Her movement was a failure, not because of any shortcomings on the part of the women, but because it was based upon a false premise. It assumed that the Russian soldier left the trenches because he was a coward. He was not: he was merely a disillusioned man who had lost all his old gods, and had not yet found new ones worthy of his faith. Women can fight. Women have the courage, the endurance, even the strength, for fighting. Vera has demonstrated that, and if necessary all the other women of the world can demonstrate it. The issue is no longer a question of whether Vera can fight, but whether Vera should fight. She will fight whenever and wherever she feels she must. She is a potential soldier, and will continue to be until the muddled old world is remade upon a basis of human freedom and safety. CHAPTER VI IN THE HOLLOW OF THEIR HAND Turning into the Nevsky Prospect was like opening a telegram. I could never be quite certain what I would find there, but the first glance always told the whole story. Nevsky was the revolutionary thermometer. When the City of Peter pursued the calm and normal way, the wood-paved avenue indicated the fact. When the hectic passions of revolt ran high, the temper of the populace was as plainly registered. It was on the Nevsky Prospect, in the early days of March, that the first courageous crowd of men and women dared Cossack whips and sabers and cast amazed glances at the soldiers who gave them smiles and words of encouragement when they had expected the stinging lash and the deadly blade. It was here that the multitudes gathered for rejoicing when the victory was won, and here also they came, tragic and proud, bearing their martyred dead upon their shoulders. Each succeeding moment of joy or grief or protest was recorded here, and I quickly learned to read the signs. At ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning in July, I stepped out of the Nicolaievski Station into the circle, to find the mercury rising and the Nevsky of the hour strangely different from that with which I had parted. The talking crowds in the Znamensky Square were gone. Alexander III sat alone on the bronze horse, undisputed monarch once more of all he surveyed. There wasn’t a street-car in sight. The only visible _izvostchik_ wanted double his former price to carry me to the War Hotel. It was the hour when shutters should be coming down from shops. Instead they were fastened tight, and in front of the Gostinny Dvor men were out with hammers, nailing boards across the plate-glass windows. Had something already happened, or was something about to happen? I could not be sure. The _izvostchik_ kept up a rapid-fire conversation, pointing an excited finger occasionally toward a freshly made bullet-hole in the glass fronts.