I crossed the square, walking aimlessly I knew not where. On the corner was a huge building with high, boarded windows and bullet-holes in the plastered walls. A man was sitting in the doorway, and I asked if he spoke English. He shook his head. I did not know which way to turn. For some strange reason that I shall never fathom, I walked through the doorway and into the building. I found myself in a huge, empty marble lobby, opening into a series of large rooms stripped bare of everything but a broken plate-glass cabinet of silver inlay, and a bloodstained but once bright rose-colored velvet carpet. I stood wondering where I was, and what I should do next, when down the broad stairs came a Russian officer in the splendid full-skirted wine-colored coat of the Caucasians. His dark olive face and black hair were topped with a high military hat, and a sword of inlaid silver jangled on each marble step as he walked. “Pardon, do you speak English?” I asked in a faint and by this time rather despairing voice. He clicked his spurs together, and bowed low before me. “A leetle, madame,” he answered. “Can I be of service to you?” Never again will the sound of my native tongue be such blissful music. I told him of my recent arrival, and of my search for friends, and ended with: “I want to go somewhere where I can get something to eat.” He looked at me out of smiling and kindly brown eyes. “This is a hotel,” he said. “The Astoria Hotel. But it is now the headquarters of the military, the Voina Gostinnitsa (War Hotel), and civilians are not allowed. At the time of the Revolution it was sacked, as you can see; so the dining-room has been closed since, and meals are served only in one’s room. If you had a room you might have luncheon here. Are you the wife of a military man, or something of that sort?” I shook my head, told him I was nothing “of that sort,” and offered my card and credentials. He brightened. “Ah!” he said. “There may yet be a way. The correspondents are under the control of the military now, and it is just possible the General might make an exception and permit you to stay here. Shall I take you to him?” I glanced at him for a single searching second, then nodded. We climbed the marble stairs, and at the end of a long corridor we came upon the General, white-haired and white-whiskered, and all that a Russian General should be. He arose from behind a flat-top mahogany desk, bowed low, kissed my hand, and invited me to a seat. My new-found Caucasian friend explained me in Russian, and the General nodded. Fifteen minutes later, comfortably established in my own little blue-and-white room on the sixth floor of the War Hotel, amid all the conveniences of a first-class American hotel, I sat down to a platter of cold meat and a service of steaming Russian tea. Another hour found me collecting typewriter and passports and preparing to establish a base of operations from which to explore that vast new Russia.