussing. However, after 
 a minute or two, they got back into their motor 
 again and drove off, and since nothing seemed to 
 be going to happen just yet, I got sadly back into 
 bed again, and — still wondering — fell asleep. 
 
 At six, however, I was woke up again by a 
 violent report just outside and, getting up hastily, 
 saw that the whole square was a mass of soldiers 
 and sailors, who were all drawn up at attention 
 and all seemed in some state of excitement. 
 Quite who it was, or what it was, who had fired I 
 could not make out, but I saw that the bridge 
 had been swimg back into position and one or 
 two officers stood on it, looking anxiously across 
 it. Evidently something was going to happen, 
 and probably, whatever it was, it had to do with 
 the mysterious action the government intended 
 taking against the Bolsheviks. Hearing at the 
 same time a certain amount of movement going 
 on in the house, I put on a dressing-gown and 
 opened my door and ran straight into one of the 
 English officers with an overcoat on over his 
 pajamas. 
 
 **0h — " I was a little taken aback — **were you 
 coming to call me ? Is anything the matter ?" 
 
142 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 *'Yes,** he answered briefly. "Will you please 
 go up and call your people and tell them they 
 must go down to the coach-house at once ? The 
 government are attacking the fortress and the 
 Bolsheviks will probably use their big guns." 
 
 *'May I dress first?" I asked meekly, but was 
 told with some severity: **No — ^please go and 
 tell your father at once." 
 
 So, obediently, I went up and called my father 
 and mother and also woke up my maid, who was 
 fast asleep, and was more than a little startled 
 when I shook her violently and told her she must 
 get up at once. 
 
 Coming down-stairs again, I met General Knox 
 in a beautiful red dressing-gown. He met my 
 cheerful smile with a frown. ''You oughtn't 
 to be here at all," he told me severely, and then 
 said he was looking for my father, as the officer in 
 command of the government troops who were 
 attacking the fortress wished to speak to him. 
 
 In the bright morning sunshine we must have 
 looked a somewhat dissipated and motley assem- 
 bly, arrayed as we were in an odd assortment of 
 dressing-gowns and coats, but the officer in com- 
 mand of the operations behaved as if there was 
 nothing imusual in the circumstances, and as if 
 it was the most natiu*al thing in the world to be 
 received on the embassy staircase at six o'clock 
 in the morning, by an ambassador with a great- 
 
TAKING OF THE FORTRESS 143 
 
 coat on over his pajamas and a pair of bedroom 
 slippers on his bare feet. 
 
 He told us that he was confident of being able 
 to take the fortress, but that, the embassy being 
 in the direct line of fire, it would be wiser for us 
 to go to the back of the house, and — in the eventu- 
 ality of very severe fighting — be prepared to leave 
 altogether at a moment's notice. 
 
 So, accordingly, we once more packed our bags, 
 and the Siamese cat was again — protesting even 
 more violently — put into her travelling-basket, 
 and we then went up to the drawing-room from 
 where one had the best view of what was going on. 
 
 All down the quay soldiers were kneeling be- 
 hind the low stone wall with their rifles resting 
 on the top and their eyes fixed on the opposite 
 shore. A little way farther down several machine- 
 guns were hidden in a big stack of wood, and the 
 whole square was packed with a dense mass of 
 soldiers and sailors of the Naval Cadet School. 
 Now and then companies of soldiers, preceded by 
 armoured cars, advanced cautiously across the 
 bridge, but the gims of the fortress remained 
 silent, and the red flag fluttered unconcernedly 
 against the sky. 
 
 Once an armoured car from the opposite shore 
 began to advance across the bridge to meet the 
 troops from our side, and the soldiers in the 
 square put their rifles to their shoulders — then 
 
144 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 after a second's breathless tension the Bolshevik 
 motor turned and scuttled off in the opposite 
 direction and a little ripple of amusement ran down 
 the lines of troops along the quay. 
 
 Presently, beginning to get rather hungry, we 
 went to have our breakfast — ^though the fact that 
 there was no milk or butter, and hardly any bread, 
 did not quite add to one's enjoyment of the meal. 
 
 More and more troops were advancing across 
 the bridge, and now and then the crack of rifles 
 o the rattle of machine-guns could be heard from 
 the opposite shore, but still the guns of the fortress 
 remained silent, and presently we all went to 
 dress. 
 
 At about ten, M. Tereschenko telephoned to 
 my father begging him to come at once with my 
 mother and myself to the Foreign Office, as he did 
 not consider the embassy to be safe. My father 
 absolutely refused to leave, and mother would 
 not go without him. They wanted, of course, to 
 turn me out, and General Knox told me that I 
 was more trouble than all the Russian army, 
 but while they were still arguing about my fate 
 a message was brought us that Lenin's palace 
 had been taken by the government troops and 
 that the fortress was expected to yield very 
 shortly, and I hastily seized on this to assure 
 them that now it really was not worth my leaving 
 the embassy. 
 
TAKING OF THE FORTRESS 14S 
 
 Occasional bodies of troops could still be seen 
 advancing across the bridge, and now and then 
 a certain amount of shooting could be heard, 
 and it was not till nearly one that the fortress 
 actually surrendered, without having used those 
 much-threatened big guns, or put up really any 
 very great resistance. 
 
 Almost immediately a dead calm settled over 
 Petrograd. Soldiers still guarded the bridge, 
 but the trams started running again, the usual 
 traffic was resumed, and the town began to wear 
 its ordinary aspect. The government had won 
 the day and the force of the Bolshevik insurrec- 
 tion was broken — so everybody said, and yet the 
 very next night machine-gims, hidden in barges 
 down the river and under the bridges, suddenly 
 opened fire on the quay, while many of the streets 
 were likewise swept by a sudden rain of bullets 
 that came nobody quite knew from where or 
 for what reason. Government troops were hastily 
 summoned, and after about an hour or two the 
 shooting died away as suddenly as it had begun. 
 
 And now that they had the power in their hands, 
 Kerensky and the government let the propitious 
 moment pass. The Kronstadt sailors, taken 
 prisoner in the fortress, were set at liberty in- 
 stead of being shot as traitors; Lenin, having been 
 given ample warning that the troops were com- 
 ing to arrest him, had walked out of his back door 
 
146 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 and disappeared nobody quite knew where, and 
 several of the other Bolshevik leaders were set free. 
 "We must shed no blood," so Kerensky 
 preached, the idealist in him once more overcom- 
 ing the statesman and ruler, hesitating to strike 
 a crushing blow at the insidious evil of Bolshevism 
 that was spreading like a disease through the ranks 
 of the army. And the Cossacks, burying their 
 dead in the wonderful cemetery of the Alexander 
 Nevsky, marched with surly faces in the long 
 procession — these, their comrades who had fallen, 
 were given a wonderful burial — ^with flowers and 
 music and much pomp. But what good was that 
 going to do them now? They had given their 
 lives to save a government that had been over- 
 thrown by a horde of rebels — and the government 
 accepted the sacrifice and did nothing to ptmish 
 the rebels. You must not shed the blood of your 
 brothers ! But had not their brothers' blood 
 been shed, and was it to go unavenged ? It was 
 a question that remained unanswered, but was 
 not forgotten. 
 
XXI 
 
 THE FAILURE OP THE RUSSIAN ARMY 
 
 On September 3 Riga was given up to the 
 Germans, and so slight was the resistance made 
 by the Russian troops, so swift and unexpected 
 was their surrender, that the people in the town 
 hardly knew that the enemy were near, but were 
 continuing their ordinary life, all the shops and 
 cinemas being open, and the restaurants and 
 hotels crowded. 
 
 Scenes of indescribable confusion and horror 
 took place when the fact that the Germans were 
 at the gates burst on the population. There was 
 a wild panic to get away; part of the town was 
 in flames, and, as usual, there was no organisa- 
 tion or order. 
 
 And devastating everything as they went, the 
 Russian army retreated, leaving guns and ammuni- 
 tion behind them, turning their own wounded 
 out of the ambulances to swarm into them them- 
 selves in their mad flight. Hospitals and farms 
 and coimtry houses, anything that was in their 
 path was burnt and destroyed, while the inhabi- 
 tants fled before them in terror. Reval was in a 
 
 147 
 
148 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 state of panic, and the trains coming in from the 
 Baltic Provinces were so packed to overflowing 
 that people were even sitting on the roofs of the 
 carriages with their trunks and furniture. 
 
 The conference in Moscow from which so much 
 had been hoped, had brought forth no really def- 
 inite result or settlement, and the ever-widening 
 breach between Left and Right seemed to have 
 been made worse instead of better. Patriotic 
 speeches had been made on both sides, but this 
 seemed only to stir up party feelings to a greater 
 extent. 
 
 The rivalry also between Kerensky and Komi- 
 loff was growing acute, and it was becoming evi- 
 dent to everybody that it would soon come to a 
 definite split between the two men. 
 
 Kerensky's speech at the conference was not a 
 success; his manner was hysterical and weak, and 
 he repeated himself in a string of patriotic phrases 
 that gave no decisive plan of action. His aping 
 of *'The Little Napoleon" also rubbed people 
 up the wrong way, and the fact that two A. P. C.*s 
 stood behind his chair drawn up in a miHtary 
 salute all the time he was speaking gave rise to 
 a burst of contempt, and was looked on as a pose 
 no emperor had ever dared attempt. 
 
 General Komiloff's speech demanding the res- 
 toration of discipline in the army, and laying down 
 the methods by which he meant to make an at- 
 
FAILURE OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY 149 
 
 tempt to restore order, was also not received 
 with enthusiasm except by Rodzianko and the 
 party of the Right, who, by their violent support 
 and acclamation, only added to the impression 
 that he was implicated in a cotmter-revolution- 
 ary plot. 
 
 It was an impression his enemies were only too 
 ready to foster and make the most of, and that he 
 had many enemies in political circles there is no 
 doubt. In the army his name was worshipped, 
 and he was perhaps the one man who could have 
 held it together and made it again a force on the 
 field. A short, square figure, with small, deep- 
 set brilliant eyes, he had an extraordinarily vivid 
 personality and a charm of manner that was 
 absolutely simple and direct. He had been told 
 by an old gipsy that he would not die till he was 
 a certain age, and believing her implicitly he 
 knew absolutely no fear, and if remonstrated 
 with for taking imnecessary risks, he answered 
 only: "It isn*t my time to die yet." 
 
 Taken prisoner by the Austrians in the big re- 
 treat in the Carpathians, he made up his mind to 
 escape and get back to Russia. Feigning illness 
 and a sullen, taciturn character, he shut himself 
 early in his room every evening, and refused to 
 come out till quite late in the morning, and would 
 not allow any other doctor but a Russian Pole 
 to come near him. Finally, having made all his 
 
ISO THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 preparations, he disguised himself as a work- 
 man and managed to get out unobserved, and when 
 the doctor went to his room the next morning he 
 found there another Russian officer who handed 
 him a letter, which commanded him as a Russian 
 subject to keep silence for twenty-four hours, and 
 told him that a duplicate of this letter had already- 
 been sent to Russia, so that if he disobeyed, this 
 disobedience of his would be known. 
 
 Meanwhile, Komiloff, having changed his dis- 
 guise to that of an Austrian soldier, managed to 
 get as far as Buda-Pesth. A little beyond this 
 the news got about that he had escaped and he 
 and the two Russian soldiers who accompanied 
 him had to leave the trains and highroads and 
 keep only to the woods, living on nuts or fruit or 
 anything they could find to eat. One of the 
 soldiers, giving way to his himger, strayed into a 
 village and evidently got killed, but Korniloff 
 and the other one, marching for over two weeks, 
 avoided pursuit and managed to reach the frontier. 
 They were nearly stopped there by the soldiers 
 on guard, who said that a Russian general had 
 escaped and there was a big price offered for his 
 capture. 
 
 *'A Russian general," Komiloff answered. 
 **They are always old and decrepit and half- 
 blind. You'll soon recognise him if he passes 
 this way." 
 
FAILURE OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY 151 
 
 The careless, laughing reply averted suspicion 
 for the moment, and, having waited for the dark, 
 Komiloff and his companion at last managed to 
 get across the frontier into Russia. 
 
XXII 
 
 THE COUP D'fiTAT OF KORNILOFF 
 
 Sunday, September 9, was a day as warm as 
 summer, with a cloudless sky above the golden 
 spires, and the river a thing of dreaming beauty. 
 
 My father left early in the morning to play golf 
 at Mourina, a tiny little village about twenty 
 miles away, where a rough golf-course had been 
 laid out by members of the English colony. He 
 had just gone when my mother had a telephone 
 message saying that M. Tereschenko, who was on 
 his way to headquarters, had been stopped and 
 called back. There was no absolute proof of 
 the news being true, but somehow a vague feel- 
 ing spread itself roimd the town that something 
 was happening or was just going to happen. It 
 was so imdefined that nobody could explain it 
 or give it a reason, but when several times during 
 the afternoon they telephoned from the Foreign 
 Office asking when my father was coming back, 
 and urging that he should come rotmd there at 
 once, we began to believe that it was not only 
 our imagination but that something serious was 
 really the matter. 
 
 My father arrived back at half past seven and 
 152 
 
THE COUP D'£TAT of KORNILOFF 153 
 
 telephoned at once to the Foreign Office, and the 
 message came back asking him to go round there 
 directly after dinner. A little after eight the 
 French ambassador arrived at the embassy and 
 went off with my father to the Foreign Office, 
 and presently people began to come in with all 
 sorts of various reports. Komiloff had declared 
 himself dictator and was on his way to Petrograd, 
 followed by all the Cossack regiments. Kerensky 
 had been arrested. Komiloff had been stopped 
 and was being brought to the capital as a prisoner 
 of war. Everybody had their own version, and 
 they all declared that they had received their in- 
 formation from a reliable source. And it was not 
 till my father at last got back from the Foreign 
 Office that we really knew what was the truth, 
 that the rivalry between Kerensky and Komiloff 
 had come to a definite split that might lead to 
 civil war. 
 
 The next morning the special edition of the 
 papers published a telegram of Kerensky*s pro- 
 claiming himself dictator and commanding Komi- 
 loff to resign at once. My father came back very 
 late from the Foreign Office and, sitting down at 
 luncheon, announced briefly that my mother and 
 I must leave Petrograd at once, that Komiloff had 
 got as far as Luga, where all the troops were join- 
 ing him, and that he was now advancing on Pet- 
 rograd. Arrangements had been made by the 
 
1 54 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 government to convey all the diplomatic body to 
 a place of safety out of the town, and there was 
 to be a meeting of all the heads of missions that 
 afternoon to discuss the question whether they 
 should avail themselves of these facilities or not. 
 
 **Do you yourself mean to go?" my mother 
 asked, and when my father answered that in any 
 case he meant to stay on, she said that she meant 
 to stay too. My father gave in to her but per- 
 sisted in his determination that I must leave, and, 
 seeing that for the moment it was no good ar- 
 guing, I said I would try and make arrangements 
 to do so. 
 
