Soon after the episode of telephoning from the basement, Kotzebue went to Petrograd. I was anxious for his return, as he had promised to go and see Titi, and bring me the latest news from home. Days passed ... I became apprehensive, and made enquiries, only to be told that we should not see him again at Tsarkoe! I saw in this an omen of coming trouble, so I went at once to the Emperor and acquainted him with what I had heard. The Emperor and the Empress were watching some of the ladies-in-waiting who were walking in the Park, followed by sentinels; the Empress noticed my agitation. “Why, Lili, whatever is the matter?” she enquired. “Madame ... I hear that Kotzebue is to be replaced.” The Emperor looked at me. Then, shrugging his shoulders, he remarked: “Well--it can’t be helped” and straightway changed the conversation ... possibly to calm our fears, or more probably to show how unaffected he was by the mandates of the Revolutionaries. The long, monotonous days passed--we endured them alternately with the calmness of despair and with gratitude for their dullness. Once we witnessed a sight of horror. Hearing a sound of military music, and the tramp, tramp of many people, we went to the windows, and saw a funeral procession wending its way across the snow-covered Park. But this was no ordinary funeral; the dead were some of the soldiers who had been killed at Tsarkoe Selo on the first day of the Revolution. It was a red burial--the coffins were covered in scarlet, the mourners were dressed in scarlet, and scarlet flags waved everywhere. Seen in the distance the procession looked like a river of blood flowing slowly through the Park. Everything was red and white, and the superstitious might have inferred from this a presage of the innocent blood so soon to be outpoured ... since the snow was not whiter than the souls of the young and beautiful who are now safe in the keeping of a God of Justice, who most surely will repay! None of us could forget the impression produced by this funeral; blood seemed everywhere, and terror lurked in the shadows. The soldiers were buried in the Park, within sight of the Palace--another refinement of torture for those whose imaginations were already overexcited. Our nerves were frayed, although I do not think that we were guilty of giving way to our emotions. But it was difficult to maintain our composure when insolent officers treated us in a shameful manner, or a soldier called the Empress by some filthy epithet. One soldier, however, was a Bayard. He possessed an English name, and his father taught in a school at Riga. This man was really extraordinary. He was not only polite, but he invariably tried to show us that he did not share the Revolutionary outlook. The two regiments which were at the Palace distinguished themselves by a series of petty thefts; not even the spoons were safe. I suppose they would have described these articles as “Souvenir spoons”! * * * * *