Firing went on in the Nevsky Prospect and the Morskaia. We heard shots whistling past continually.
The Chevaliers-Gardes were obliged to make several simultaneous charges along the quays and other places that night.
The mob was not armed and remained silent. Their action was decidedly revolutionary, but it was by no means a general rising of a whole people in revolt. It was to be regretted that many quite innocent people who showed themselves in the streets out of curiosity were to be counted amongst the dead and wounded—but that was, of course, their own look out, as they should have hearkened to the warning.
Equipages were overturned; the malcontents stripped a general of all his clothes in spite of the cold, and then beat him. A young officer was thrown into a canal; and we were warned by a friend on the telephone from the Winter Palace that it was dangerous even to set foot in the street.
My poor Aunt de Baranoff was more terrified than ever, and told me in a trembling voice: “On no account turn on the electric light for fear of the revolutionaries firing into the windows”—in Russia there are no shutters—“and entering the house and murdering us all.” This in spite of the fact of our house being part of the Palace of the Grand Duke, then Crown Property, and our courtyard filled with soldiers; so we consequently lived several days by candlelight, which seemed rather gloomy after the gorgeous light of the many chandeliers.
Gapon and several other leaders had really deceived these credulous masses and led them to believe that they would, by demonstrating, induce the Tzar to accede to their demands; but it was not long before the masses found out that they were being made the tools of their leaders’ own ambitions to bring about a great political manifestation. Thus, discontent and loss of faith soon spread amongst them.
The most sinister news appeared in the papers on the following day, stating that the populace would be now supplied with bombs and firearms, that houses would be broken into and pillaged, but there proved to be no foundation for these anticipated fears.
However, there was still some disturbance that night, and fighting took place in the Sadovaia; but there was no bloodshed.
I dined that evening at the French Embassy and, as I drove through the streets, Petrograd seemed to be a changed city: troops bivouacking everywhere, rifles piled together, the soldiers and horses keeping warm beside huge beacon fires, the flames from which cast a lurid light over all the vast stretch of frozen snow.
The only Russians at dinner were Prince Dolgorouky and Baron de Ramsay—whose wife is English—the others having at the eleventh hour sent excuses: they had all contracted chills!