Here are various remarks I heard. One man, a commissionaire, asked whether I thought it was right to fire on the revolutionaries. I hesitated, gathering my thoughts to explain that I thought that they thoroughly deserved it since they began it, but that the Government nevertheless had brought it about by their dilatoriness. (This is exactly what I think.) Misunderstanding my hesitation, he said: “Surely you, a _foreigner_, need not mind saying what you think, and you know it is wrong.” (This was curious, because these people, commissionaires, porters, &c., are often reactionary.) A cabman said to me: “Who do you think will get the best of it?” I said, “I don’t know, what do you think?” “Nothing will come of it,” he said. “There will still be rich people like you and poor people like me, and whether the Government is in the hands of the _chinovniks_ or the students is all one and the same.” Another man, a porter, an ex-soldier, said it was awful. You couldn’t go anywhere or drive anywhere without risking being killed. Soldiers came back from the war and were killed in the streets. A bullet came, and then the man was done for. Another man, a kind of railway employee, said that the Russians had no stamina, that the Poles would never give in, but the Russians would directly. Another man, fond of paradox, said to me that he hoped all the fanatics would be shot, and that then the Government would be upset. A policeman was guarding the street which led to the hotel. I asked if I could pass. “How could I not let a Barine with whom I am acquainted pass?” he said. Then a baker’s boy came up with a tray of rolls on his head, also asking to pass—to go to the hotel. After some discussion the policeman let him go, but suddenly said, “Or are you a rascal?” Then I asked him what he thought of it all. He said: “We fire as little as possible. They are fools.” The fact is that among the wealthier and educated classes the feeling is either one of intense sympathy or violent indignation with the revolutionaries; among the lower classes it is a feeling of sceptical resignation or indifference. “Things are bad—nothing will come of it for us.” _Christmas Day._