His drunkenness
showed itself in quite another way. He was unsteady a little on his
feet, and his hands trembled, his forehead was flushed, and he spoke
thickly, sometimes running his words together. At the same time he was
not very drunk, and was quite in control of his thoughts and
intentions.
We went out together. It could not have been called a fine night--it was
too cold, and there was a hint of rain in the air--and yet there is
beauty, I believe, in every Russian Easter Eve. The day comes so
wonderfully at the end of the long heavy winter. The white nights with
their incredible, almost terrifying beauty are at hand, the ice is
broken, the new world of sun and flowers is ready, at an instant's magic
word, to be born. Nevertheless this year there was an incredible pathos
in the wind. The soul of Petrograd was indeed stirring, but mournfully,
ominously. There were not, for one thing, the rows of little fairy lamps
that on this night always make the streets so gay. They hang in chains
and clusters of light from street to street, blazing in the square,
reflected star-like in the canals, misty and golden-veiled in distance.
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