 All the afternoon contradictory reports kept on 
 coming in. Komiloff's army was said to have 
 got as far as Gatchina, and meanwhile in Petro- 
 grad the workmen were arming. On the Tues- 
 day morning things were still in the same state, 
 but the government, recovering a little from the 
 panic of the first hours, were assured now that 
 Komiloff would not succeed. Motors full of 
 soldiers, machine-guns, and ammunition passed 
 through the town and out toward Czarskoe. 
 Now and then a regiment with heavy artillery 
 marched down the streets, watched by a silent 
 crowd, who were still uncertain with which side 
 their sympathies lay. Posters had been stuck 
 up all over the town declaring Komiloff a traitor 
 to the revolution, but, on the whole, popular sym- 
 
THE COUP D'fiTAT OF KORNILOFF 155 
 
 pathy swayed more in his direction, and on the 
 Tuesday evening there was still a certain con- 
 viction that he would win, people declaring that 
 all the troops sent out against him were going over 
 to his side. 
 
 A certain amoimt of alarming reports were 
 still being circulated, one being that KomiloflE 
 meant to bombard Petrograd with heavy artil- 
 lery, another stating that his troops had got 
 poison-gas from a factory at Luga and were 
 going to use that to force an entrance into the 
 capital. Arrangements had been made to take 
 a lot of the English women and children into 
 the empty colony hospital. A boat had also been 
 chartered to convey some of them to a place of 
 safety down the river. I had persuaded my 
 father to let me remain on in Petrograd, though 
 I promised to go to the hospital as soon as any 
 serious trouble began. 
 
 On Wednesday morning, however, the papers 
 published a note from the government stating that 
 the attempt of General Korniloff to overthrow the 
 revolution had failed, and my father heard from 
 the Foreign Office that all the troops were desert- 
 ing him and joining the government. 
 
 When I went out that afternoon a dead calm 
 lay over the streets, armed soldiers stood on guard 
 ever5rwhere, hardly any motors or carriages were 
 circulating, the few people about wore a furtive, 
 
IS6 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 anxious expression or stood together in groups 
 talking in low, mysterious voices. And every- 
 body had a different theory, a different explana- 
 tion. One man I met who was employed at the 
 Foreign Office raised his shoulders and spread out 
 his hands. **It's all over," he told me. "Komi- 
 loff has given himself up. The whole thing has 
 fizzled out.** Another man assured me in a whis- 
 per that we knew only one side of the question, 
 and that the government were keeping back the 
 true facts of the case. Still a third man, a yoimg 
 Russian officer working in the Staff, laughed at 
 everything. Over? Not a bit of it. The govern- 
 ment, of course, pretended that they had won 
 the day, but Komiloff's troops had taken Balagoi, 
 which meant he could starve out the capital. It 
 was qmte impossible that he should fail. 
 
 So for two more days we continued in this state 
 of imcertainty, different reports coming in at 
 every moment, till on the 6th came the official 
 announcement that General Alexief had arrived 
 at headquarters to take up the post of com- 
 mander-in-chief, and that General Komiloff, 
 Loukhomsky, and Romanovsky had been placed 
 imder arrest. 
 
 So intricate and contradictory are the workings 
 of the whole plot that it is almost impossible to 
 know what really happened, or what is the exact 
 truth. Already for some time past there had been 
 
THE COUP D'fiTAT OF KORNILOFF 157 
 
 vague talk of a counter-revolutionary party who 
 intended to overthrow the government and dis- 
 solve the Soviet, but whether Komiloff had any 
 sympathy with them is very much to be doubted. 
 What seems, however, certain is that, fearing 
 a Bolshevik rising, the government negotiated 
 with Komiloff to send troops up to Petrograd to 
 quell the insurrection tinder the command of 
 General Kjimoff. Then M. Vladimir Lvoff, 
 former procurator of the Holy Synod, arrived at 
 headquarters, authorised by Kerensky to discuss 
 the situation with General Komiloff and come to 
 an agreement as to the formation of a stronger 
 government. Did he wilfully exceed his powers 
 or only inadvertently make the mistake that 
 brought about such disaster? According to the 
 statement made by M. Savinkoff, he was au- 
 thorised to lay three propositions before General 
 Komiloff, the first being that he should form a 
 government with Kerensky as minister of justice 
 and Savinkoff as minister of war; the second 
 that he should declare himsell dictator; the third 
 that he, M. Kerensky, and Savinkoff should form 
 a triumvirate having equal powers of govern- 
 ment. General Komiloff adopted the third prop- 
 osition, and M. Lvoff returned to Petrograd 
 charged with his answer. But, whether inten- 
 tionally or by mistake, he informed Kerensky 
 that Komiloff had chosen the second proposition. 
 
IS8 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 Doubting the possibility of such an answer, 
 Kerensky connected himself by wireless with 
 the Stavka and asked General Komiloff whether 
 he confirmed the message M. Lvoff had deliv- 
 ered. Believing the question to refer to the pro- 
 posed triumvirate, General Komiloff replied in 
 the affirmative, but Kerensky did not at once 
 break with him and it was only imder pressiu-e 
 from M. Nekrassoff, minister of ways and com- 
 munications, that he eventually decided to treat 
 Korniloff as a traitor and demand his instant 
 resignation. This sudden distrust and change 
 decided General Komiloff to act alone and he 
 ordered his troops to advance on Petrograd. Had 
 he led them in person the ultimate result might 
 have been different, but he remained at head- 
 quarters to direct operations and unfortunately 
 did not take the troops into his confidence. The 
 soldiers believed they were going to quell a Bol- 
 shevik insurrection, and when they came near the 
 capital and foimd that they were to fight against 
 the government, declared that they had been or- 
 dered to advance under false pretences. Bol- 
 shevik propaganda spread its insidious reports 
 among them: Komiloff was a traitor and a spy, 
 he had committed suicide, he was plotting against 
 the revolution. Swayed this way and that, the 
 troops wavered, and at last, tuming against their 
 officers, refused to advance. 
 
XXIII 
 A SOLDIER 
 
 Once again stillness and monotony — or so it 
 ^ seemed after the suspense and imcertainty of 
 those days ! And the siimmer had died with a 
 tragic suddenness. A cold, bleak wind rufHed the 
 waters of the Neva, sea-gulls wheeled and flashed 
 white wings against the dull, grey sky. For a day 
 or two the leaves in the Summer Gardens glowed 
 the colour of amber and gold and red, only to 
 fall all too quickly, whirled in circles across the 
 dead, brown grass, leaving bare, dark trees to 
 wave skeleton arms in the wind. 
 
 And it seemed that with Korniloff's downfall 
 the glory of the Russian army was gone for ever, 
 that nothing was left of it but a rabble of dirty, 
 disorderly soldiers who spent their days slouch- 
 ing forlornly about the streets, taking free rides 
 in trams, stealing and drinking whenever the 
 opporttinity offered. Only now and then one of 
 the old soldiers would come to us, either at the 
 embassy or at my mother's Red Cross store, and 
 tell us with tears in his eyes that he had rather 
 have been killed by the Germans than live to see 
 
 159 
 
i6o THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 the shame of his country. Most of these men 
 were soldiers of the old army who had been pris- 
 oners in Germany and been sent back to Russia 
 as helpless cripples. I saw a good many of 
 them and, as far as my Russian would permit, 
 talked with them and got to know the attitude of 
 their minds. I think, perhaps, a sketch I wrote 
 at this time will show more clearly than any other 
 explanation what it was. 
 
 **He had been taken from his little brown vil- 
 lage far away in the wilds of Siberia to fight in 
 a war whose cause and reason he did not under- 
 stand, whose aims achieved would never, per- 
 haps, make much difference to him, for a liberty 
 he personally would never profit by. Neverthe- 
 less, because he was told it was a good war he 
 was ready to come, and because he was told to 
 hate the Germans he did so to the best of his 
 ability — and, anyhow, he was told that he was 
 fighting for his Emperor, and therefore he asked 
 no more. 
 
 **He had been made to march for miles and 
 weary miles over impassable roads in boots that 
 made his feet raw and blistered. He had stood for 
 days in a frozen trench in a cold that pierced and 
 cut like a himdred knives. Once he had been 
 woimded — ^had been jolted in intolerable agony in 
 a springless cart, had lain on straw in a ward so 
 crowded that the sister had no room to pass be- 
 
A SOLDIER i6i 
 
 tween him and his neighbour. She had been an 
 angel of goodness, that sister, her young face 
 drawn by an unbearable weariness — ^but what 
 could she do when in that huge, bam-like ward 
 more than seventy voices called on her unceas- 
 ingly begging her to ease their pain ? His band- 
 ages had become a hard weight of blood-soaked 
 linen, but when he begged her to give him fresh 
 ones ahe shook her head, her eyes full of tears. 
 *How can I do it ?* she had answered. *No new 
 supply of bandages has come to us — and we have 
 nothing — ^nothing.* Then a man raving in fever 
 had called to her and she had hurried away — and 
 he could only lie and watch her — and hope that, 
 perhaps, in passing she would lay a hand for a 
 moment on his head — or bring him a longed-for 
 cup of tea. 
 
 "Nevertheless, he had got slowly better, had 
 been sent out again to join his regiment, had re- 
 treated with them step by step, fighting desper- 
 ately, stubbornly, heroically — till he had no car- 
 tridges left, and they told him there were no more 
 to be had. 
 
 "He had no clear recollection of being wounded 
 that second time. He only remembered waking 
 up to an unbelievable pain, seeing German imi- 
 forms round him, hearing German voices. They 
 told him, smiling, that the Russians had been 
 beaten, that a whole division had been cut up, 
 
i62 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 and that his general was a prisoner like himself. 
 Through the agony that wracked him he longed 
 to strike at their red, leering faces, but he was 
 too weak to even as much as lift a finger, and 
 could only drift off again into a confused dream of 
 pain. 
 
 ''Days and weeks and months had dragged 
 themselves away in a weary eternity of suffering. 
 He had watched others die to right and left of 
 him and had wished that he could die too. Then, 
 when he thought of the young wife he had left 
 behind in the far-away Siberian village, he was 
 sorry. Did she think he was already dead since 
 she had not heard from him for so long a time? 
 Or did she, perhaps, still pray for him in the little 
 white church with its bright-blue roof? She had 
 promised to bum a candle every week for his 
 safety before the ikon of his patron saint — did 
 she still keep that promise? Perhaps a child 
 had been bom since they took him away. He 
 wondered was it a girl or a boy. 
 
 "And still the monotonous months passed on 
 and summer became winter, and winter passed 
 into spring, and presently they moved him to an- 
 other hospital in a prison- camp. They told him 
 that his leg would always be a useless, shrivelled 
 thing, that one day, when his turn came, he would 
 be returned to Russia in exchange for some crip- 
 pled German. 
 
A SOLDIER 163 
 
 ** There were English and French, too, in this 
 prison-camp, herded together, given only filthy 
 food to eat, kept in intolerable dirt and damp. 
 Illness and disease raged, and again he watched 
 many comrades die, and very nearly died himself. 
 But now he climg onto life with all the feeble 
 strength left in him. He wanted to get back 
 to Russia. Perhaps, in spite of his shrivelled leg, 
 they would let him fight again. He tmderstood 
 the meaning of the war more fully now. With all 
 his heart he hated the Germans — and dimly his 
 brain grasped what it would mean if they were 
 not beaten. 
 
 "And then when another winter was through, 
 when he had nearly lost all hope, they came and 
 told him that his turn had come — ^he was to be 
 sent back to Russia. 
 
 " Of the journey he remembered very little. Ill 
 and intolerably weak as he was, it was just a con- 
 fused passing of many new impressions that left 
 him dazed and bewildered. 
 
 "And when at last he arrived at the capital he 
 had never seen, and was taken to a hospital with 
 big white wards, they told him of the wonderful 
 change that had come to Russia, of the freedom 
 that meant the birth of a new day. They told 
 him that the government had been replaced by 
 men ready to give their lives for the good of the 
 people, and the soldier, lying on his narrow bed 
 
i64 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 and remembering many wrongs, cheered feebly. 
 Then they told him that the Emperor had ab- 
 dicated and that Russia was now a republic, and 
 when, not imderstanding the word, he asked, 
 'Who then is Tsar?* they answered, laughing, 
 that there was no Tsar, and never would be one 
 again. And he was silent, frowning a little, try- 
 ing to adjust his mind to these new ideas — Russia 
 without a Little Father ! 
 
 "The want of proper food, neglect, and bad 
 treatment had left him terribly weak, and he was 
 a long, long time getting better, but at last he 
 was able to crawl about the ward, and still later 
 they told him that he might go out, and, hobbling 
 painfully on crutches, he dragged himself about 
 the town, looking at everything with puzzled eyes. 
 
 ** Everywhere the streets were crowded with 
 lounging, idle soldiers, leaning against the walls 
 and door-posts, standing in groups round some 
 shrieking orator. And everjnvhere the murmur 
 of talk was *Down with the war! Why should 
 we go on fighting when we can have bread and 
 land and liberty without doing so any more ? We 
 have suffered and starved for three years and have 
 gained nothing. Our brothers have been killed, 
 our women and children have died — and for what 
 reason ? For whom ? * 
 
 " Leaning on his crutches the soldier listened 
 and frowned. *No — no,* he said quickly. 'No, 
 
A SOLDIER i6s 
 
 brothers,, you are wrong. Have we not signed 
 treaties with England and France, and are they 
 not fighting with us? How can we make peace 
 without them ? * 
 
 *' One or two men in the crowd paused uncer- 
 tainly, but the man who had been speaking threw 
 out his hands: 'The Allies — ^well, let them go on 
 fighting — ^is it not so, comrades? The treaties 
 were made by the old government — signed by the 
 old autocracy that now no longer exists. They 
 were destroyed in the glorious dawn of the revolu- 
 tion — ^therefore, they are no longer valid.* 
 
 *'And the crowd cheered the plausible argument 
 they only half understood, and the soldier turned 
 wearily away, down the grey street to the hospital. 
 He had given of his youth and strength, he was 
 crippled and broken and ill, there was no Little 
 Father now to want his service — ^there was noth- 
 ing left to fight for. 
 
 *'A gust of wind flapped the grimy red flags 
 hanging over the doors, a few drops of rain drove 
 into his face — ^from the distance came the echo of 
 some band playing the 'Marseillaise.* 
 
XXIV 
 AUTUMN, 1917 
 
 Meanwhile the Germans gained ground stead- 
 ily and the retreat of the Russian army had be- 
 come a flight, and when at the Democratic Con- 
 ference Kerensky announced that the German 
 fleet was in the Baltic, the news was enthusiasti- 
 cally cheered by the Bolshevik members. 
 
 Reval was now in the greatest danger, and 
 Petrograd itself was hardly safe. On the 13 th of 
 October the Germans landed troops on the islands 
 of Oesel and Pago. The admiral of the Baltic 
 fleet, who had been elected by the sailors, made 
 mistake after mistake. People began to talk of 
 a possible bombardment of Petrograd from the 
 sea; others made elaborate calculations as to how 
 long it would take the Germans to reach the 
 capital if they continued advancing and the Rus- 
 sians continued retreating as they were doing at 
 that moment. 
 
