I could not see Russia in such simple terms. I did not believe that the Russian Revolution could be understood in the terms of the French Revolution. I felt very small and alone when, at midnight, I left the chattering groups and went up to my little room. I was too engrossed in what was going to happen to Russia to care the least bit about what happened to me. I sat down before my typewriter and wrote until three, and then went to bed. At five o’clock I was awakened from a sound sleep by a loud knocking. I jumped quickly up and opened the door. I looked out upon a sea of cutlasses. The hall was filled with Russian sailors, perhaps a couple hundred of them, husky chaps with rifles in their hands, and every rifle topped with the most bloodthirsty-looking blade I had ever seen. Life holds no further terrors for the man or woman who has faced two hundred such weapons all gathered in one spot. An Atlantic Ocean submarine would seem like a friendly neighbor come to call. Still dazed with sleep, I looked at them uncomprehendingly. What had happened? Were they Bolsheviki from Kronstadt who had captured the hotel? Was the city already in the possession of Korniloff? Was the battle going on downstairs at that very moment? There was no one to answer my questions. I said something in English. A smile passed over the faces of the half dozen sailors nearest me. “Nechevo,” they said in chorus. It is the most reassuring word in the Russian language--the first I learned, and the last I shall forget. It means “Never mind,” “Don’t worry,” and other things of a kindred nature. “Kharasho?” I asked. “Kharasho nechevo,” came back the double reassurance. I had learned that, so far as I was concerned at least, everything was all right. I closed the door and dressed. Fifteen minutes later there was a great clatter of guns and marching feet, and when I went out into the hall again our visitors had gone. On all the landings, women, pale and terrified, were huddled in small groups, talking. A thousand sailors had taken possession of the hotel, examined passports, searched rooms, and arrested fourteen officers. They were not from Korniloff or Kerensky, but from the government behind the government--the Soviet. The Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Deputies had decided to take things into their own hands and arrest all officers whom they suspected of counter-revolutionary tendencies. I stopped to talk with some of the women. One of them spoke to me in English--beautiful English. Her husband had been arrested but released immediately. “This hotel is a terrible place,” she said. “We Russians are mad, quite mad, all of us. Why do you stay here when you do not have to? I would go away--far, far away, to England or your America.” She was a Russian princess, and from that morning on I saw much of her. She was exquisitely pretty and completely helpless, a typical flower of Russian culture. I told her once that she reminded me of an orchid.