e day on the Nevsky
could not even add to the feeling. They were the mere casualties of a
movement that was beginning to attain large proportions.

[Sidenote: Many soldiers firing blanks.]

[Sidenote: At the French theatre.]

The late afternoon and evening of Sunday were bloody. The Nevsky was
finally closed except for cross traffic, and at the corner of the
Sadovia and the Nevsky by the national library there was a machine gun
going steadily. But it was in the hands of soldiers and they were firing
blanks. The soldiers everywhere seemed to be firing blanks, but there
was carnage enough. The way the crowds persisted showed their capacity
for revolution. The talk was for the first time seriously revolutionary,
and the red flags remained flying by the hour. That evening the air was
for the first time electric with danger, but the possibilities of the
next morning were not sufficiently evident to prevent me from going to
the French theatre. There were a sufficient number of other people, of
the same mind, including many officers, to fill half the seats.

[Sidenote: Imperial box saluted for the last time.]

As usual, between the acts, the officers stood up, facing the imperial
box, which neither the Emperor nor any one else ever occupied. This act
of empty homage, which always grated on my democratic nerves in a
Russian theatre, was being performed by these officers--though they did
not even seem to suspect it--for the last time.

[Sidenote: Lively rifle fire Sunday night.]

On my way home at midnight I picked up from wayfarers rumors of soldiers
attacking the police, soldiers fighting among themselves and rioting in
barracks. But outwardly there was calm until three in the morning, when
I heard in my room on the Moika Canal side of the Hotel de France some
very lively rifle fire from the direction of the Catherine Canal. This
sounded more like the real thing than anything so far, so I dressed and
tried to get near enough to learn what was going on. But for the first
time the streets were really closed. The firing kept up steadily until
four. Farther on in the great barracks along the Neva beyond the Litenie
it kept up until the revolting soldiers had command.

[Sidenote: Revolt spreads like a prairie fire.]

I regret not having seen the revolt getting under way in that quarter. I
regret missing the small incidents, the moments when the revolt hung in
the balance, when it was the question of whether a certain compa