 Everybody who could go was leaving. Nearly 
 all the women and children of the British colony 
 were being sent away, though several wives re- 
 fused to leave their husbands and preferred to 
 
 166 
 
AUTUMN, 1917 167 
 
 stay on, braving the discomforts and hardships 
 of daily Hfe in Petrograd. It was a tragic break- 
 ing up of little homes, a constant bidding farewell 
 to those who were going, leaving behind all the 
 associations of their childhood, all the treasured 
 possessions of many years of work and pleasure. 
 Every Sunday the church on the English quay 
 got emptier, every Monday the work-party at 
 the embassy got smaller. 
 
 The shadow of the revolution spread over small 
 and great, rich and poor, bringing with it, not the 
 glory and liberty it had promised, but ruin and 
 disgrace — famine, poverty, destruction. 
 
 And still the Germans advanced, and the ques- 
 tion, "Are the government going to evacuate 
 Petrograd?" was asked every day with greater 
 insistence, while every day a different decision 
 was published in the papers, only to be contra- 
 dicted in the evening. 
 
 Secretly we were told that it was very likely 
 we should have to move to Moscow. Arrange- 
 ments were being made to put up the various 
 foreign missions, and Prince Yusupoff's palace 
 was to be placed at the disposal of the British 
 embassy. 
 
 Meanwhile barges and motor-lorries were filled 
 with treasures from the Hermitage and other mu- 
 seimis and old papers and ciphers from the vari- 
 ous ministries. And it is possible that they were 
 
i68 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 packed with more haste than care, for one of the 
 barges in front of the Winter Palace, filled with 
 papers from the Foreign Office, was so heavily 
 weighted that it sank before it ever got away. 
 **What can one do?" the soldiers said as they 
 watched it go without making a movement to save 
 it, "nitchevo," and, shrugging their shoulders, 
 they moved slowly on down the quay. 
 
 It was one of these days that we dined at the 
 French embassy to meet Monsieur Maklakoff, 
 who had just been appointed ambassador to Paris. 
 It was, I remember, a very interesting dinner — 
 interesting to watch, at least — one of those 
 dinners when, perhaps, the women got rather 
 neglected and the men stood about in groups 
 talking in low voices and with grave, preoccupied 
 faces, when the very air seemed heavy with the 
 weight of great political questions that, hanging 
 in the balance, left the fate of nations undecided. 
 Monsieur Tereschenko was dining there too, and 
 after dinner I sat in my little comer and watched 
 him standing over by the big fireplace in deep con- 
 versation with Monsieur Maklakoff. I knew just 
 a little of the subject that was imder discussion, 
 but it was not only that that kept me inthralled, 
 but the picture those two men made in the vast 
 red drawing-room, and a sudden sense of my own 
 enormous imimportance, of the littleness of human 
 life in general as compared to the significance of 
 
AUTUMN, 1917 169 
 
 these days we live in. If I shut my eyes I can 
 still see that big red room, with its glass chande- 
 liers and formal gold furniture; the group of 
 women sitting somewhat disconsolately over by 
 the windows, with two of the French secretaries 
 trying to make up to them for the lengthiness of 
 the evening. The French ambassador in one cor- 
 ner in deep conversation with my father, and in 
 the centre of the room those two men, both re- 
 presenting in their different ways the power and 
 genius of Russia — ^not the Russia of Rasputin, 
 Nihilist bombs, and champagne-drinking aristoc- 
 racy, nor yet the Russia of chaos, dirt, and dis- 
 order of Boshevism, but the Russia that can still 
 boast her great men and brilliant thinkers, the 
 country that holds all those who love her with a 
 chain that neither absence nor distance can break. 
 The conversation ended at last, and, coming 
 across to me. Monsieur Maklakoff sat down be- 
 side me with a little sigh: *'I've had enough 
 of politics for this evening," he said, his deep-set, 
 very bright blue eyes smiling at me. ** To- 
 morrow I am going to Moscow and — " But he 
 had not done with politics yet, and I was not to 
 know what he was going to do in Moscow, for 
 at that moment the French ambassador came 
 up and carried him off to another comer to enter 
 into a long whispered conversation. He left 
 about a month later for Paris, but he had hardly 
 
I70 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 arrived there when the government he was to 
 represent was deposed and the country he so 
 much loved fell into the hands of the rabble who 
 called themselves idealists and patriots. Looking 
 back, now, I am even more grateful than I was 
 at the time for his unfailing kindness to me on 
 those rare occasions when I met him, and I would 
 like to be able to tell him how very deeply I appre- 
 ciate it. One of Russia's greatest politicians and 
 orators, I hate to think how he must suffer in his 
 country's tragedy and temporary disgrace in the 
 eyes of the world — a world that is always so ready 
 to judge by effects and so seldom stops to consider 
 causes and reasons. 
 
 Autumn was beginning to pass into winter, 
 the Democratic Conference was held without any 
 very great results and passed a number of con- 
 tradictory resolutions, in spite of which, however, 
 a coalition government was formed. A little 
 later the Provisional Coimcil was opened to act 
 as a buffer between the Soviet and the govern- 
 ment and, it was hoped, "^would prove successful 
 in bridging over the gulf between the two. 
 
 Meanwhile Kerensky's popularity was increas- 
 ingly on the wane. His arrogance had set peo- 
 ple against him, and all sorts of stories as to his 
 mode of life in the Winter Palace were afloat in 
 the town. The part supposed to have been taken 
 by him in the affair of General Korniloff was also 
 
AUTUMN, 1917 171 
 
 severely criticised, and when he made his speech 
 at the opening of the Provisional Council the feel- 
 ing of the house was nearly all against him. 
 
 Nevertheless, his power of oratory and the force 
 and sincerity of his words carried his hearers 
 away in a burst of renewed enthusiasm. An 
 article in one of the papers describing the scene 
 holds him up to ridicule as aping Napoleon, who 
 had not this fluency of language, but who knew 
 how to act, and, bitterly attacking him for the 
 conceit of the two aide-de-camps standing rigidly 
 at attention behind him, had yet at the end to 
 concede to him the victory of having convinced 
 his audience of his integrity and having secured 
 a big personal success by a wonderful piece of 
 oratory. 
 
 It was decided at this time that Russian dele- 
 gates were to take part in the conference of the 
 Allies in Paris. Monsieur Tereschenko was to 
 go at the head of the delegation and my father 
 was to accompany him. 
 
 Even the thought of coming back to England 
 could not do away with the pang I felt at leaving 
 Petrograd. Although our absence was only sup- 
 posed to last six weeks, I had the feeling that once 
 we left we should not come back, and everywhere 
 and in everything there was the certainty of some 
 further cataclysm or crisis approaching, and 
 curiosity made me want desperately badly to be 
 
172 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 there when it happened. There was, too, such a 
 lot of work to be done. The hospital and the 
 refugees were things of the past, but my mother's 
 Red Cross store kept us busy three afternoons a 
 week, while every morning one or two of the 
 English ladies who were left came to the embassy 
 to make the pneumonia jackets, foot-bags, eye- 
 pads, and other bandages and dressings that were 
 needed to keep it going. The Russian Red Cross 
 was becoming daily worse off for every kind of 
 requisite, and the doctors and sisters from all 
 the hospitals in the town came to our little store 
 begging for splints — a few bandages — some as- 
 pirin — anything we could give them. 
 
 An old wine-shop had been given us by the 
 authorities and the shelves were filled with the 
 stores and provisions that had been sent out from 
 England, and the various medical dressings that 
 were made in the embassy. It was very hot in 
 summer and very cold in winter, but as a child I 
 had loved playing at shopkeeping, and I always 
 had rather the feeling that this was a kind of 
 grown-up game, though certainly it entailed a 
 fair amount of hard work unpacking the cases 
 from England, making assortments of the vari- 
 ous things wanted for the different hospitals, 
 and packing the cases that were to be sent to them. 
 
 On October 21, Monsieur Tereschenko made a 
 speech at the Provisional Coimcil, in which he 
 
AUTUMN, 1917 173 
 
 firmly withstood the claim of the Soviet to be 
 represented at the Paris conference by a dele- 
 gate who would have an equal right with him- 
 self, and insisted that he, as head of the delega- 
 tion, must be the sole mouthpiece of the Russian 
 people, though the representative of the Demo- 
 cratic organisations who was to accompany him 
 would be free to express his views to him per- 
 sonally. As a restdt of this speech Monsieur 
 Tereschenko was bitterly attacked by all the 
 Extremist papers, and it seemed for a time even 
 doubtful whether he would stay in office. Finally, 
 however, his firmness carried the day, and the 
 date of our departure was fixed for the 4th of 
 November. 
 
 So violent, however, was the feeling of the 
 Socialist party against Monsieur Tereschenko and 
 his mission that fotir days before we were to start 
 he received a warning that the train would be 
 stopped near Helsingfors and that he would be 
 arrested and not allowed to proceed, and our 
 journey was accordingly put off for a few days. 
 
XXV 
 
 THE BOLSHEVIKS STRIKE 
 
 On and off for the last weeks a Bolshevik rising 
 had been spoken of as likely to take place at any 
 moment, but when my father urged Kerensky to 
 take strong measures against them he replied 
 that the government could not take the initiative, 
 but that they had forces enough on their side to 
 suppress any rising should it take place. 
 
 The first sign that they were really expecting 
 trouble, was on Saturday, November 3, when 
 about ten cadets of the military school arrived 
 imexpectedly at the embassy, saying that they 
 had been sent to guard the building. We were 
 already more or less packed up for our journey 
 to England, which had been put off now from the 
 4th to the 8th of November, so we had some diffi- 
 culty in preparing rooms and beds at a moment's 
 notice. However, we managed finally to provide 
 accommodation of sorts. 
 
 The Bolsheviks were supposed to be going "to 
 do something" — nobody quite knew what — on the 
 Sunday, but, as usual, when one was prepared for 
 all sorts of tremendous things, nothing happened 
 
 174 
 
THE BOLSHEVIKS STRIKE 175 
 
 at all, and the day passed perfectly quietly with 
 no sign of trouble or disturbance. 
 
 On Monday, Monsieur Tereschenko, Tretiakoff , 
 and Kamavaloff were coming to luncheon. At 
 about ten minutes to one we noticed a sudden 
 wild excitement among the cadets, and presently 
 one of them came to tell my father that they had 
 just had a telephone message from a reliable 
 sotirce saying that the Soviet had taken over the 
 government and that all the ministers were going, 
 though they were to be allowed to remain in office 
 for five more days till the new government had 
 been formed and elected. 
 
 While we were wondering what this could possi- 
 bly mean, Monsieiu* Tereschenko and Kamavaloff 
 were announced. My father told them of the 
 report he had just heard, and they laughingly 
 answered that the annoimcement of the fall of 
 the government was perhaps slightly premature. 
 They seemed perfectly confident that they would 
 be able to deal with the Bolsheviks should they 
 really attempt a rising, and yet one had the feel- 
 ing that there was something behind that they 
 did not wish us to know, some anxiety of which 
 they did not speak but hid under an air of quiet 
 assurance. 
 
 Looking back on that limcheon now, one won- 
 ders why we did not feel more clearly the shadow 
 of coming disaster and tragedy. Anxious we may 
 
176 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 have been, and yet we talked and made plans 
 that were never to be realised, and discussed our 
 journey to England with Monsieur Tereschenko 
 as if it was an assured fact, though I remember 
 that when my father said to him, "I shan't be- 
 lieve we are really going till we are in the train," 
 he answered half laughingly: *'I shan't believe 
 it till we have crossed the Swedish frontier." 
 
 That was the last time we saw Monsieur Teres- 
 chenko, and though he has now escaped from 
 prison, he went through experiences there that 
 must have made a lasting impression on him. 
 Tall, dark, and clean-shaven, he might almost 
 have passed for English save for the way his 
 long-shaped eyes were set, and, indeed, he spoke 
 English without the trace of a foreign accent, 
 and French with a perfection that is very rarely 
 heard. Yoimg as he was, he had held the diffi- 
 cult post of minister of foreign affairs with a 
 wonderful endurance and concentration of effort, 
 and, had his advice been followed more often, it is 
 possible that the revolution might have yielded 
 some of those great things that had been expected 
 of it. 
 
 That afternoon the town seemed perfectly 
 quiet and normal, but at about six o'clock a friend 
 telephoned to us warning us that there was to be 
 a big armed demonstration of the Bolsheviks 
 during the night, and that all the lights in the 
 
THE BOLSHEVIKS STRIKE 177 
 
 town were to be cut off at eight o'clock. And a 
 little later one of the cadets again came to my 
 father to tell him that they had heard from the 
 cadets who were guarding Monsieur Tereschenko 
 that they had received orders not to defend him, 
 but to give him up without resistance to any armed 
 force that might come to arrest him. 
 
 My father, accordingly, sent round one of the 
 secretaries to warn him of his danger and, having 
 prepared candles and electric torches, we waited 
 for fiu*ther events. 
 
 The feeHng that at any moment all the lights 
 might go out and the town be plunged in dark- 
 ness was a little uncomfortable; however, again 
 nothing happened, the Bolshevik demonstration 
 was countermanded, and in the early hours of 
 Tuesday morning the government, taking a firm 
 line, seized the printing-presses of some of the 
 Bolshevik newspapers, and also passed the decision 
 to arrest the members of the revolutionary mili- 
 tary committee that had been formed by the 
 Soviet. 
 
 Otir boxes were nearly all packed now, our 
 tickets were taken, and the arrangements for our 
 start on Thursday morning were completed; 
 nevertheless, on Tuesday evening we began seri- 
 ously to doubt whether we should really get off. 
 We had been to the Red Cross store as usual in the 
 afternoon, and everything then seemed fairly 
 
178 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 quiet and normal, but just after we got back we 
 had a telephone message to say that the Nicholas 
 Bridge was up and that fighting had begun on 
 the Wyborg side; and a few minutes later some- 
 body else telephoned to say that the Soviet had 
 passed a resolution to arrest all the ministers and 
 form a new government. 
 
 No lamps had been lit in the streets; in the grim, 
 bleak light of the winter evening a mass of people 
 poured across the Troitzky Bridge, cab-drivers 
 whipping up their tired horses to a frantic gallop, 
 motors hooting desperately, tram-bells clanging. 
 Rumours had spread through the town that all 
 the bridges were to be taken up, the shops had 
 been closed an hour earlier than usual, and busi- 
 ness people, peaceable citizens, women, and 
 children were hurrying to get home before the 
 trouble started. Here and there sullen soldiers, 
 armed with rifles and bayonets, stood and watched 
 the passing crowds, or a workman, his gun slung 
 over his shoulder, jeered savagely as he pushed 
 his way among them. And grey, in the grey 
 light, the fortress frowned from the opposite shore, 
 and grey, on the grey river, thin blocks of ice 
 floated down toward the sea, while little half- 
 frozen flakes of snow drifted down from the leaden 
 clouds. 
 
 By eight o'clock in the evening the streets were 
 absolutely deserted, only now and then small 
 
THE BOLSHEVIKS STRIKE 179 
 
 companies of soldiers, or two or three armed 
 workmen hurried past. A dead stillness seemed 
 to brood over everything, a stillness that seemed 
 to be alive with whispers, and shadowy figures, 
 and dim, mtifHed footsteps. 
 
