young generation in Russia. _May 11th._ Two men asked me for some money in the street this morning because they had been drunk yesterday. I went to the soldiers’ hospital in the afternoon, and was much struck by the way in which the soldiers talked of the Duma. These men, during the epoch which had followed the “Manifesto,” had been violently against what they called the “Strikers.” They had told me that when the procession attending Bauman’s funeral had passed the windows of their hospital they would have liked to have shot the dogs. Now they say that they understand that had there been no strike there would have been no Duma, and that on the Duma everything depended. One man asked me how long the Duma would last and when the first Parliament was made in England. One of the soldiers asked me for books the other day, and I bought him several of Scott’s novels. He was so delighted with “Quentin Durward” that the nurse told me he read all day and would not leave his book for a moment. He told me the whole story of “Quentin Durward” with the various conversations between the characters. CHAPTER XVII THE OPENING OF THE DUMA ST. PETERSBURG, _May 14th_. I had the good fortune to gain admission to the Duma yesterday afternoon. I think it is the most interesting sight I have ever seen. When you arrive at the Tauris Palace, which outside has an appearance of dignified stateliness, the stateliness of the end of the Eighteenth Century, you walk through a spacious front hall into what looks like a gigantic white ball-room built in the late Louis XVI. style. This is the lobby; beyond it is the Hall of the Duma itself. In this long gallery members and visitors were already flocking, walking up and down, talking, and smoking cigarettes and throwing away the ashes and the ends on the polished floor. One saw peasants in their long black coats, some of them wearing military medals and crosses; popes, Tartars, Poles, men in every kind of dress except uniform. When the sitting began I went up into the gallery. The Hall of the Duma itself is likewise white, delicate in decoration, an essentially gentlemanlike room. The sitting began about three o’clock. The members go to their appointed places, on which their cards are fixed, and the impression of diversity of dress and type becomes still stronger and more picturesque.