ease with which she
had surprised indolent Anna Leopoldina in her bed-chamber which caused
her to be so uncertain in her own movements, in view of the fact that
there were persons so ill-advised as to wish the restoration of the
slothful German regent and her infant son, disastrous as that would have
been to the country.

We must do the Russians who occupy the building at the present day the
justice to state that they uphold religiously the nocturnal tradition
thus established by Elizaveta Petrovna, and even improve upon it. From
six o'clock in the evening onward, the long windows of the club, on the
_bel etage_, blaze with light. The occasional temporary obscurations
produced by the steam from relays of _samovari_ do not interfere
materially with the neighbors' view of the card-parties and the final
exchange of big bundles of bank-bills, which takes place at five o'clock
or later the next morning. Even if players and bills were duly shielded
from observation, the _mauvais quart d'heure_ would be accurately
revealed by the sudden rush for the sledges, which have been hanging in
a swarm about the door, according to the usual convenient custom of
Vanka, wherever lighted windows suggest possible patrons. Poor,
hard-worked Vanka slumbers all night on his box, with one eye open, or
falls prone in death-like exhaustion over the dashboard upon his
sleeping horse, while his cap lies on the snow, and his shaggy head is
bared to the bitter blasts.

Later on, the chief of police lived here, and the adjoining bridge,
which had hitherto been known as the Green Bridge, had its name changed
to the Police Bridge, which rather puzzling appellation it still bears.

A couple of blocks beyond this corner of the Nevsky, the Moika and the
Grand Morskaya, the Nevsky Prospekt ends at the Alexander Garden, backed
by the Admiralty and the Neva, after having passed in its course through
all grades of society, from the monks at the extreme limit, peasant
huts,--or something very like them, on the outskirts,--artistic and
literary circles in the Peski quarter (the Sands), well-to-do merchants
and nobles, officials and wealthy courtiers, until now we have reached
the culminating point, where the Admiralty, Imperial Palace, and War
Office complete the national group begun at the church.

When, in 1704, Peter the Great founded his beloved Admiralty, as the
first building on the mainland then designed for such purposes as this,
and not for residen