I mingled with the crowd and found myself slowly propelled in an amiable, aimless manner up the street.
“What’s the matter?” I asked a cheerful, fat little chinovnik, who seemed to be tethered to me by some outside invincible force.
“I don’t know. …” he said. “They’re saying there’s been some shooting up by the Nicholas Station—but that was last night. Some women had a procession about food. … Tak oni gavoryat—so they say. … But I don’t know. People have just come out to see what they can see. …”
And so they had—women, boys, old men, little children. I could see no signs of ill-temper anywhere, only a rather open-mouthed wonder and sense of expectation.
A large woman near me, with a shawl over her head and carrying a large basket, laughed a great deal. “No, I wouldn’t go,” she said. “You go and get it for yourself—I’m not coming. Not I, I was too clever for that.” Then she would turn, shrilly calling for some child who was apparently lost in the crowd. “Sacha! … Ah! Sacha!” she cried—and turning again, “Eh! look at the Cossack! … There’s a fine Cossack!”
It was then that I noticed the Cossacks. They were lined up along the side of the pavement, and sometimes they would suddenly wheel and clatter along the pavement itself, to the great confusion of the crowd who would scatter in every direction.
They were fine-looking men, and their faces expressed childish and rather worried amiability. The crowd obviously feared them not at all, and I saw a woman standing with her hand on the neck of one of the horses, talking in a very friendly fashion to the soldier who rode it. That’s strange,
I thought to myself; there’s something queer here.
It was then, just at the entrance of the Malaia Koniushennaia, that a strange little incident occurred. Some fellow—I could just see his shaggy head, his pale face, and black beard—had been shouting something, and suddenly a little group of Cossacks moved towards him and he was surrounded. They turned off with him towards a yard close at hand. I could hear his voice shrilly protesting; the crowd also moved behind, murmuring. Suddenly a Cossack, laughing, said something. I could not hear his words, but everyone near me laughed. The little chinovnik at my side said to me, “That’s right. They’re not going to shoot, whatever happens—not on their brothers, they say. They’ll let the fellow go in a moment. It’s only just for discipline’s sake. That’s right. That’s the spirit!”
“But what about the police?” I asked.
“Ah, the police!” His cheery, good-natured face was suddenly dark and scowling. “Let them try, that’s all. It’s Protopopoff who’s our enemy—not the Cossacks.”
And a woman near him repeated.
“Yes, yes, it’s Protopopoff. Hurrah for the Cossacks!”
I was squeezed now into a corner, and the crowd swirled and eddied about me in a tangled stream, slow, smiling, confused, and excited. I pushed my way along, and at last tumbled down the dark stone steps into the Cave de la Grave, a little restaurant patronised by the foreigners and certain middle-class Russians. It was full, and everyone was eating his or her meal very comfortably as though nothing at all were the matter. I sat down with a young American, an acquaintance of mine attached to the American Embassy.
“There’s a tremendous crowd in the Nevski,” I said.
“Guess I’m too hungry to trouble about it,” he answered.
“Do you think there’s going to be any trouble?” I asked.
“Course not. These folks are always wandering round. M. Protopopoff has it in hand all right.”
“Yes, I suppose he has,” I answered with a sigh.
“You seem to want trouble,” he said, suddenly looking up at me.
“No, I don’t want trouble,” I answered. “But I’m sick of this mess, this mismanagement, thievery, lying—one’s tempted to think that anything would be better—”
“Don’t you believe it,” he said brusquely. “Excuse me, Durward, I’ve been in this country five years. A revolution would mean God’s own upset, and you’ve got a war on, haven’t you?”
“They might fight better than ever,” I argued.
“Fight!” he laughed. “They’re damm sick of it all, that’s what they are. And a revolution would leave ’em like a lot of silly sheep wandering on to a precipice. But there won’t be no revolution. Take my word.”
It was at that moment that I saw Boris Grogoff come in. He stood in the doorway looking about him, and he had the strangest air of a man walking in his sleep, so bewildered, so rapt, so removed was he. He stared about him, looked straight at me, but did not recognise me; finally, when a waiter showed him a table, he sat down still gazing in front of him. The waiter had to speak to him twice before he ordered his meal, and then he spoke so strangely that the fellow looked at him in astonishment. “Guess that chap’s seen the Millennium,” remarked my American. “Or he’s drunk, maybe.”
This appearance had the oddest effect on me. It was as though I had been given a sudden conviction that after all there was something behind this disturbance. I saw, during the whole of the rest of that day, Grogoff’s strange face with the exalted, bewildered eyes, the excited mouth, the body tense and strained as though waiting for a blow. And now, always when I look back I see Boris Grogoff standing in the doorway of the
