The first thing which brought home to me that Russia had been granted the promise of a Constitution was this. I went to the big Russian baths. Somebody came in and asked for some soap, upon which the barber’s assistant, aged about ten, said, with the air of a Hampden: “Give the citizen some soap” (“Daite grazhdaninu mwilo”). Coming out of the baths I found the streets decorated with flags and everybody in a state of frantic and effervescing enthusiasm. I went to one of the big restaurants. There old men were embracing each other and drinking the first glass of vodka to free Russia. After luncheon I went out into the theatre square. There is a fountain in it, which forms an excellent public platform. An orator mounted it and addressed the crowd. He began to read the Emperor’s Manifesto. Then he said: “We are all too much used to the rascality of the Autocracy to believe this; down with the Autocracy!” The crowd, infuriated—they were evidently expecting an enthusiastic eulogy—cried: “Down with you!” But instead of attacking the speaker who had aroused their indignation they ran away from him! It was a curious sight. The spectators on the pavement were seized with panic and ran too. The orator, seeing his speech had missed fire, changed his tone and said: “You have misunderstood me.” But what he had said was perfectly clear. This speaker was an ordinary Hyde Park orator. University professors spoke from the same platform. Later in the afternoon a procession of students arrived opposite my hotel with red flags and collected outside the Governor-General’s house. The Governor-General appeared on the balcony and made a speech, in which he said that now there were no police he hoped that they would be able to keep order themselves. He asked them also to exchange the red flag, which was hanging on the lamp-post opposite the Palace, for the national flag. One little student climbed like a monkey up the lamp-post and hung a national flag there, but did not remove the red flag. Then the Governor asked them to sing the National Anthem, which they did; and as they went away they sang the “Marseillaise”:
“On peut très bien jouer ces deux airs à la fois
Et cela fait un air qui fait sauver les rois!”
At one moment a Cossack arrived, but an official came out of the house and told him he was not needed, upon which he went away, amidst the jeers, cheers, hoots, and whistling of the crowd. On the whole, the day passed off quietly. There were some tragic incidents: the death of a woman, the wounding of a student and a workman who tried to rescue the student from the prisoners’ van, and the shooting of a veterinary surgeon called Bauman.
While I was standing on the steps of the hotel in the afternoon a woman rushed up frantically and said the Black Gang were coming. A student who came from a good family and who was standing by explained that the Black Gang were roughs who supported the autocracy. His hand, which was bandaged, had been severely hurt by a Cossack, who had struck it with his whip, thinking he was about to make a disturbance. He came up to my room, and from the hotel window we had a good view of the crowd, which proceeded to
“Attaquer la Marseillaise en la
Sur les cuivres, pendant que la flute soupire,
En mi bémol: ‘Veillons an salut de l’Empire!’”
That night I dined at the Métropole Restaurant, and a strange scene occurred. At the end of dinner the band played the “Marseillaise,” and after it the National Anthem. Everybody stood up except one mild-looking man with spectacles, who went on calmly eating his dinner; upon which a man who was sitting at the other end of the room, rather drunk, rushed up to him and began to pull him about and drag him to his feet. He made a display of passive resistance, which proved effectual, and when he had finished his dinner he went away.
The outward aspect of the town during these days was strange. Moscow was like a besieged city. Many of the shops had great wooden shutters. Some of the doors were marked with a large red cross. The distress, I was told, during the strike had been terrible. There was no light, no gas, no water; all the shops were shut; provisions and wood were scarce. On the afternoon of 2nd November I went to see Bauman’s funeral procession, which I witnessed from many parts of the town. It was an impressive sight. A hundred thousand men took part in it. The whole of the Intelligentsia was in the streets or at the windows. The windows and balconies were crowded with people. Order was perfect. There was not a hitch nor a scuffle. The men walking in the procession were students, doctors, workmen—people in various kinds of uniform. There were ambulances, with doctors dressed in white in them, in case there should be casualties. The men carried great red banners, and the coffin was covered with a scarlet pall. As they marched they sang in a low chant the “Marseillaise,” “Viechni Pamiat,” and the “Funeral March”[10] of the fighters for freedom. This last tune is most impressive. From a musician’s point of view it is, I am told, a bad tune; but then, as Du Maurier said, one should never listen to musicians on the subject of music any more than one should listen to wine merchants on the subject of wine. But it is the tune which to my mind exactly expressed the Russian Revolution, with its dogged melancholy and invincible passion. It was as befitting as the “Marseillaise” (which, by the way, the Russians sang in parts and slowly) was inappropriate. The “Funeral March” had nothing defiant in it; but it is one of those tunes which, when sung by a multitude, makes the flesh creep; it is commonplace, if you will; and it expresses—as if by accident—the commonplaceness of all that is determined and unflinching, mingled with an accent of weary pathos. As it grew dark, torches were brought out, lighting up the red banners and the scarlet coffin of the unknown veterinary surgeon, who in a second, by a strange freak of chance, had become a hero, or rather a symbol; an emblem and a banner, and who was being carried to his last resting-place with a simplicity which eclipsed the pomp of royal funerals, and to the sound of a low song of tired but indefatigable sadness, stronger and more formidable than the pæans which celebrate the triumphs of kings.