 All during the evening various rumours came 
 in, and at midnight a friend telephoned to say 
 that the government had fallen, a report that 
 was confirmed in the early morning, when my 
 father also heard that the entire garrison had 
 gone over to the Bolsheviks. 
 
 The ministers were said to be hiding in the 
 Winter Palace, and my father was told that he 
 could not possibly see Monsieur Tereschenko, 
 and that our journey to England was definitely 
 put off. A little later we heard that Kerensky 
 had managed to escape in an American motor 
 and was supposed to have driven as far as Luga, 
 where he had boarded a train and gone on to 
 Pskov to join the troops that were being collected 
 there for the defence of the government. "Now 
 he has his chance," everybody said, **and can 
 march triumphantly into Petrograd and save the 
 revolution." 
 
 All during that day there was a certain amount 
 of firing going on in the streets, and armoured 
 cars and motor-trolleys full of soldiers were 
 dashing about, but on the whole the Bolsheviks 
 met with hardly any resistance at all, and by 
 
i8o THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 the time darkness fell the town was more or 
 less in their hands, with the exception of the 
 Winter Palace, which was being guarded by some 
 of the cadets and a company of the Women's 
 Battalion. 
 
 A little before nine I thought I heard the sound 
 of firing in the distance, but when I said so, the 
 English officer, who was sitting in my room at 
 that moment, answered that it was only the trams 
 on the bridge. The words were hardly out of his 
 mouth when the sudden boom of a big gun shook 
 the windows, and somebody in the street cried 
 out some unintelligible words. **I expect they're 
 firing at the Winter Palace," the English officer 
 said; "I had better go and see." He clattered 
 out of the room, and, left alone, I went to the win- 
 dow to try to make out what was happening in 
 the darkness outside. A little group of people 
 I could dimly make out near the comer of the 
 bridge scattered hastily as the red flash of one of 
 the fortress guns lit up the river and made the 
 darkness seem even more intense as the thimder 
 of the report died away into silence. 
 
 We heard presently that they were attacking 
 the palace from all sides, and had brought up two 
 or three light cruisers as well that were firing at it 
 from up the river. By the noise they were making 
 it sounded as if nothing very much would be left 
 of it, but a good many of the shots were only gim- 
 
THE BOLSHEVIKS STRIKE i8i 
 
 cotton, and the firing in all cases was so inaccurate 
 that the palace was only hit three times from the 
 riverside, though on the side of the square the 
 whole building was riddled with bullet-holes from 
 machine-gims and rifles. A good many shells 
 were supposed to have fallen in the town, though 
 not much damage was done; and, though the 
 ministers did not finally siurender till two in the 
 morning, the actual bombardment of the palace 
 ceased at about eleven. 
 
 The Women's Battalion fought heroically till 
 the last, though luckily they did not suffer any 
 very severe casualties. Many stories concerning 
 the siege were circulated later on, but where so 
 much was tmtrue it is difficult to know what 
 really was the truth. It was believed, however, 
 that there was a Bolshevik agent inside the palace 
 who gave out false orders supposed to come from 
 the ministers, and finally opened the doors lead- 
 ing into the Hermitage, letting in the crowd of 
 soldiers and sailors who swept through the gor- 
 geous apartments destroying everything as they 
 went. 
 
 The ministers had all been sitting in one of the 
 inner rooms of the palace, and one can imagine 
 what those hoiirs of waiting must have meant to 
 them and what their feelings must have been as 
 they heard the rabble drawing ever nearer through 
 the silence of the empty rooms. 
 
1 82 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 Arrested in no gentle way. they were forced to 
 walk on foot to the fortress through a jeering 
 crowd who jostled and pushed and shrieked out 
 threatening insults as they passed. 
 
XXVI 
 
 THE BOLSHEVIKS IN POWER 
 
 On Thursday, November 8, the fighting seemed 
 to be over. The ministers were prisoners in the 
 fortress; the Bolsheviks, for the moment at any 
 rate, were complete masters of the situation and 
 the whole town was in their hands. 
 
 The normal life of the town continued as if 
 nothing much had changed, though most faces 
 wore an anxious, himted expression, and soldiers 
 and armed workmen filled all the streets. It was 
 rumoured that Lenin had made himself head of 
 the new government, and that Trotzky was to be 
 made commissary of the Foreign Office. Very 
 often we had half jestingly spoken of such a possi- 
 bility, but now that we were faced with it as almost 
 a fact it seemed beyond belief. It could not pos- 
 sibly last. Petrograd itself might, perhaps, be 
 forced to submit to such a rule for a short time, 
 but that the whole of Russia shotdd be governed 
 by such men was not credible. 
 
 In the afternoon two officers, who had been in- 
 structors of the Women's Battalion, came to my 
 mother with tears in their eyes to beg her to exert 
 
 183 
 
1 84 TftE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 her influence and save a hundred and seventy of 
 these women who had been taken prisoner the 
 night before in the Winter Palace, and were now 
 being kept in the barracks of the Grenadier 
 Regiment, where they were being brutally treated 
 by the soldiers. General Knox at once went to 
 the Smolny, which had become the headquarters 
 of the Bolsheviks, and succeeded after some dif- 
 ficulty in extracting a promise that the women 
 should be treated as prisoners of war and have 
 a proper guard placed over them. Later even, 
 owing to his intervention, the women were all 
 released and allowed to rejoin the rest of the 
 battalion just outside the town. 
 
 On November 9 Kerensky*s army was at 
 Gatchina, and late that night there were reports 
 that all the armoured cars had joined him and 
 that fighting had begun. In Moscow, meanwhile, 
 the Bolsheviks were supposed to have taken pos- 
 session of the Kremlin, which was being besieged 
 by the cadets of the military schools, and the 
 whole town was said to be in a state of inde- 
 scribable confusion, all the streets barricaded 
 and fighting in progress everyw^here. 
 
 General Knox and Major Thomhill were living 
 in the embassy again, and people were very ner- 
 vous as to what would happen should Kerensky^s 
 army gain an entrance, as they feared that the 
 crowd might then turn against the aristocracy. 
 
THE BOLSHEVIKS IN POWER 185 
 
 Trotzky had ordered out all the workmen to dig 
 trenches, and two more destroyers had come up 
 from Kjronstadt for the defence of the capital, and 
 one had anchored just below the Troitzky Bridge, 
 a grey, vicious-looking shape on the grey waters, 
 with guns bristling in all directions. 
 
 Trotzky had now officially taken possession of 
 the Foreign Office, but the staff of the ministry 
 all refused to work for him, and the lady clerks 
 employed there all gave in their resignation, say- 
 ing they did not wish to be employed under a 
 German. All the other ministers followed the 
 example of the Foreign Office and the commis- 
 saires of the Bolshevik government, arriving to 
 take up office, found only empty rooms to receive 
 them. 
 
 People confidently expected Kerensky to enter 
 the capital on Sunday, November 11, and on 
 Satiu*day evening it was believed that the bom- 
 bardment of the besieging army had already be- 
 gun, people declaring that shells had fallen on the 
 Baltic station. On the Simday morning the 
 Committee of Public Safety, composed of the 
 political groups who had broken with the Bol- 
 sheviks, believing Kerensky's troops to be stu*- 
 rounding the town and his success and triumphal 
 entry assured, encouraged the cadets of all the 
 military schools in Petrograd to take the offensive 
 against the Bolsheviks. 
 
i86 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 Early on Sunday morning, therefore, one of the 
 generals in the Astoria arrested the military 
 general placed there by the Bolsheviks, and the 
 cadets took possession of the hotel. In the after- 
 noon, however, the Bolsheviks brought up armed 
 forces against it, and after some fierce fighting re- 
 took it. Very much the same thing happened at 
 the telegraph and telephone stations which were 
 taken by the cadets in the morning and retaken 
 by the Bolsheviks in the afternoon, the boys who 
 were heroically defending them being murdered in 
 the most brutal way. 
 
 At half past five that afternoon the square in 
 front of the embassy was cleared and closed to 
 all the traffic, and several cannons were placed 
 on it, trained across the Champ de Mars on to 
 the beautiful old Inginemaia palace, where a good 
 many of the cadets had taken refuge. They were 
 given twenty minutes in which to surrender and, 
 finally deciding to do so, were taken oQ to the 
 fortress. The Vladimirsky Military School just 
 across the river had held out against a heavy 
 bombardment from early in the morning till 
 three in the afternoon, when it finally had to sur- 
 render, a great many of the cadets being killed. 
 
 All over the town these boys, who had sacri- 
 ficed so much, were being him ted by the mob of 
 soldiers and workmen, and the sufferings some of 
 them had to endiure do not bear thinking of. 
 
THE BOLSHEVIKS IN POWER 187 
 
 Many of them were thrown from the roof of the 
 telephone office. In one place a few of them 
 managed to get away in an armoured car, which, 
 however, broke down and was surrotmded by 
 the crowd, who pulled the boys out and brutally 
 murdered them. One found refuge in a small 
 hotel, but, being discovered, was miurdered in his 
 bed and the whole building ruined and pillaged. 
 An English governess who worked with my mother 
 told us several days later how the only son of the 
 family she was with had gone out on that Sun- 
 day afternoon with no other intention but that of 
 taking a walk, and two days later his body was 
 foimd in a canal covered all over with woimds. 
 
 The embassy itself was seriously endangered 
 by the cadets who were supposed to be there on 
 guard, and who, having imprudently shown them- 
 selves at the windows, were seen by the crowd, who 
 exclaimed: ''There are some of them, let us go 
 and kill them." On the Monday afternoon, 
 therefore, they were all smuggled out of the house 
 in disguise and all arrived safely at their destina- 
 tions, though two of the boys escaping from the 
 French embassy were discovered and killed on the 
 way. 
 
 The hopes that Kerensky would effect an en- 
 trance were dwindling hour by hour. In Moscow 
 the fighting was still continuing, and, though there 
 had been a time when the troops of the Provisional 
 
l88 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 Government were said to be winning, the Bolshe- 
 viks seemed now again to be gaining the upper 
 hand. 
 
 Cut off completely as we were, news was difficult 
 to obtain, but there were reports that there had 
 been some heavy fighting between Kerensky and 
 the Bolsheviks at Czarskoe. Wild rumours were 
 about also that Komiloff had escaped and that 
 he and Savinkoff were now at the head of the 
 troops, that Kerensky had been murdered, that 
 Korniloff and Kaledin were marching on the town 
 at the head of an enormous army. 
 
 But out of all these conflicting stories one thing 
 stood clear: Kerensky had failed. Had he 
 marched straight on Petrograd, success would 
 almost certainly have been his. But having got 
 as far as Czarskoe, he hesitated, stopped to 
 parley and argue, wishing to stand well with 
 both parties, feared to strike a decisive blow, and 
 so was driven back at last as far as Gatchina. 
 
 On the Monday evening some of the English 
 military missions received a warning coming from 
 two private sources that the crowd meant to come 
 and attack the embassy that night. We were 
 supposed to know nothing about it, but I think 
 we all had very shrewd suspicions that something 
 unusual was the matter. Several English officers 
 were got in as an extra guard, and arrangements 
 were made with the English Military Club, in 
 
THE BOLSHEVIKS IN POWER 189 
 
 the Millionaia, to call them up in case of need. 
 The night, however, passed quite peacefully, 
 something evidently having happened to change 
 the intended programme, and the next two 
 days also were uneventful, though on the Tues- 
 day afternoon the traffic of the whole town was 
 disorganised, while all the bridges were opened 
 to allow four destroyers up the river as far as 
 Smolny. Manned by a scalawag crew of in- 
 describably dirty workmen and sailors, they 
 steamed slowly past, their guns menacingly trained 
 on the town, while all along the quays a crowd 
 stood to watch them, fear, distrust, and suspicion 
 in their eyes. Nobody knew quite what their 
 object was. Some said it was to fire on Keren- 
 sky's troops from the rear; others affirmed that 
 they were to guard the Smolny; others again 
 said they were going to fire indiscriminately'' into 
 the town on the smallest hint of any distur- 
 bance. 
 
 Order had been more or less restored in the 
 town now, though a certain amount of desultory 
 shooting was in progress. A cadet walking along 
 the quay was shot dead by two workmen who 
 happened to be passing at the same moment, and 
 who walked on imconcemedly as if nothing had 
 happened. And a petty officer was also murdered 
 just in front of the embassy on the Wednesday 
 morning, the excuse being given that he had re- 
 
190 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 fused to give up his sword to three or four work- 
 men of Trotzky's Red Guard who demanded it. 
 
 For the first few days of the Bolshevik rule 
 food was niore plentiful, and several wagons full 
 of provisions intended for the front were handed 
 out free to the crowd. And, meanwhile, promises 
 were made of bread and peace and freedom and 
 the division of land. 
 
XXVII 
 
 THE MOCKERY OF GOVERNMENT 
 
 By the end of that week it was finally clear 
 that Kerensky*s anny had been beaten. Once 
 more he had let a chance to save Russia slip 
 through his fingers, had played with fortune and 
 failed. 
 
 On November i6 the papers published a report 
 of his last interview with General Krasnoff, com- 
 mander of the troops of the Provisional Govern- 
 ment, an interview where few words were wasted ; 
 where tragedy and ruin and failure must have 
 mocked at the man who had held such tremendous 
 power and now stood on the edge of a precipice. 
 At three that afternoon he sent for General Kras- 
 noff, and one can imagine the brusque, nervous 
 manner, the white, lined face, the fierce, restless 
 eyes, that scanned the soldier's face as he greeted 
 him: **You have betrayed me, general. Are 
 you aware that your Cossacks have decided to 
 arrest me and hand me over to the sailors ?'* 
 
 And very quietly the general answered in the 
 affirmative, adding with a certain brutal direct- 
 ness: **Not a soul here is in sympathy with you." 
 
 **Not even the officers?" Kerensky asked. 
 191 
 
192 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 The general shrugged his shoulders: **The 
 officers are even more against you than anybody 
 else." 
 
 The man to whom they were addressed must 
 have known the truth of those words, though, 
 perhaps, he had tried to cheat himself into a false 
 hope up till now. And standing face to face with 
 the ugly fact he could only mutter weakly : * 'What 
 am I to do then? There is nothing left for me 
 but to commit suicide." 
 
 One can imagine the general's gesture of con- 
 tempt; the swift, vehement scorn of the rapped- 
 out advice: "If you act like a man of honour 
 you will leave immediately for Petrograd imder 
 the protection of the white flag. You will pre- 
 sent yourself before the revolutionary council of 
 war, and you will enter into negotiations with 
 them as head of the Provisional Government." 
 
 Perhaps it was then that the sudden plan for 
 his escape flashed through Kerensky's mind, 
 for he acquiesced with apparent submission, only 
 categorically refusing the general's offer of an 
 escort of sailors. He would have nothing to do 
 with sailors. Was not Dybenko a sailor? And 
 Dybenko was his bitterest enemy. 
 
 In despair the general raised his shotdders: 
 *'I can do nothing to help you then. Once you 
 have decided to play a big game, you must know 
 how to stand firm." 
 
THE MOCKERY OF GOVERNMENT 193 
 
 Seeing in the general's impatience his hope of . 
 escape dwindling, Kerensky exclaimed swiftly:' 
 **Yes — ^yes — I will go. But I will only leave at 
 night." 
 
