1918 year

Thrice wrung out in water, thrice bathed in blood, thrice boiled in caustic.

Who so clean , as we?

All was over.

A chill wind was blowing rubbish — fragments of military orders, of theatre posters, of appeals to the "conscience and patriotism" of the Russian people — about the silent, deserted streets of Petersburg.

Motley scraps of posters, with traces of paste on their backs, rustled ominously, fleeing before the wind, which drove the snow zigzagging over the pavement.

This was all that was left of the noisy and drunken hurly-burly which had so recently shaken the capital.

The idle crowds had gone from the streets and squares.

The Winter Palace stood empty, its roof shattered by a shell from the cruiser Aurora. The members of the Provisional Government, the influential bankers, the famous generals, had all vanished into thin air. The dashing carriages, the elegant women, the officers, the officials, the statesmen with their exalted ideas — all, all had gone from the streets, and the streets were shabby and grimy.

The sound of hammers nailing boards over shop windows was heard ever more frequently in the night.

Some windows still displayed pitiful relics — a bit of cheese here, a stale cake there.

But this merely increased the yearnings for the vanished life.

The timid pedestrian kept close to the wall, glancing furtively at the patrols — groups of resolute individuals striding along with red stars on their caps, their rifles slung over their shoulders, with the muzzles pointing downwards.

The north wind sent chill draughts through the darkened windows of houses, and forced its way into deserted porticoes, scattering the wraiths of past luxuries.

Petersburg was a ghastly city in the end of 1917.

Ghastly, incomprehensible, unfathomable.

All was over.

The past was cancelled.

A man in a torn coat, carrying a pail and a paint-brush, was running backwards and forwards across the wind-swept street.

He kept pasting up ever new decrees on bills which made white patches on the ancient walls.

Rank, distinctions, pensions, epaulettes, God, private property, the very right to live as one liked — all were gone.

Cancelled!

The bill poster shot ferocious glances from beneath the brim of his hat through plate-glass windows, behind which the inmates, in felt boots and fur coats, still paced the cold rooms, wringing their hands, and saying over and over again:

"What's it all about?

What's going to happen?

The ruin of Russia, the end of all.... Death."

When they went to the windows they saw a long furniture van drawn up in front of the house opposite, where His Excellency lived and where there had always been a policeman standing at attention, his eyes fixed on the grey facade; and they could see armed men carrying tables and chairs, carpets and pictures out of the wide-open doors of the house into this van.