the guests as they arrived; the crowd was
always enormous, especially at the "Jordan." But as soon as royalties
and guests had arrived, and, on the "Jordan" day, as soon as the Neva
had been blessed, ordinary traffic was resumed on sidewalks of the
Winter Palace (those of the Anitchkoff Palace, where the Emperor lived,
were never cut off from public use), on streets, and Palace Square.
Royalties and guests departed quietly at their pleasure.

I was driving down the Nevsky Prospekt on the afternoon of New Year's
Day, 1889, when, just at the gate of the Anitchkoff Palace, a policeman
raised his hand, and my sledge and the whole line behind me halted. I
looked round to see the reason, and beheld the Emperor and Empress
sitting beside me in the semi-state cream-colored carriage, painted with
a big coat of arms, its black hood studded with golden doubleheaded
eagles, which the present Emperor used on his wedding day. A coachman,
postilion, and footman constituted the sole "guard," while the late
prefect, General Gresser, in an open calash a quarter of a mile behind,
constituted the "armed escort." They were on the roadway next to the
horse-car track, which is reserved for private equipages, and had to
cross the lines of public sledges next to the sidewalk. On other
occasions, such as launches of ironclad war vessels, the expected
presence of the Emperor and Empress was announced in the newspapers. It
was easy enough to calculate the route and the hour, if one wished to
see them. I frequently made such calculations, in town and country, and,
stranger though I was, I never made a mistake. When cabinet ministers or
high functionaries of the Court died, the Emperor and Empress attended
one of the services before the funeral, and the funeral. Thousands of
people calculated the hour, and the best spot to see them with absolute
accuracy. At one such funeral, just after rumors of a fresh "plot" had
been rife, I saw the great crowd surge up with a cheer towards the
Emperor's carriage, though the Russians are very quiet in public. The
police who were guarding the route of the procession stood still and
smiled approvingly.

But sometimes the streets through which the Emperor Alexander III. was
to pass were temporarily forbidden to the public; such as the annual
mass and parade of the regiments of the Guards in their great
riding-schools, and a few more. I know just how that device worked,
because I put it to the proof twice, with amus