"You, burjooi," a soldier said to me, "no wonder you do not know him. This is Comrade Trotzky. He comes from America. You had better move on or I'll tell who you are,"—he continued staring at me very resolutely, and spat on the sidewalk right near my foot.
I moved on. What people!
I crossed Nevsky and stood on the other side. From there I could not hear Comrade Trotzky, but studied his movements and gesticulation, his manner of scratching his nose, of quickly turning his head in a derby, and the nervous shrugging of his shoulders. The mob applauded him after every phrase, making his speech a series of separate sentences and thus giving him the advantage of thinking of most radical ideas, while awaiting for the listeners to finish the applause.
I have finally decided to give in my resignation. What is the use? No work is being done. We only talk. The whole administration, the whole administrative machinery, stands still, evidently retrograding every day.
Many understand it. Rodzianko is going away south; a man whom they think too old and too much of a reactionary. He is quite depressed, I presume, but likes to look perfectly satisfied. When I asked him whether the war looked to him as though it were to be continued, he gazed at me, and not after hesitation sighed, and said:
"Yes, if the army will stand the effects of order number one."
And then, fearing the next question coming, he assumed the air of a busy man and shook hands—"as he had to go and see his relatives."
Nearing the house I saw Kerensky in the Emperor's car, proud, and smiling to left and right. His Excellency, the Minister of Justice!
3.
Everybody is sure and proud that he is building up the new Russia. Lawyers and doctors, engineers and priests, all run with busy faces,—they think a statesman of today must run,—everybody gives orders, counter-orders, nobody carries them out, nobody listens. There are about 200,000 Napoleons in Petrograd today; as they multiply by section, this number will be enormous before long. The situation, however, does not improve….