se I know of him. He is from the "Brussov and
Makarov Contracting Company"--the rascal! Kerensky knew him long ago,
I am sure. The first thing when he got powerful he appointed Makarov
as something in the Ministry of Beaux-Arts!"

From what I learned afterwards from Admiral and B-tov, all of "the
rats of Tsarskoye" ran away. Only a few remained with the family:
Botkin,--Capt. Melnik, Countess G. and her governess, M-e Sch., and
Gillard. That's about all I guess that I know of--maybe some will join
them afterwards. I am so sorry I had to go to Tula when they took the
Family. I'd have gone to watch the departure with the Admiral.

Petrograd simply died. The city does not reflect a thing. All seem
to be satisfied with mere existence, and to have lost interest in the
rest of the world. They look animated when it comes time to converse
of food and clothes.... Funny, strange, weird city! They don't clean
the streets any more.... and everybody finds it natural. There is
nothing in the stores--and we feel perfectly at ease. The country is
being maliciously run down--and all repeat that fiction of building
up.

Perhaps the only place that has not changed since its foundation is
the Club. The same old grouches are there, on the same sized seats,
with the same expressions of old indigestion and fresh gossip. Boys
keep up! The revolution will probably bring the sacred card games onto
the streets. Your progressive institution must preserve the classic
rules for the next generations.

People now are divided into two distinct camps: those of today, and
those of yesterday. The former--cover their disgust under a smile of
opportunism; kin and kind--don't. We hate each other, and envy each
other,--as we cannot see which way things will turn.... We will be
united only if the ones of to-morrow,--the commune, the third class of
people happen to take into their hands the war machinery. Then we both
will be crushed, annihilated, forgotten. It is coming....

II. TUMEN

II. TUMEN

19

Only five months ago--I had a wife, income, good food.... Only five
months ago--I had a country.

The mean and envious beast that lived in our midst,--as it lives in
every other country,--unseen, but felt, and always ready to crush the
acquirements of existing civilization,--_the mob_ came out from the
underground world; criminal hands let _the mob_ on the streets. Weak
and shaky fingers unlocked the trap; a magnificent gesture of a