We turned in the direction of the Marsovo Pola. As we came within sight of it, we heard a volley of machine-gun fire in the direction of the Liteiny. The white field was deserted. Garlands of green were looped around the huge mound, and the red wreaths were like splotches of blood against the white snow. A parade marshal, with a red band around his arm, stood at one corner, the center of a small and excited group. “Where are the people?” Colonel Robins asked him. “They won’t let them come,” he said. “They are shooting them down in the streets.” We drove along the Liteiny in the direction of the firing. At the Kirotchnia, we came suddenly upon a group of Red Guards and sailors, brandishing ominous guns. They rushed about, tossing orders at one another, their faces flushed with excitement. “Murderers! Murderers!” shouted a woman, shaking her fist in their direction. “Murderers! Murderers!” echoed a dozen other women, who turned blazing eyes upon them. Scattered all over the snow were broken and splintered wooden poles--all that remained of the proud banners that a few minutes before had proclaimed “All Power to the Constituent Assembly” and “Long Live the Boss of Russian Land!” We did not need to ask what had happened. The broken poles told the story. Down the Liteiny and into the Furstadtskaya our little Siberian pony pulled the sleigh across the bloodstained snow. Men and women huddled in doorways. Their coats were dusted with white, and as they brushed one another off they talked in frightened voices. Some of them were ghastly pale, in spite of the biting chill of the winter morning. The wounded had been carried upstairs to a Red Cross hospital, and the dead--fifteen was the day’s toll, according to official reports next morning--had also been removed. The paraders had penetrated within the forbidden zone. They had refused to heed the orders of the guard to stop. A hand-to-hand fight followed. Some one fired a shot. There was another and another, and in a moment the havoc was complete. Fifteen human beings had died to save the Revolution. Perhaps fifteen others had killed to save the Revolution. Both groups were fighting for the same thing, but the word spelled a different set of meanings to each. It was noon when we pulled up before the Tauride Palace. More than a century ago the great yellow building was flung there by the wave of Catherine’s hand or the scratch of her quill pen, and dedicated to the needs of the favorite of the hour. It lay across three or four city blocks, shining in a new coat of yellow calcium. White snow covered roofs and cornices like deep frosting, and spilled over the edge in a fringe of lacy icicles. Behind the upper windows, hidden from public gaze, were six machine-guns, with tapes loaded for use. Within a moment’s call, the gunners waited for action. Behind the ornate iron fences, Red Guards and sailors paced ceaselessly back and forth.