“On the meat, I suppose. Yesterday and to-day the peasants have been bringing it in and I have got a little. I don’t want to lose it. They say the Reds are coming.” Free-trading being clearly opposed to the principles of Communism, it was officially forbidden and denounced as “speculation.” But no amount of restriction could suppress it, and the peasants brought food in to the hungry townspeople despite all obstacles and sold it at their own prices. The only remedy the authorities had for this “capitalist evil” was armed force, and even that was ineffective. The meat was being sold by the peasants in a big glass-covered shed. One of these sheds was burnt down in 1919, and the only object that remained intact was an ikon in the corner. Thousands came to see the ikon that had been “miraculously” preserved, but it was hastily taken away by the authorities. The ikon had apparently been overlooked, for it was the practice of the Bolsheviks to remove all religious symbols from public places. I moved toward the building to make my purchase, but Stepanovna tugged me by the arm. “Don’t be mad,” she exclaimed. “Don’t you realize, if there is a raid, they will arrest everybody?” She pulled me down to speak in my ear. “And what about your...? I am sure ... your papers ... are....” “Of course they are,” I laughed. “But you don’t expect a clown of a Red guard to see the difference, do you?” I made up my mind to get rid of Stepanovna and come back later for some meat, but all at once a commotion arose in the crowd over the way and people began running out of the shed. Round the corner, from the side of the Ekaterina Canal, appeared a band of soldiers in sheepskin caps and brown-grey tunics, with fixed bayonets. The exits from the building were quickly blocked. Fugitives fled in all directions, the women shrieking and hugging their baskets and bundles, and looking back as they ran to see if they were pursued. Stepanovna and I stood on a doorstep at the corner of the Zabalkansky Prospect, where we could see well, and whence, if need be, we could also make good our escape. The market place was transformed in the twinkling of an eye. A moment before it had been bristling with life and the crowded street-cars had stopped to let their passengers scramble laboriously out. But now the whole square was suddenly as still as death, and, but for a few onlookers who watched the scene from a distance, the roadway was deserted. From fifty to sixty soldiers filed slowly into the shed and a few others, with rifles ready, hurried now and again round the outside of the building. A fiendish din arose with the entry of the soldiers. The shrieking, howling, booing, cursing, and moaning sounded as if hell itself had been let loose! It was an uncanny contrast--the silent square, and the ghastly noise within the shed!