 Inexorably the general refused to give his con- 
 sent to this: *'And why ? It will then resolve it- 
 self into a flight. Leave quietly and openly so 
 that all the world may see you are not running 
 away." 
 
 And again Kerensky submitted, only begging 
 to be given an escort of trusty men; and, curtly 
 promising to see to it, the general left him and 
 went out to give his orders for a detachment of 
 eight men to be formed to convey the former 
 commander-in-chief and minister-president of the 
 Russian republic in safety to the Bolshevik head- 
 quarters. 
 
 But that Kerensky had still some friends ready 
 to risk everything for his sake is proved, for barely 
 half an hour later a Cossack came to inform 
 General Krasnoff that he had escaped, and though 
 an immediate search was made in Gatchina and 
 all the surroundings, no trace of him was to be 
 found. Even the manner of his flight remained 
 a mystery, one report stating that he had escaped 
 in a motor-car disguised as a sailor, and another 
 affirming that he had got away in an aeroplane. 
 
 Now and then his name cropped up again and 
 extraordinary stories of his adventures were 
 
194 T?HE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 told. He was supposed to be hiding in Finland. 
 He had joined Komiloff and Kaledin in the south. 
 A soldier had recognised him in a third-class rail- 
 way-carriage and he had been killed by the 
 crowd. He had been elected member of a town 
 coimcil somewhere in Siberia. He was living 
 in Petrograd disguised beyond recognition 
 
 And yet few people held that this was really 
 the end. For the moment certainly his star had 
 set, but there seemed everywhere the odd belief 
 that he would still achieve something, and even 
 those who hated him shared in this belief. 
 
 It was the end of a chapter they said — rather a 
 tragic end when one looks back to the beginning 
 that had been so full of possibilities. Having 
 held a popularity that was almost unequalled, 
 a name that flashed from one end to another of 
 a great empire, he had become an outcast and a 
 fugitive. The crowd that had acclaimed him 
 now jeered and mocked at his name. The Cos- 
 sacks who had fought for him in July would 
 defend him no longer, the officers would not for- 
 give him for the part he had taken against Komi- 
 loff. The Bolsheviks hated him because he 
 wanted to go on with the war, his own party held 
 him responsible for destroying the discipline of the 
 army. 
 
 Few people now seem to remember that the 
 famous First Prikase, which was mainly responsi- 
 
THE MOCKERY OF GOVERNMENT 195 
 
 ble for disorganising the army, was issued by 
 the Soviet and not by Kerensky, and that each 
 regiment had its own committee, which did not 
 allow anything, from the most trivial every-day 
 affair to an order from the commander-in-chief 
 himself, to be carried out without having been 
 debated on and passed by its members. Keren- 
 sky himself made an effort that was little short 
 of heroic to keep the army together. All through 
 the spring he journeyed from one point on the 
 front to another, inciting the soldiers to fight and 
 striving to keep up their spirit by his fiery speeches 
 and enthusiasm. It was he who led the troops 
 to take the offensive in July, but at the same 
 moment the German agents organised the Bol- 
 shevik rising in Petrograd and spread the re- 
 port in the army that the capital was in the hands 
 of Lenin and his party, who meant to complete a 
 separate peace. 
 
 It is certainly true that Kerensky failed, but his 
 failure came through his weakness at striking hard 
 at the Bolsheviks and crushing them before they 
 became too strong to be crushed. He was a 
 patriot and an honest man, but he was an idealist 
 who dreamt dreams that were too big for him, 
 and that made him hesitate between right and 
 wrong when a decisive action either way might 
 have saved the situation. 
 
 No proper government had as yet been formed 
 
196 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 in Petrograd; the Bolsheviks were quarrelling 
 among themselves and seemed unable to come to 
 any agreement. To give themselves importance 
 they put out an order for the arrest of Monsieur 
 Neratoff, former assistant minister of foreign 
 affairs, and Trotzky declared in a public speech 
 that the secret diplomatic treaties had been 
 stolen and hidden in the British embassy, and 
 added, in violent language, that they must be 
 found at all costs. 
 
 The freedom of the press had been banned, 
 but notwithstanding this, articles appeared day 
 after day in many of the papers denouncing 
 Lenin and his followers, and if, in punishment 
 for their audacity, they were closed by an order 
 from Smolny, they promptly appeared under 
 another name. There is, for example, the story 
 of one paper that began life as The Day, was 
 closed by the Bolsheviks, and appeared again as 
 The Evening; then, being closed again, as The 
 Night; a little later as The Dark Nighty and still 
 a Httle later as Deepest Night. 
 
XXVIII 
 
 NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE 
 
 General Doukhonine, who had succeeded 
 General Alexief as commander-in-chief, receiving 
 the telegram of the Bolshevik government order- 
 ing an immediate armistice, refused to carry out 
 the instructions, and was accordingly replaced 
 by General Krylenko, a small, ferret-faced man, 
 who had risen from the ranks. 
 
 At the same time my father published a note 
 in the papers remonstrating at the way the order 
 for the armistice had been carried out without 
 consulting the Allies, and had been sent to head- 
 quarters nineteen hoiu-s before it was received at 
 the embassy. Trotzky thereupon published an 
 answering note, saying that the order for the 
 armistice and the note to the Allied embassies 
 informing them of it had been sent off at the 
 same moment, and "if it was indeed true that the 
 latter had not arrived at the same time, this was 
 only due to technical details that had nothing 
 to do with the policy held by the coimcil of the 
 commissaries of the people. The note ended in 
 an assurance that the common efforts and the 
 
 197 
 
198 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 will of the people would carry out a declaration 
 of universal peace against all imperialistic govern- 
 ments. 
 
 British subjects were now more or less prisoners 
 in Russia, Trotzky declaring that not one of them 
 should be allowed to leave till Petroff and Tchi- 
 cherin, the two Russian pacifists interned in 
 England, were set free. He also threatened to 
 arrest any British subjects carrying on what he 
 held a counter-revolutionary propaganda, and 
 declared that, though up till now there had been 
 no hostile demonstrations against the embassy, 
 he would not be answerable for the consequences 
 if his requests to release Petroff and Tchicherin 
 were not immediately granted. 
 
 Nearly every day threatening articles against 
 my father appeared in the Bolshevik papers, 
 and he was repeatedly warned that he was in 
 danger of being arrested at any moment. And 
 one or two members of the British colony who were 
 at the head of big factories were subjected to 
 rough treatment and violent abuse from the work- 
 men. 
 
 On December i the delegates of the Bolshevik 
 government left for the front to begin the peace 
 negotiations, and on December 4 General Dou- 
 khonine was brutally murdered in his railway- 
 carriage as he was leaving headquarters. People 
 had hoped that the troops or the Staff would prove 
 
NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE 199 
 
 loyal and would be able to hold out against the 
 Red Guards and troops sent down by the Bol- 
 sheviks to take possession. But General Dou- 
 khonine unfortunately hesitated to take up an 
 armed defensive position and, having miu-dered 
 him, the Bolshevik troops imder the command 
 of General Krylenko took the position of the 
 Staff, meeting with hardly any resistance. Gen- 
 eral Komiloff, however, managed to escape with 
 fotir hundred men and, evading pursuit, made 
 his way toward the south to try to join the forces 
 of General Kaledin. 
 
 It was said that seven German staff-officers had 
 arrived in Petrograd and were being received and 
 entertained by the Bolshevik government as 
 guests of honour. Pamphlets warning the peo- 
 ple that they were being betrayed were thrown 
 about the streets, but nobody had the power to 
 do anything, and the peace negotiations con- 
 tinued at the front, though it was rumoured that 
 they were not going well and that the Bolsheviks 
 were not finding it as easy as they had thought. 
 
 On December 8 my father made the following 
 statement in an interview which he gave to some 
 twenty representatives of the press: 
 
 "Judging by recent practice, secret diplomacy 
 will soon be a thing of the past, and diploma- 
 tists must, therefore, more than ever, have re- 
 course to the press as a channel of communica- 
 
200 ThLE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 tion with the people. It is for this reason that I 
 welcome your visit in order that through your 
 kind offices I may appeal to the Russian democ- 
 racy against those who wilfully misrepresent the 
 policy of my government. What, you ask me, 
 is our attitude toward Russia, and how do we 
 view the negotiations for an armistice that have 
 been opened on the Russian front ? As regards the 
 first of these questions, I can assure you that our 
 attitude is one of sympathy for the Russian peo- 
 ple, worn out as they are by their heavy sacrifices 
 in this war and by the general disorganisation 
 that is the inevitable consequence of any great 
 upheaval like that of your revolution. We bear 
 them no grudge, nor is there a word of truth in 
 the reports that have been circulated to the effect 
 that we are contemplating any coercional punitive 
 measures in the event of their making a separate 
 peace. With regard to the second question, the 
 coimcil of the people's commissaries, in opening 
 negotiations with the enemy without previous 
 consultation with the Allies, committed a breach 
 of the agreement of August 2 3 -September 5, 19 14, 
 of which we had a right to complain. We cannot 
 for a moment admit the validity of their conten- 
 tion that a treaty, concluded with an autocratic 
 government, can have no binding force on the 
 democracy by which that government has been 
 replaced, as such a principle, if once adopted, 
 
NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE 201 
 
 would undermine the stability of all international 
 agreements. But, while we repudiate this new 
 doctrine, we do not desire to induce an unwilling 
 ally to continue to contribute her share to the 
 common effort by an appeal to our treaty rights. 
 There are still higher principles to which we 
 might, if we so desired it, appeal — principles, 
 moreover, that are fully recognised by the council 
 of the people's commissaries. They are those 
 of a democratic peace, of a peace that accords 
 with the wishes of the smaller nationalities, that 
 repudiates the idea of extracting plunder out of 
 conquered enemies under the name of war in- 
 demnities, or of incorporating in great empires 
 the territories of reluctant populations. Such, 
 broadly speaking, is the peace which my govern- 
 ment equally with the Russian democracy wishes 
 to see secured to the world. The coimcil of the 
 people's commissaries is mistaken, however, in 
 thinking that they can secure this peace by ask- 
 ing for an immediate armistice to be followed by 
 an agreement. They are, if I may use a homely 
 expression, putting the cart before the horse. 
 The Allies, on the contrary, desire to arrive first 
 at a general agreement in harmony with their 
 declared aims, and then to seciire an armistice. 
 So far not a word has been said by any German 
 statesman to show that the ideals of Russian 
 democracy are shared by the German Emperor or 
 
202 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 his government, and it is with the German au- 
 tocracy, and not with the German people, that 
 negotiations for an armistice are being conducted. 
 Is it Hkely that the Emperor William, when once 
 he knows that the Russian army has ceased to 
 exist as a fighting force, will be disposed to sub- 
 scribe to a democratic and durable peace such as 
 the Russian people desire ? No; the peace which 
 he contemplates is a German imperiaHstic one. 
 Though the Allies cannot send representatives to 
 take part in the armistice negotiations, they are 
 ready, so soon as a stable government has been 
 instituted that is recognised by the Russian peo- 
 ple as a whole, to examine with that government 
 the aims of the war and the possible conditions 
 of a just and durable peace. Meanwhile they 
 are rendering Russia the most effective assistance 
 by holding up the bulk of the German armies 
 on their respective fronts. The important vic- 
 tories of the British troops near Cambrai are of 
 good augury for the future, for this democratic 
 peace which we all so ardently desire will never 
 be attained till the military power of the Kaiser 
 has been broken. 
 
 ** I have, I hope, shown how friendly are our 
 feelings and how sincerely we desire to stand by 
 Russia in this hour of crisis. Can, I venture to 
 ask, the same be said of Russia's feelings toward 
 us? Is it not a fact that hardly a day passes 
 
NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE 203 
 
 without some bitter attack being made on my 
 country by what are now the official organs of 
 the press? To read them one would think that 
 Great Britain, and not Germany, was the enemy, 
 that Great Britain provoked the war for her own 
 imperialistic and capitalist aims, and that she is 
 responsible for all the blood that is being shed. 
 I am not going to repeat the oft-told tale of the 
 beginning of the war; I should only like to ask 
 what would be Russia's position to-day had we 
 not intervened when Belgium's neutrality was 
 violated by Germany ? Without the British fleet 
 and our newly formed armies in which three mil- 
 lion volunteers had enlisted, Russia would to- 
 day be Germany's vassal, and autocracy would 
 reign supreme in Europe. Had we stood aside 
 there would have been no revolution and no liberty 
 for the people. The German army would have 
 seen to that, and without our co-operation Rus- 
 sia would never have won her freedom. Are 
 we not, therefore, entitled to claim that we should 
 be treated as friends instead of being made the 
 object of scurrilous attacks? In his appeal to 
 the Moslems of the East, Monsieur Lenin spoke 
 of us as rapacious extortioners and plimderers, 
 while he incites our Indian subjects to rebellion. 
 He placed us on a somewhat lower level than the 
 Turks, to whom he would hand over Armenia, 
 forgetting the awful massacres already per- 
 
204 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 petrated there. It is an unheard-of thing for a 
 man who claims to direct Russian poHcy to use 
 such language of a friendly and Allied country. 
 How does he think that the British tyrant en- 
 forced his will in India with three hundred million 
 inhabitants ? Is he aware that the British garri- 
 son which before the war amoimted to seventy- 
 five thousand men has now been reduced to 
 fifteen thousand, owing to the loyal support of 
 the native races? Is he aware that one of our 
 chief aims is to prepare the diverse and often 
 hostile races for self-government, and that our 
 own government encourages the formation of 
 Indian societies and committees for this very 
 purpose? Hardly any of them are anti-British, 
 and none approach the Soviet in character. 
 
 "The position of EngHshmen in this country 
 is not an enviable one at the present moment. 
 They are singled out for attacks and regarded 
 with suspicion. During the seven years that I 
 have been ambassador here I have worked heart 
 and soul to bring about the closest understanding 
 between Russia and Great Britain, but though I 
 have associated, as it is my duty, with members 
 of all parties, I have ever since the February 
 revolution maintained a strictly neutral attitude. 
 Prior to that date I did, it is true, endeavoiu* to 
 use my influence with the Emperor in favoiu* of 
 some form of constitutional government, and I 
 
NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE 205 
 
 repeatedly urged him to make concessions to the 
 legitimate wishes of the people. Now that his 
 sovereign rights are vested in the Russian people, 
 the latter will, I trust, pardon my transgression of 
 the strict rules of diplomatic etiquette. I would, 
 in conclusion, venture to address one word of 
 warning to the Russian democracy. Their leaders 
 are, I know, animated by the desire of creating 
 a brotherhood of the proletariats of the world in 
 order to secure universal peace. I fully sym- 
 pathise with the object they have in view, but 
 I would ask them to consider whether their present 
 methods are likely to appeal to the democracies 
 of other countries, and more especially to my own. 
 They are creating, perhaps unintentionally, the 
 impression that they set more store by the German 
 than by the British proletariat. Their attitude 
 toward us is more calculated to estrange than to 
 attract the sympathies of the British working 
 classes. During the great war that followed the 
 French Revolution the speeches delivered against 
 Great Britain and the attempts made to provoke 
 a revolution in our country did but steel the 
 resolve of the British people to fight out the war 
 to the end and rallied them round the govern- 
 ment of the day. History will, if I mistake not, 
 repeat itself in this twentieth century." 
 
