When Napoleon, watching the fire of Moscow from the Kremlin, saw how the storm was rolling the sea of flame upon the city, he cried in despair, "But what wind is this?" So now Alexander, as he watched the waves, lashed by the furious storm, dash up against his palace, asked, "But what wind is this?"
Houses roofless and in ruins; half-naked creatures clinging to their framework; here, a tiny hand raised in piteous appeal from its mother's arms; there, a man rowing with a plank, who finds no place to land on. Every gust of wind, every wave, brings some fresh sight to view. Now comes the remnant of a menagerie; its cages, chained together, are being whirled about in eddying circles. A Bengal tiger, who has burst his bonds, dashes wildly from one cage to another. Some men, clinging to the bars, dare not climb on to the top for fear of the infuriated animal. All must perish. Men and beasts shriek and roar in chorus. The waves dash them pitilessly on. Then comes the fragment of a wooden bridge wedged in between two icebergs. Upon it there still stands a carriage, shafts in air, from the interior of which projects a pink dress. Bridge and carriage float past, a flock of croaking ravens flying about them.
Who is sufficient for all these horrors?
The current swept on, swift as an arrow, the waves playing with their icy barriers; now building them into pyramids, now tearing them down, leaving a circling eddy to mark the spot.
Close by the Winter Palace stands the Admiralty, with its copper roof. The furious storm, tearing off a portion of this, rolls it up, with thunderous din, like a sheet of paper, flattens it out again, tosses it into the air, showering down fragments of it like a pack of cards; then, finally, rips off the whole remainder of the roof, hurling it into the principal square. Then follows many thousand casks of flour, sugar, and spices from the flooded warehouses of the Exchange—the whole winter store of a great capital a prey to the waves!
Again another picture. Arrayed in order of battle like a flotilla come a series of black boats, not originally designed to carry their inmates over the water, but under the earth. Coffins! The flood had burst the walls of the military cemetery of Smolenskaja, washed up thousands of graves, and was now bringing back their occupants to the city, of which they had long ago taken farewell. The buried warriors were coming to march past the Czar once more—the hurricane their deafening trumpets, the waves their kettle-drums! They even bring their memorial chapel with them, and their marble crosses, which tower in ghostly fashion from out the icebergs!
Nor is the fearful cyclorama over yet. The horrors of it are ever increasing. In the distance looms a three-master, bearing down upon the city—or, rather, in the cold gray mist it looks the ghost of a man-of-war. It had broken its moorings at Cronstadt in the gale, and now, driven before the wind, was coming down upon the city at full speed!
At that moment the Czar, forgetful of his dignity, hid his face and wept, never thinking whether any eyes were upon him. And many eyes were on him.
All those whom in the course of the previous night the Czar had rescued from the tottering houses in the suburbs—all those who, taken unawares in the tumult of the fair, did not know where to turn, the Czar had lodged in the western division of the Winter Palace, giving up that brilliant suite of rooms to the use of the poor and destitute. Such guests as these the Winter Palace had never harbored before! True, at New-year it was the custom for some forty thousand guests to assemble in the Winter Palace; but they swept the floors with silk, and illuminated the marble halls with their diamonds. Now, however, it was the show-place for rags and tatters. An exhibition of misery and destitution! There were collected together all those who form the shady side of a capital, and of whom the fashionable world have no conception—an aggregate of bitter want and of shameless depravity. They who did not dare to creep forth by day from their dark cellars have given each other rendezvous in the Imperial Palace. The Czar sent them food and drink, and they spent the night singing the Knife Song, taught them by the frequenters of the Bear's Paw.
Czar Alexander heard it, and doubtless rejoiced to know his guests were in such good-humor. They opened their windows, and those in front put their heads out, and called to the others to tell them what they saw.