"
But there was no need for her to do that. Even as she spoke they heard
the steps on the stairs; and instantly afterwards there came the loud
knocking on their door. Vera pressed Nina's hand and went into the hall.
"_Kto tam_... Who's there?" she asked.
"Open the door!... The Workmen and Soldiers' Committee demand entrance
in the name of the Revolution."
She opened the door at once. During those first days of the Revolution
they cherished certain melodramatic displays.
Whether consciously or no they built on all the old French Revolution
traditions, or perhaps it is that every Revolution produces of necessity
the same clothing with which to cover its nakedness. A strange mixture
of farce and terror were those detachments of so-called justice. At
their head there was, as a rule, a student, often smiling and
bespectacled. The soldiers themselves, from one of the Petrograd
regiments, were frankly out for a good time and enjoyed themselves
thoroughly, but, as is the Slavonic way, playfulness could pass with
surprising suddenness to dead earnest--with, indeed, so dramatic a
precipitance that the actors themselves were afterwards amazed.
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