XXIX 
 
 RULE OF THE RED GUARD 
 
 And what of Petrograd, the capital, during these 
 days? Winter had set in now. The white, 
 pure silence of the snow covered everything, the 
 flag on the fortress flew, a brilliant patch of scarlet 
 against a steel-cold sky. 
 
 Nobody troubled to clear away the snow in 
 the streets. Little boys used the slopes of the 
 bridges over the canals as toboggan-slides, can- 
 noning carelessly against people, utterly unheed- 
 ful whether they knocked them down or not. 
 Others again used the pavements as skating- 
 rinks, and walking in the streets became a thing 
 fraught with many dangers, ridiculous and other- 
 wise. 
 
 Nearly all the trams had broken down and 
 nobody troubled to mend them. Those that 
 remained resembled moving beehives with crowds 
 of people hanging on all round. One had to 
 fight to get even so much as a foothold on a step, 
 and, once having got in, it was almost impossible 
 to get out again, so tightly wedged was the crowd 
 at the doors. Pickpockets and thieves swarmed 
 
 206 
 
RULE OF THE RED GUARD 207 
 
 in them, and as there was no police one had no 
 hope of retribution if one did have anything stolen. 
 
 Coal was so scarce that the supply of electric 
 light had to be cut off. On certain days one was 
 only allowed it from six to eleven in the evenings 
 and as one never knew which day that was to be, 
 one ran the risk at dinner-parties of finding one- 
 self in sudden darkness and having a general 
 scramble for candles. And candles were also 
 scarce and not always to be foimd. 
 
 Nearly every night shooting went on in the 
 town. Nobody quite knew why. Sometimes 
 it was just a band of robbers going round, stop- 
 ping people in the streets or pillaging flats. Or, 
 perhaps, the Red Guards had a difference of 
 opinion. Or else a motor with no lights would 
 fly through the streets with a machine-gun 
 rattling away out of the back window, for no 
 particular reason or object. 
 
 Committees were started in all the apartment- 
 houses. All the inhabitants of flats, even the 
 women, had to take their turn of keeping watch 
 during three hours of the night, either in the 
 courtyard or else just inside the hall. Day after 
 day more shops were closing, either through lack 
 of material or strike of the shop-hands. Food 
 that, for a short period after the Bolsheviks had 
 gained power, had been a little more plentiful, 
 was now scarcer than ever. The bread was prac- 
 
2o8 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 tically uneatable. The allowance for the week 
 was one eggy which was generally bad. Butter 
 was almost unprocurable. Leather was so scarce 
 that to get a pair of boots one had to have a ticket, 
 and it was said that there was just one pair of 
 boots for every fifty people. 
 
 One wondered sometimes, Was this to be the 
 end? The great red palace riddled by bullets. 
 The silent, empty government buildings. The 
 yellow-and-white admiralty with the golden spire 
 that seemed nearly always to catch from some- 
 where a faint gleam of simshine. And across 
 the white expanse of the snow-covered square, 
 behind the pearl-like tracery of the trees in the 
 Alexander Garden, the great, grey shadow of 
 the dome of St. Isaac's softened and dim in the 
 opal-coloured mist. And over the frozen river 
 the walls of the fortress, the cathedral with the 
 golden tombs of dead Emperors, the spire that 
 was like a marvellous tongue of flame, a finger 
 pointing to heaven. What was to happen to 
 all these? The old majesty, the old traditions 
 of centuries, the faith that believed in miracles — 
 were they gone for ever? The churches were 
 almost empty now, only here and there in the 
 grey shadows a solitary candle burned before 
 a jewelled ikon, or a woman knelt and wept be- 
 fore a crucifix. The old Russia was dead indeed. 
 
 I remember walking home from a dinner one 
 
RULE OF THE RED GUARD 209 
 
 evening and passing close to a barracks where a 
 crowd of soldiers stood leaning up against the 
 wall. From an open window a stream of yellow 
 light blazed across the snow-covered pavement, 
 and out into the silence of the cold, clear night 
 came the sound of drunken song and laughter, 
 the squeak of a concertina. Walking down the 
 street toward us came an old general, his long 
 beard and his white fiu* cap gleaming silver in the 
 moonlight, the scarlet lining of his grey coat 
 catching the light as he passed that open window, 
 and not a single one of those soldiers leaning 
 against the doorway moved out of his way or 
 saluted; one only spat derisively on the pavement 
 with a muttered curse. His stem old face was 
 like a white mask of suffering, and when the Eng- 
 lish officer I was with saluted him as he passed 
 close to us, he started as if wakened from a dream, 
 and returned the salute with a smile that was 
 pitiful in its pleased surprise. 
 
 That is the spirit of progress and change, the 
 spirit of liberty. Everywhere signs of disorder 
 and dirt and neglect. Streets that were almost 
 empty, shops that had no goods, churches where 
 nobody prayed. 
 
 And at street comers companies of Red Guards 
 sitting round huge, blazing fires, stopping every 
 motor that passed to ask questions, and some- 
 times tiuning the occupants out if the answers 
 
2IO THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 did not satisfy them. Ready at any moment 
 on the slightest excuse to fire off the rifles that 
 were tied round them with a piece of string or a 
 dirty piece of red ribbon. These men, unkempt, 
 unwashed, unshaved, totally ignorant, had be- 
 come the rulers of Petrograd, the city built by 
 Peter the Great as the capital for his empire. 
 
 At night it was always a somewhat eerie sen- 
 sation to be stopped by these men. The red 
 glare of the fire lighting up the blue darkness, 
 the silence of the snow-covered streets broken by 
 the hoarse, rough voice that commanded the 
 motor to stop. The crowd of dirty, unkempt 
 men swarming roimd the door, the points of the 
 bayonets that caught here and there a gleam of 
 firelight, the knowledge that at the slightest ex- 
 cuse they had the power to turn one ignominiously 
 out into the street and go off themselves in the 
 motor. 
 
 Indeed this very nearly happened to some 
 friends and myself when, one evening coming home 
 from the ballet, a shot rang out just in front of 
 the motor. We did not realise at first that it 
 had been fired at us, but when the motor pulled 
 up with a jerk and a man in a dirty fur cap, 
 who might have been a Red Guard or an ordinary 
 thief, tore open the door, we saw that this time 
 we were not to be merely spectators. How little 
 help we could expect from anybody was also 
 
RULE OF THE RED GUARD 211 
 
 immediately clear, as people passing glanced at 
 us nervously and then, looking the other way, 
 hurried on, while a sledge that had been standing 
 close to the pavement drove hastily away into 
 the darkness. Three more men with rifles now 
 surrounded the motor, and, pointing his pistol 
 at us, the man who had stopped us commanded 
 us to get out at once. Mr. Brooks, one of the 
 secretaries of the embassy, who was with us, told 
 him it was an English motor and tried to shut 
 the door. But tearing it open again, the man 
 got up on the step and, pointing his pistol at Mr. 
 Brooks's head, screamed out that we were to let 
 him have the motor at once or he would shoot. 
 With admirable presence of mind, Mr. Brooks 
 argued with him that he would get into great 
 trouble if he took the motor as it belonged to the 
 British embassy, and we were on government 
 business. The man retorted ftuiously that he 
 also was on government business, but after a few 
 minutes* more persuasion and talk he finally got 
 off the step and, shutting the door with a bang, 
 allowed us to continue on oiir way unmolested. 
 
XXX 
 
 ANARCHY 
 
 Disorders and desultory street-fighting in- 
 creased day by day, and on the night of December 
 7 reached a culminating point, when a band of 
 soldiers and sailors broke into the Winter Palace 
 and pillaged the wine-cellars. The Preobrajinsky 
 regiment, whose barracks were next door and who 
 were supposed to be on guard, tried at first to put 
 up a feeble resistance, but very soon joined in the 
 general plunder themselves. All during the night 
 the orgy continued, and several encoimters took 
 place between drunken bands of soldiers and sail- 
 ors, and from the embassy we heard the constant 
 soimd of firing all down the quay and the MiUio- 
 naia. 
 
 Early the next morning, the news having rapidly 
 spread through the town, crowds arrived on the 
 scene to try and get a little booty. Soldiers in 
 huge motor-lorries drove up to the palace and 
 went away, their motors full of cases of priceless 
 wine. Women, their arms full of bottles, could 
 be seen trying to sell them to passers-by in the 
 streets. Even the children had their share of 
 
 212 
 
ANARCHY 213 
 
 the plunder, and could be met carrying a bottle 
 of champagne or, perhaps, some valuable old 
 liqueur. 
 
 About midday an armed force of sailors and 
 one or two armoured cars arrived on the scene 
 to try and restore order. The palace was sur- 
 rounded and nobody was allowed to pass any- 
 where near. 
 
 Thousands of bottles of wine were destroyed 
 and thrown over into the ice, the sailors firing 
 into the bottles the quicker to break them; but 
 the horde of drunken soldiers was so immense that 
 the orgy still continued without any abatement 
 and order only began to be restored on the arrival 
 of a company of firemen, who flooded the cellars 
 and drowned a lot of soldiers who were too dnmk 
 to escape. 
 
 Even as far down the quay as the embassy the 
 air was infected with the reek of spirits, and every- 
 where drunken soldiers lay about, broken bottles 
 littered the streets, the snow was stained rose red 
 and yellow where in many places the wine had 
 been spilt. All through the town the drunken 
 hordes spread themselves, firing indiscriminately 
 at each other or anybody who molested them. 
 Scenes of indescribable horror and disgust took 
 place, the crowds in some instances scooping up 
 the dirty, wine-stained snow, drinking it out of 
 their hands, fighting with each other over the 
 
214 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 remains. And everywhere the soldiers were in- 
 citing the people to murder and pillage. It was 
 so easy — you had only to take your rifle — and 
 everybody had a firearm of some sort — to knock 
 down a few shutters or break a few windows and 
 take whatever you found. 
 
 In the afternoon I drove out with a friend in 
 one of the little low sledges and tried to do some 
 shopping. Heavy snowflakes drifted down from 
 an iron-grey sky, a piercing wind drove into our 
 faces, the great dome of St. Isaac's loomed up, a 
 huge shadow lost in the whirling snow. Several 
 times drunken soldiers hailed us as we passed. 
 On the little bridge at the end of the Millionaia 
 a company of armed sailors stopped us and made 
 us go down a side street into the town. The 
 streets were practically deserted, several of the 
 shops were boarded up, now and then the sharp 
 crack of a rifle sounded across the distance, or 
 the fragment of a drtmken song. 
 
 At the door of one of the provision-shops a 
 huge, burly moujik, wrapped in a sheepskin, 
 stopped us with an outstretched arm as we tried 
 to pass him. "Shut," he said laconically. 
 
 *'But why is it shut?" my friend asked im- 
 patiently, seeing a chink of light imder the closed 
 doors. 
 
 The man shrugged his huge shoulders. *' Be- 
 cause it is," he answered, standing immovable 
 
ANARCHY 215 
 
 in the doorway where we had eventually to leave 
 him. 
 
 The red-bearded driver of our sledge grinned 
 at us good-humouredly as we climbed back, and 
 pulled the fiu: rug over us: **Eh, barinia," he 
 remarked pleasantly. "Life is not easy now. 
 Svaboda! [Liberty.] This is what they call 
 liberty! Eh— God help us!" He flicked the 
 blue reins at his thin, white horse, and drove on, 
 muttering to himself all the time. 
 
 A little farther along a drunken soldier stood 
 before one of the huge fires that binned at the 
 comers of all the streets, a broken bottle held in 
 one hand, a pistol in the other, while a Red Guard 
 leaning on his gun watched him with an indulgent 
 smile. Singing and laughing, the soldier swayed 
 perilously near to the leaping flames, now and 
 then pointing his pistol at the passers-by, cursing 
 them or laughing at them as they drew nervously 
 away. Still a little farther along another soldier 
 lay face down in the snow, an empty bottle still 
 clutched in one hand, while two little boys stood 
 nervously at a distance, and a third, more coura- 
 geous, tried to loosen the fast-clasped fingers 
 from the bottle, to see, perhaps, whether there 
 were a few drops left. As Lunarcharsky, one 
 of the commissaries of the people, said when 
 questioned by a reporter: **What would you 
 have ? The whole of Petrograd is drunk." 
 
2i6 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 And that was only the beginning. Having 
 found how easy it was, the soldiers continued to 
 plunder the wine-shops and many of the private 
 cellars in the town. Every night there was 
 shooting, and in some parts regular artillery 
 duels between machine-gtms took place, and 
 though several large wine-ceUars were destroyed 
 by order of the Bolshevik government, the streets 
 continued to be full of drunken soldiers and the 
 orgies still went on. 
 
 Late one evening some friends who lived a little 
 farther down the quay came to seek refuge in 
 the embassy, as their cellars were being pillaged 
 and the soldiers had fired into the room where 
 they had been sitting at dinner. They tele- 
 phoned from the embassy to Smolny to ask for 
 armed assistance, which was accordingly sent, 
 and some time after midnight they were able to 
 retuim to their house, which had been put under 
 a strong guard. 
 
 All approaches to the Winter Palace were still 
 barricaded and nobody was allowed to pass. 
 Bottles of wine were sometimes to be bought in 
 the streets for absurdly cheap prices, though one 
 was not always sure of obtaining the real article. 
 There is the story of one man who bought what 
 was supposed to be a bottle of champagne from 
 a sailor for the sum of three roubles. Examining 
 it closer, he found it contained only vichy water 
 
ANARCHY 217 
 
 Putting it in his pocket, he continued on his way 
 down the street and presently, when a soldier 
 passed him, tapped it knowingly. The soldier 
 immediately stopped to bargain and the man, 
 succeeding in selling him the supposed bottle of 
 champagne for the sum of five roubles, continued 
 on his way. 
 
 Robbery and murder had become daily and 
 nightly occurrences now. Constantly people were 
 being stopped and divested of all their clothes 
 and valuables before they were allowed to con- 
 tinue. It was almost quite impossible to go out 
 at night in a motor, as one ran the almost certain 
 risk of being stopped and turned out. Some- 
 times, looking out of the window late at night, 
 one might have imagined oneself in a city of the 
 dead. The huge, empty square, white and ghastly 
 under the light of one feeble lamp, the vast shadow 
 of the bridge across the frozen river, by the comer 
 of the marble palace the orange glow of the fire, 
 where the forms of two or three soldiers could be 
 seen crouching close to the flames. Now and then 
 only the grey shadow of a sledge slipping silently 
 across the snow, or a muffled figure that passed 
 swiftly as if it feared pursuit. 
 
 A story was told at this time of a man who was 
 stopped by a band of thieves and robbed of his 
 watch and money and his coat. Shivering, he said 
 to one of the robbers: **You might at least give 
 
2i8 fHE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 me your coat in exchange. Mine was new and 
 yours is old, and you can't want both coats.** 
 After some hesitation the thief eventually gave 
 him his dirty old sheepskin coat and the man 
 hurried home, thankful of at least some covering 
 in the cold. Arrived at his lodgings, he took off 
 the coat and found in the pocket what was evi- 
 dently the result of the robber's day: three or 
 four diamond rings and a sum of money far ex- 
 ceeding that of which he had been robbed himself. 
 
