A few days earlier Lenin left Finland and was hiding in the outskirts of the city, in the workingmen's quarters. On the evening of the 25th, he came secretly to the Smolny. According to newspaper information, it seemed to him that the issue would be a temporary compromise between ourselves and the Kerensky Government. The bourgeois press had so often clamored about the approach of the revolution, about the demonstration of armed soldiers on the streets, about pillaging and unavoidable streams of blood, that now this press failed to notice the revolution which was really taking place, and accepted the negotiations of the general staff with us at their face value. Meanwhile, without any chaos, without street fights, without firing or bloodshed, the government institutions were occupied one after another by severe and disciplined detachments of soldiers, sailors and Red Guards, in accordance with the exact telephone orders given from the small room on the third floor of the Smolny Institute. In the evening a preliminary session of the Second All-Russian Convention of Soviets was held. In the name of the Central Executive Committee, Dan presented a report. He presented an indictment of the rebellious usurpers and insurgents and attempted to frighten the Convention with a vision of the inevitable failure of the insurrection, which, he claimed, would be suppressed by the forces from the front. His address sounded unconvincing and out of place within the walls of a hall where the overwhelming majority of the delegates were enthusiastically observing the victorious advance of the Petrograd revolution. By this time the Winter Palace was surrounded, but it was not yet taken. From time to time there were shots from the windows upon the besiegers, who were closing in slowly and cautiously. From the Petropavlovsk Fortress, two or three shells from cannons were directed at the Palace. Their thunder was heard at the Smolny. Martof spoke with helpless indignation from the platform of the convention, about civil war and especially about the siege of the Winter Palace, where among the ministers there were--oh, horror!--members of the Mensheviki party. The sailors who came to bring information from the battle-place around the Palace took the floor against him. They reminded the accusers of the offensive of the 18th of June, of the treacherous policy of the old government, of the re-establishment of the death penalty for soldiers, of the annihilation of the revolutionary organization, and wound up by vowing to win or die. They also brought word of the first victims from our ranks in the battle before the Palace. All arose as if at an unseen signal and, with a unanimity which could be created only by a high moral inspiration, sang the Funeral March. He who lived through that moment will never forget it.