rifles, couriers came and went, the Red Guard[* 1] drilled… In all the barracks meetings every night, and all day long interminable hot arguments. On the streets the crowds thickened toward gloomy evening, pouring in slow voluble tides up and down the Nevsky, fighting for the newspapers… Hold-ups increased to such an extent that it was dangerous to walk down side streets… On the Sadovaya one afternoon I saw a crowd of several hundred people beat and trample to death a soldier caught stealing… Mysterious individuals circulated around the shivering women who waited in queue long cold hours for bread and milk, whispering that the Jews had cornered the food supply—and that while the people starved, the Soviet members lived luxuriously…
At Smolny there were strict guards at the door and the outer gates, demanding everybody’s pass. The committee-rooms buzzed and hummed all day and all night, hundreds of soldiers and workmen slept on the floor, wherever they could find room. Upstairs in the great hall a thousand people crowded to the uproarious sessions of the Petrograd Soviet…
Gambling clubs functioned hectically from dusk to dawn, with champagne flowing and stakes of twenty thousand rubles. In the centre of the city at night prostitutes in jewels and expensive furs walked up and down, crowded the cafés…
Monarchist plots, German spies, smugglers hatching schemes…
And in the rain, the bitter chill, the great throbbing city under grey skies rushing faster and faster toward—what?
*
- ↑ See Notes and Explanations.