XXXI 
 
 LAST DAYS IN PETROGRAD 
 
 On December 15 Trotzky sent round another 
 note to all the embassies annotmcing his inten- 
 tion of entering into peace negotiations, not 
 with the Allied governments, but with the social- 
 istic parties in all coimtries; and meanwhile, the 
 farce of the peace conference continued fluctuat- 
 ing, suspended, taken up again. 
 
 The Russian frontier had again been closed to 
 English and American subjects, on the ground 
 of a dispute concerning government messengers. 
 The posts were completely disorganised and hardly 
 any news came through, and what there was in 
 the papers was distorted to suit the Bolshevik in- 
 terests. But on Christmas Day a messenger ar- 
 rived from England, having just got across the 
 frontier before Trotzky's order to stop him had 
 been received. 
 
 Food-supplies were getting scarcer and scarcer. 
 All communications with the south had been 
 completely cut off. The Don country was said 
 to be mobilised, and thousands of ofiicers and 
 cadets were joining the forces of General Kaledin 
 and at Rostoff the Bolshevik committee was 
 
 219 
 
220 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 supposed to have liberated and armed a lot of 
 German prisoners to take part in the struggle 
 against him and Komiloff . 
 
 The German papers had taken up a violent 
 attitude in regard to my father's statement in 
 the Russian press, and said that the Entente only 
 wished to gain time and prepare the ground for 
 a counter-revolution, and that my father's in- 
 sinuation that the armistice negotiations were 
 being conducted with the German autocracy and 
 not with the German people would fool nobody in 
 Russia. Admiral Kaiserling and his staff had 
 arrived in Petrograd, a whole hotel was placed 
 at their disposal and they were treated with every 
 consideration and respect. The town itself 
 swarmed with German and Austrian prisoners, 
 walking freely and unmolested about the streets, 
 swaggering as if they were already in possession. 
 There is a story of a Russian girl who, meeting 
 several of these men, turned to a friend who was 
 with her and said: "Look. There are a lot of 
 German prisoners." One of the men turned to 
 her with an insolent smile. **0h, no," he said 
 suavely, "you make a mistake. It is you who 
 are our prisoners." 
 
 And meanwhile anarchy spread itself all over 
 the country. In the surroundings of Petrograd 
 and in the Baltic Provinces hardly a country 
 house was left standing. My friend's place near 
 
LAST DAYS IN PETROGRAD 221 
 
 Reval, where I had stayed several times, had 
 been completely destroyed and pillaged, the 
 horses and cows on the farm taken or killed, the 
 pigs cut up alive for lard, while she herself barely 
 escaped, having to hide for five hours in the 
 gardens with her two small children. In Odessa 
 street-fighting was taking place, and the mas- 
 sacres of Kronstadt were being repeated in the 
 Black Sea Fleet. In the Crimea several of the 
 wonderful old palaces and private villas were 
 being plimdered. In Kieff there were riots and 
 disorders. In Finland officers and generals were 
 brutally murdered. Many of the treasures of 
 the Hermitage and the Winter Palace had been 
 lost or stolen. Some of the barges in which they 
 had been sent away from Petrograd just before 
 the Bolshevik rising were said to have been sunk, 
 some were supposed to have arrived at Moscow, 
 others at Vologda, but nobody really knew or 
 cared. Pillaging, murdering, and talking about 
 peace were so much more important than the fate 
 of a few Rembrandts and Fragonards. 
 
 My father had been very imwell for some 
 time past and the end of December the doctor 
 emphatically ordered him to go away at once. 
 An agreement had been finally come to between 
 the British and the Bolshevik governments re- 
 garding the question of couriers, and the mes- 
 sengers of the Bolsheviks were to be given pass- 
 
222 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 ports to England on the condition that they did 
 not stay there after delivering their despatches. 
 Accordingly, after some difficulty and delay, 
 Trotzky gave my father the faciHties for our 
 journey to England, though he would not allow 
 the military and naval representatives going with 
 us any special concessions, declaring that they 
 must travel as ordinary passengers. 
 
 The 8 th of January was settled for the day 
 of our departure, and our last days in Petrograd 
 passed slowly and regretfully. 
 
 The cold was intense, an icy wind swept down 
 the quays, snow continued to fall day after day, 
 piling itself in huge masses all down the streets. 
 It was almost impossible for motors to get through 
 it, and driving in a sledge down the Nevsky was 
 like going on a mountain switchback. Bleak and 
 grey the sky stretched itself above the town and 
 the ice-bound river. There seemed no help any- 
 where against the pitiless decree that the folly 
 of man was carrying out. The curse of an in- 
 evitable disaster hovered like a bird with giant 
 overshadowing wings above the country. 
 
 On one of the few remaining days I went for 
 the last time into the vast Cathedral of St. Isaac's. 
 In the dim, grey-shadowed darkness the tiny, 
 yellow flames of a very few candles burned feebly, 
 flutteringly. The great church that had always 
 been full was now almost empty. Before the 
 
LAST DAYS IN PETROGRAD 223 
 
 Miraculous Madonna of St. George, one old 
 woman knelt in prayer, and two little solitary 
 candles burned. In another part of the church 
 a service was going on and one or two people 
 stood lost among the shadows, while through the 
 jewelled doors a priest in a wonderful green robe 
 prayed in a halo of golden light that made his 
 figure stand out startlingly clear amidst the 
 surrounding dark. 
 
 Going out again into the white, whirling snow- 
 storm I walked slowly up, past the marvellous 
 equestrian statue of Peter the Great onto the quay. 
 The old, pink palace of Prince MenchikofiE faced 
 me on the opposite shore, and farther down the 
 river the great grey building of the bourse stood 
 out, facing the bullet-scarred Winter Palace, 
 standing out dark-red above the snow. 
 
 A sense of utter desolation and tragedy lay 
 over it all, the hopelessness of an abandoned city, 
 alive still with the memories of long-dead glories, 
 of golden pomp and revelry. Somewhere on the 
 other side of the river the crack of a rifle broke 
 the frozen stillness, and a workman who was 
 passing laughed savagely. A gust of icy wind 
 sent a^loud of snow into my face, and a half- 
 starving yellow dog, limping on three legs, rubbed 
 itself against my skirt, looking up at me with 
 piteous eyes. And through the drifting snow 
 the ghosts of Russia's greatness seemed to pass 
 
224 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 and vanish — ^mei;i and women who had lived and 
 died for Russia, whose heads were bent under the 
 weight of intolerable shame. 
 
 On the last night before our morning start I 
 walked home from a dinner in the Millionaia 
 through a stillness that held something xmcanny 
 in its voiceless quiet. The streets seemed utterly 
 deserted, only once two workmen passed, dark, 
 grotesque figures muffled in sheepskins, the points 
 of their rifles black against the snow. 
 
 The heavy clouds had lifted, a few faint stars 
 shone in the distant, blue darkness of the sky. 
 The empty square showed an almost untrodden 
 purity of snow. The fortress stood a dark shadow 
 above the frozen river; dimly against the sky the 
 spire of Peter and Paul reared a slender black 
 finger, pointing to the stars. 
 
 Then the sudden roar and rattle of a motor 
 broke the stillness; filled with a crowd of half- 
 drunken soldiers, it passed down the quay, plough- 
 ing its way with diffictilty through the heavy 
 snow. Through the coarse, jeering laughter I 
 caught the words: '* Liberty — ^peace. Hurrah 
 for Peace." 
 
 Liberty and peace — ^while above the blue and 
 silver city of dead Emperors, hovered the shadow 
 of German autocracy and German militarism and 
 German power — ^like a great black monster ready 
 to devour its prey. 
 
XXXII 
 
 THE SOUL OF RUSSIA 
 
 I REMEMBER how profoundly miserable I was 
 all that last week in Petrograd. People used to 
 ask me: **But surely you must be glad to get away 
 from this desolation and chaos, to go back to 
 civilization and order, to clean streets, and shops, 
 and comfort?" And I could only say that, yes, 
 of course, I was glad to be going back to England 
 —but 
 
 And then it was always so difficult to find an 
 adequate reason to explain that "but" when 
 there was really no reason at all, but just the in- 
 describable ache of parting with something or 
 somebody — and I wasn't sure which it was — that 
 had grown wonderfully near to me. 
 
 It was Petrograd — the capital of Russia — that 
 I hated saying good-bye to — and yet it wasn't 
 only that. It was the whole vast country that 
 I had never even seen, a country of wide spaces 
 and wonderful solitudes! It was the fairy-tale 
 palace of the Kremlin with rose-flushed walls, 
 and slim, shadowy churches and gold and silver 
 cupolas and domes. It was the white purity of 
 
 225 
 
226 tHE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 untrodden snow in those wonderful pine-forests. 
 It was the indescribable subtle magic of long, long 
 summer evenings. It was the unforgettable blue 
 of that sea beyond Balaclava. It was the songs 
 the gipsies sing round their fires in the forests 
 and the songs the soldiers sing as they march 
 down the long, straight roads. And even this 
 was not all — it was the soul of the people I had 
 grown to love, even though I did not yet under- 
 stand them. And it was the soldiers I had nursed 
 those first years of the war and who had opened 
 my eyes to something that was new and big and 
 childlike, and yet wonderfully grand in their 
 simpleness. I had seen them suffer without com- 
 plaint or question, and I had also seen them die — 
 and they had taught me something I could not 
 forget. 
 
 These shrieking hooligans who slouched about 
 the streets drinking, shooting, and marauding 
 were soldiers too, that was certainly a fact one 
 could not get away from; but, knowing their 
 ignorance, one could not so much blame them as 
 loathe and perforce admire the fiendish cleverness 
 of the people who knew so well where Russia's 
 weakness lay and knew how to play upon that 
 weakness, using it to their own best advantage 
 and turning those patient, gentle men into utter 
 brutes, drunk and blind and mad with the false 
 knowledge that had been so subtly instilled into 
 them. 
 
THE SOUL OF RUSSIA 227 
 
 But the soul of Russia was not dead, as a letter 
 written to my mother about a week before we 
 left Petrograd very clearly shows. It was written 
 from prison, but the writer has since then been 
 released, and I hope she will forgive my publish- 
 ing her letter in this book, as it illustrates better 
 than any words of mine the feelings of all true 
 Russians who saw their country being led to ruin 
 and were powerless to save her: "First of all, 
 an introduction to this cry of my heart, an excuse 
 for my bad English. I know your language 
 just enough to be well aware of how very defec- 
 tive will be the way I can and must express my 
 thoughts and feelings. But it mustn't stop me, 
 and I hope you will be kind enough not to mind it. 
 
 **It is ever so long I had the most intense 
 wish of coming to see you and to talk to you — 
 you personally, because I know how kind and 
 brave and earnest you are — but still more — 
 excuse me for telling it quite openly — as to the one 
 and only reachable personification of England. 
 And for all these long months of our hopes and 
 our work, and especially during the last weeks of 
 our struggle, I never could make up my mind 
 to do it. I felt it impossible to read in your 
 looks things that you must have been thinking 
 of us Russians, and that I couldn't bear to see 
 in eyes of strangers, though allies and friends, 
 I would rather say, because allies and friends, 
 and so much admired and respected friends. 
 
228 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 *'Now, since I am in prison, I have a feeling 
 of having won a right of looking straight in the 
 face of your country, and think it even my duty 
 to tell you something of the feelings many, many 
 Russian hearts are full of. 
 
 "You must know all the admiration, the love, 
 and the faith we have in the great principles of 
 true liberty, true generosity, and true democracy 
 we know your country is struggling for. 
 
 "You must know, that all of us who simply 
 understand things, are your most faithful and 
 loyal friends, that we would do anything to save 
 the liberty, the happiness, the honour of our 
 country, and that we know that it is England 
 and France that alone would help us to it. 
 
 "You must understand that it is only our dread- 
 ful darkness — artificially cultivated for ages — that 
 leads our people and our country away from the 
 straight road of faith and honour, and that we 
 are going in whole Russia through a dreadful 
 struggle of the conscious mind against the physical 
 unconscious strength. 
 
 "I would willing say, *Have patience with us,' 
 because I know truth and wisdom will conquer, 
 but I understand too well, that 'patience' for 
 you now means lives and lives of your men, so 
 that I must be silent. Still every day of expecta- 
 tion is a day gained to our cause. 
 
 "I am looking now in the newspapers for your 
 
THE SOUL OF RUSSIA 229 
 
 victories as I would for ours, and the day your 
 armies entered so beautifully in Jerusalem was 
 such a day of joy in my solitude ! I long to 
 stretch out my hand across all the lands and seas 
 that lie between us and England, and grasp the 
 hand of Lloyd George. There are things that 
 one feels so strongly no words can tell them. 
 
 ''You cannot imagine how free one feels, sitting 
 in prison ! It is such an unexpected and such a 
 very strong feeling, the experience is worth while 
 going through, were it only for this discovery. 
 
 *'Now, when I am physically released and freed, 
 I will certainly knock at your door, and if ever 
 and in any way, I may be useful to you personally, 
 or your coimtry you must know I will be but too 
 happy to give you an active (the only I care for) 
 proof of my love to England and all the great 
 human ideas and feelings she personifies in my 
 conception." 
 
 Here in England we have often talked so glibly 
 of the "coimtry going to the dogs," but I wonder 
 if we, any of us, realise what it would mean if 
 these careless words of ours came true and we 
 saw this England that we love in a state resem- 
 bling that of Russia now. 
 
 At a Christmas party at the embassy when some 
 of the English officers were singing "God Save 
 the King," the man I was standing next to turned 
 to me, his eyes full of tears, "You don't know 
 
230 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 what it means," he said unsteadily, "to hear your 
 men sing that — ^while we Russians have no Em- 
 peror and no country left." I have seen a 
 correspondent of one of the leading newspapers 
 looking down from our balcony on a rabble dis- 
 puting over some antiwar demonstration turn 
 away with a tortured face. *'Ah — l(ak bolna!" 
 ("how it hurts!"), I heard him whisper to him- 
 self. And some of the doctors and nurses who 
 who came to our Red Cross store have burst 
 openly into tears. "England sends us all these 
 wonderful things," they have exclaimed, "but we 
 don't deserve them. Surely England must hate 
 us now." 
 
 And in all classes one found this feeling preva- 
 il lent, even down to the isvostchiks and shop- 
 1 people. For in Russia time is not of that vital 
 importance that it is in England, and one can 
 have long political discussions with the driver 
 of the isvostchichia that takes one into town, with 
 » the shopman who sells one a yard of ribbon, and 
 ' the waiter who brings one a cup of tea. The 
 coachmen have a happy way of driving along 
 with their reins between their knees, the while, 
 twisted roimd on the box, they declaim with 
 much hand-waving and shoulder-shrugging to 
 their passenger in the cab. 
 
