The two sides of the room glared and stared one at the other. The Duma evinced a curious interest in the spectacle the bureaucracy presented. Most of them seemed to wonder what all that display had to do with the business in hand. The bureaucrats, on the other hand, were much more moved. Some laughed with obvious scorn and derision. Others were sad and depressed. Others were merely amused. Only here and there was a face whose seriousness indicated a complete appreciation of the full portent of the scene. It may have been fancy, but to me it seemed that Count Witte alone understood. At all events he was the only man among all the bureaucrats who, at the close of the ceremony, spoke to any of the members on the Duma side of the room. The open avenue through the room from the door to the throne was like a yawning chasm, across which no word might pass, even of formal courtesy. “To us it is like letting the revolution into the palace,” said one lady of the court to me. So the whole bureaucratic side seemed to view it. No enemy could have viewed another with more open and keener suspicion. The Duma, it must be added, was the better behaved. The members were quiet, dignified, and obviously patient, through the extraordinarily long religious ceremony and a tedious hour of waiting. In the first three months of the year over seventy thousand men and women had been snatched from their homes and placed in prison or sent into exile. The release of all of these people, against many of whom there was no known charge, certainly no evidence, was what the country at large awaited with ill-suppressed eagerness. “The Emperor will grant an amnesty in his speech from the throne,” said popular rumor, and it was for this that the Duma listened when the Emperor stood before the throne, speech in hand, about to utter the first words. The attitude of an empire hung on the temper of that address. The quiet that fell over the assembly was the quiet of a mountain midnight. Not a dress rustled, not a foot scraped, not a sword jangled, no breath was audible. The eyes of the Emperor returned from their survey of the room and riveted on the paper he held. His lips parted, and the first syllable rang clearly to the farthest corners of the room: “The right, given me by divine authority, to care for the Fatherland, has prompted me to call upon representatives elected by the people to aid me in legislative work.