Last night, when I was driving home from the Duma, my cabman asked me many questions about it, and he said that he had been a soldier himself and saw a great deal of the soldiers here, and that if the Duma was dispersed or came to nothing and the Government attempted to exercise repressive measures they would refuse to fight, because what applied to the peasants applied to them. They were peasants, and the only way in which their lot could be bettered was by the lot of the peasants being bettered. “The Government,” he added, “does not want things to go quietly.” It wants a _bunt_ (a rising), so that it can put it down by force and then go on as before as in the good old days, but this time it will not succeed, because the soldiers will refuse to fire, and there will be a row such as there was at Kronstadt, only on a far larger scale, and St. Petersburg will be looted. _May 20th._ This evening, as I was walking home to my lodgings, I was attracted by signs of disturbance in a side street off the Big Morskaia, where I live. I went to see what was happening. A drunken soldier was lurching down the street, making rude remarks to the passers-by. He was arrested and with difficulty guided to the police station, which happened to be in that street, by two policemen. When they went into the police station a small crowd of men, women, and children collected round the door, which was guarded by a small boy of about twelve years of age. A woman, with a shawl over her head, made an indignant speech to the assembled public about the arbitrariness of the police in arresting the poor soldiers. “We know,” she said, “what goes on in there. They’re beating him now.” “Shame!” cried the crowd, and made a move for the door. But the unkempt little boy who was guarding it said: “You can’t come in here.” “Ah, we know you _dvorniks_” (door-keepers), said the woman, “you are worse than the police.” “Yah!” joined in the crowd, and a child said to the boy, with inexpressible contempt, “Ugh! _Satrap!_ Police station chicken!” Then the crowd broke up. CHAPTER XVIII FURTHER IMPRESSIONS OF THE DUMA _May 23rd._