 I remember having one such conversation one 
 of the last days I was in Petrograd. A driving 
 
THE SOUL OF RUSSIA 231 
 
 snow-storm hid the tops of the houses in whirHng 
 whiteness, here and there at street comers fires 
 burned fitfully, an icy wind that seemed to come 
 from all directions at once cut straight through 
 one's furs. ''You don't like this weather!" 
 the driver of my sleigh inquired amiably, turning 
 round to examine my stiffly frozen countenance. 
 
 *'No — I don't," I retorted shortly, trying to 
 pull my collar up higher round my ears. 
 
 "Eh — eh," he chuckled, "but then you aren*t 
 Russian — you would get used to it in time. You 
 are English, perhaps." 
 
 I answered that I was and the man shrugged 
 his shoulders. "But in England the climate is 
 also bad," he asserted. "You have fogs there 
 and rain, and the sun never shines." He turned 
 to give a flick of the reins to his tired horse and 
 then swung round again on his seat. "Yet they 
 say it is better in England than here. You 
 have order there, is it not so ? And yet you have 
 liberty ! Eh, Boji moi — liberty. What a lot 
 they talk of liberty ! They tell us we are free 
 now and they call us comrades — " he flung up 
 his hands. "And look at the streets full of armed 
 men — and one can no longer be out in safety 
 after dark. Why only four nights ago I was 
 nearly shot — ey Bogou, barishnia — ^here in the 
 Millionaia, four tovarische quarrelling over some- 
 thing. Eh — but it goes badly with us, and surely 
 
232 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 the Germans will come. God knows what will 
 happen — ^but certainly the Allies will be angry 
 with us? Is it not so? England will no longer 
 be our friend — " Simk into sudden gloom, he 
 returned to a realisation of his horse, which was 
 wandering aimlessly along on its own, and sat, 
 hunched shoulders, facing the blinding snow- 
 flakes. 
 
 No — ^the soul of Russia was not dead, is not 
 dead now. The soul of Russia is something that 
 neither the Germans nor the Bolsheviks can kill. 
 I Only those who have lived there know what it 
 means, or can understand the nameless charm 
 with which Russia holds one, homesickness that 
 makes one long for her strange wa5rwardness. I 
 I remember being often told: "Oh yes — ^you may 
 grumble at Petrograd now, but you will want to 
 come back. 
 
 "Once you have lived in Russia you will always 
 want to come back — she will never let you for- 
 get her.'' 
 
 There is a sentence in Mr. Walpole's book, 
 *'The Green Mirror," that in a way also explains 
 this feeling: "That cotmtry, as I see it now, 
 stirs always through the hearts of its lovers 
 questions about everything in heaven or earth, 
 and then tells one at the end that nothing matters. 
 In Russia one is so close to God and the devil — 
 in England there is business and common sense." 
 
THE SOUL OF RUSSIA 233 
 
 And that is part, perhaps, of the spell Russia 
 uses to keep the hearts of those who love her faith- 
 ful to her. She keeps one always asking ques- 
 tions and smiles her wonderful enigmatic smile 
 because one can never find the answer. 
 
XXXIII 
 
 THE JOURNEY FROM RUSSIA 
 
 The start from Petrograd at half past seven 
 that Monday morning was something like a 
 shadowed dream. There was no electric light; 
 here and there a candle glimmered feebly; on the 
 top of the big stairs one little oil-lamp made a 
 glow of dim light in the surrounding darkness. 
 The maids were all in tears; shadowy figures 
 carrying bags and wraps hurried to and fro; the 
 big glass doors at the bottom of the stairs were 
 opened every moment, letting in cold blasts of 
 icy air; outside motors puffed and snorted, and 
 the snow lay Hke a mantle of white silence over 
 the town. 
 
 Then the moment came to start, to pack into 
 the waiting motor that forced its way slowly 
 and haltingly through the snow. In the grey, 
 bitter darkness of that winter morning the 
 famihar landmarks were only shadows, the vast 
 expanse of the river, the quay, and the palaces 
 and churches with their golden domes seemed all 
 a blur of grey and white, with just in the east 
 a faint pink glow behind the clouds. 
 
 234 
 
THE JOURNEY FROM RUSSIA 235 
 
 Then the bleak, dirty Finland station, the loi- 
 tering, staring soldiers, a company of Red Guards, 
 jostling everybody out of their way as they 
 slung down the platform; the little crowd of 
 people who had come to see us off, shivering in the 
 icy cold, stamping their feet to try and keep warm 
 — the jerk and rattle of the train, the shrill scream 
 of the frozen wheels as at last it started. 
 
 Thanks to the kindness of the station-master, 
 we had managed to secure a sleeping-car to our- 
 selves and the seven English officers travelling 
 with us, and, having taken food with us, we were 
 fairly comfortable, and the day passed quite 
 quickly. That night we were all awakened by 
 five or six armed soldiers who came down the 
 corridor and demanded to see our passports^ 
 though when they opened the doors of the com- 
 partment belonging to my mother and myself 
 they grunted out, *'0h — only a woman," and 
 shut the doors again with a contemptuous bang. 
 
 The next day seemed very long. The cold 
 was intense, the windows were so tightly frozen 
 over that one could hardly see out, and the 
 coimtry seemed nothing but miles and miles of 
 snow-covered plains, with here and there a miser- 
 able wooden village or a forest of fir-trees. 
 
 Toward evening we began to realise that we 
 were going to be very late arriving at Tomeo, 
 the frontier of Finland and Sweden, and General 
 
236 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 Knox and Admiral Stanley were doubtful whether 
 we should be able to get across in the dark. At 
 the station of Uleaborg the English consul at 
 Tomeo met us, and we faced the fact that, even 
 if we did get across the frontier that night, we 
 would most certainly miss the train to Sweden. 
 By the time the train started on again from Ulea- 
 borg it was so late that we gave up all idea of 
 crossing the frontier, and when we finally arrived 
 at Torneo, at half past twelve, arrangements were 
 made to allow us to sleep in our carriage. It was 
 so bitterly cold that there was danger of the 
 heating freezing, so they had to leave the engine 
 on and shunt us about during the night in order 
 to keep it going. 
 
 The Russian soldiers made some difficulties 
 about passing our luggage through the customs, 
 but after a long wait in the dreary station at 
 Tomeo, everything was finally settled and we 
 packed into the low, open sledges to drive the 
 little way across the frozen river to the Swedish 
 frontier, Haparanda. I don't think I shall ever 
 forget the cold of that drive; the wind seemed to 
 cut through one's furs as if they were absolutely 
 non-existent. The cloudless sky had the pale- 
 blue brilliance of ice; the vast plain of untrodden 
 snow showed no sign of life or habitation; low 
 down on the horizon a queer glow seemed to 
 radiate from the sun. Somebody said it was the 
 
THE JOURNEY FROM RUSSIA 237 
 
 northern light, but the agony of cold was so 
 intense that it seemed to freeze even one's eye- 
 lashes together, and the only way to find relief 
 was to bury one's face inside one's furs and pray 
 that it might be soon over. 
 
 After a drive of little over twenty minutes, the 
 sledge pulled up with a jerk, and with an effort 
 we unfroze enough to get out stiffly. Pleasant- 
 faced, carefully soaped Swedish soldiers in at- 
 tractive blue coats lined with sheepskin and white 
 fur caps had come out to meet us and led us 
 into the scrupulously clean waiting-room of the 
 little wooden frontier station. The blue and 
 yellow paint, the clean curtains, the fresh-faced 
 waitresses, the steaming hot coffee and crisp rolls 
 seemed all to belong to another world, and when 
 the physical pain of our slowly thawing feet and 
 hands had passed, we began to realise the joys 
 of returning to civilisation. Nevertheless, the 
 long day's wait at Haparanda was very trying. 
 After having enjoyed the excellent luncheon 
 given us in the hotel, there was nothing to do 
 but sit as close as one could to the stove and 
 try and read or sleep the afternoon away. One 
 or two of the braver spirits went for a walk, 
 but came back very soon, annoimcing that the 
 thermometer registered forty-eight degrees be- 
 low zero — eighty degrees of frost. 
 
 At six o'clock we had dinner, and then went 
 
238 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 down to the station to get into the train for Stock- 
 holm. Compartments had been reserved for us, 
 but the comfort was rather marred by the fact 
 of all the water-pipes being frozen, so that, if one 
 tried to wash one's hands, one immediately flooded 
 one's carriage. 
 
 After a journey of a little over forty hours we 
 arrived at Stockholm on Friday evening at six, 
 and stayed a night in the luxurious Grand Hotel, 
 starting again the next evening and arriving at 
 Christiania late on Sunday afternoon. 
 
 By now one had begun to have the feeling that 
 life was to continue like this, a constant pack- 
 ing of one's bag, a constant getting in and out 
 of trains, a journey that seemed to go on for ever. 
 
 After spending the night at Christiania we 
 started at half past seven the next morning, and 
 of all the days of the journey I think that one 
 was almost the worst. It began by being intensely 
 cold, but later the carriages became almost un- 
 bearably hot, and though we turned off the heat- 
 ing it seemed to make no difference, and puffs 
 of hot air streamed out of the radiators till one's 
 feet seemed to swell to twice their normal size, 
 and one's head felt as if it was going to burst. 
 We arrived at Bergen at one o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, and started at half past seven, before the 
 town was awake, being smuggled on board the 
 little Norwegian yacht, the Heimdaal. 
 
THE JOURNEY FROM RUSSIA 239 
 
 We were told that after two hotirs' journey 
 down the fjord we would arrive at the place 
 where the cruiser that was being sent over from 
 England, would meet us, and, accordingly, we 
 had a very good breakfast and came on deck 
 feeling that at last the fi;nal stage of our journey 
 was approaching. But the grey dawn had turned 
 into a blinding snow-storm that became thicker 
 and thicker as we came nearer the sea, till even 
 the little Norwegian destroyer that steamed 
 behind us could hardly be seen amidst the whirling 
 snowflakes. The captain of the yacht began to 
 look grave and preoccupied, and when we asked 
 him what he thought of the weather and the 
 chances of its clearing up he shook his head and 
 answered that it probably would not clear up till 
 the evening, if then, and added that he was very 
 much afraid that the cruiser would not be able 
 to find her way. After anchoring and waiting 
 for a little over an hour at the spot that had been 
 appointed for meeting, the captain told us that, 
 as she had not arrived, it meant that she could 
 not find her way in while the snow-storm lasted, 
 and he asked us what we had rather do. We were 
 altogether eleven people, and the accommodation 
 on the yacht was not very large, but it was finally 
 decided that to go back to Bergen would be too 
 great a risk as it wotdd give the Germans too 
 definite an idea of our movements, and therefore, 
 
240 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 it was better to stay on the yacht. Accordingly 
 we steamed to a sheltered little bay, casting anchor 
 there between the snow-covered hills and rocks, 
 and settled down to wait. 
 
 Nothing could excel the kindness of the captain, 
 and he took every trouble to make us comfort- 
 able at great inconvenience to himself and his 
 officers. We had a most excellent luncheon, 
 during which a diversion was created as one 
 of the little Norwegian destroyers came up along- 
 side and a message was brought to the captain. 
 "Has she brought news?" we asked. The cap- 
 tain shook his head. *'No,'* he answered gravely. 
 * ' But she has brought fish for our dinner. ' ' Then, 
 looking round at otu* disappointed faces, he added, 
 with a twinkle in his blue eyes: **It is almost as 
 important." 
 
 Late in the afternoon the snow-storm cleared, 
 and, hearing vague reports that a ship had been 
 sighted out at sea, we steamed out once more to 
 the appointed meeting-place. But after waiting 
 there for a little, one of the destroyers brought 
 us news that it was only a false alarm, and as it 
 was growing qmckly dark we turned back once 
 more to our little sheltered bay and resigned our- 
 selves to a night of waiting. 
 
 The next morning the wind had risen and there 
 were intervals of sunshine between squalls of 
 snow and sleet, but at eleven the cruiser was 
 sighted and we went out once more to meet her. 
 
THE JOURNEY FROM RUSSIA 241 
 
 It was impossible to tranship in such rough 
 weather, and we had to find a sheltered place to 
 cast anchor once more. 
 
 Then, at last, our large party and all our lug- 
 gage having been safely got on board, we started 
 out in the teeth of the wind. I think even a 
 hardened sailor would not have called it a good 
 crossing, and the fact that we took twenty-six 
 hours instead of fourteen goes a little way to 
 prove how rough it was. They were all wonder- 
 ftdly kind to us on board that ship, and I am 
 sure, having to timi out of their cabins to make 
 room for us, they can't have loved us very much. 
 
 The last two hours before we landed were 
 rather a joy. The wind had dropped and the 
 sim came out, and through the soft mist the coast- 
 line of Scotland gave one a lump in one's throat 
 as being the first sight of home and all that home 
 meant in times like these. British ships of every 
 kind were on all sides now, and once a British 
 sea-plane passed close over our heads, and I 
 wasn't quite sure whether I wanted to laugh or 
 to cry when at last, at four in the afternoon, we 
 landed at Leith. 
 
 I think the people in the hotel at Edinburgh 
 must have wondered who we were and where on 
 earth we came from, for we were all very hilarious 
 over the dinner we had before starting to London 
 by the night express. The waitresses at our table 
 who knew all about it were sympathetic and kind, 
 
242 THE CITY OF TROUBLE 
 
 but the other people in the restaurant, who didn't 
 know all about it, looked at us disapprovingly 
 for making so much noise. And then the beauti- 
 fully clean train, and the dear little fat Scotch 
 guard who shook his head over us sympathetically 
 and brought me a quite delicious cup of tea in 
 the morning. It's almost worth being away 
 from England for four years to have that thrilling 
 feeling of coming home again, the quickened 
 heart-beat that catches one's breath, the joy 
 over all the little homely details, the half-incredu- 
 lous wonder at hearing one's own language all 
 round one, the indescribable smell of London 
 on an early winter morning. 
 
 And yet, at the back of it all, the thought of 
 Petrograd was very present in my mind and still 
 is, as I write. Petrograd with its spires flashing 
 in the simshine — a city of blue and gold on siun- 
 mer days — a city of dreams through the opal- 
 colotued nights — a city, during those last months 
 of snow and desolation — and, as I had seen it last, 
 of blue and silver solitude and silence. 
 
 ** Russia will not let you forget her," the words 
 came back to me over and over again, and across 
 the miles of sea and snow and moimtains the voice 
 of Russia calls, the eyes of Russia smile their 
 elusive, haunted smile, and the hands of Russia 
 are stretched out asking for help in her hour of 
 need. 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST BATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN i 
 
 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY ! 
 
 WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
 DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 StP 5 , 
 
 SEP 6 15,0 2 
 
 OCT 171932 
 JUL 20 1934 
 
 FEB 221939 
 
 MAR S5 1939 
 APR 21 1939 
 
 NOV, 2 1939 
 
 30NOV5lPt 
 l^Nllt952 
 
 HARl4'67-9 
 
 LOAN 
 
 111968 81 
 
 ex. 
 
 CO 
 
 I 
 
 CO 
 -JO 
 
 AP^ 8 1997 
 
 -J 
 
 LD 21-2Um-6,'32 
 
U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 CD^lbDlD7^ 
 
 / 
 
 3863u^ 
 
 1^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
iliiiii