The dissolution of the Duma, although it had been predicted during the course of last week, and although the arrival of a large number of troops in St. Petersburg was known, came as a surprise. During the whole of yesterday the town was abnormally quiet. I went to the various clubs: the Labour Party Club, the Cadet Club, the Socialist Club. They were all deserted. Some of the members had left for Finland; others were holding meetings in various parts of the town. In the club of the Labour Party, which is in the Nevsky Prospect, nothing was left except the cold remains of a supper, a large portrait of the Emperor, a picture of the Dowager Empress, and a pastel of Spiridonovna. At the Cadet Club I saw the peasant Nazarenko; he was just starting for Finland. “Things are bad,” I said. “The life of a State is like the life of a man,” he replied, philosophically. “If there were no bad there would be no good, either.” Other visitors arrived and gathered together in knots, speaking with bated breath, as if they were under the cloud of some huge calamity. “Does it mean the end of the Monarchy?” I asked one man. “It means the end of the dynasty, in any case,” he answered. In the evening I saw some Octobrists and Conservatives, and asked them their opinion. “The Government may be right in having dissolved the Duma,” one of them said, “but what is criminal on their part is the way in which they treated the Duma from the first, trying to discredit it in every possible way, and doing everything they could to provoke it to rebellion. Russia is an odd country, and everything is possible; it is possible that the country may quiet down if liberal reforms are at once put into practice; but I confess I have little faith in this, and if the country does not quiet down this Ministry will be directly responsible for any disasters which may happen.” Some one else, more Liberal, said to me: “If I lose everything I possess, if my land is devastated and my house is burnt, I shall never blame the Cadets; I shall never cease to believe they might have managed things if they had been empowered to do so early enough—that is to say, last October.”