The student was a very intense fellow. His voice fairly rang with the determination of a man consecrated to a cause. “My word,” said the officer to me, “these two will be arrested this very hour if the gendarme appears. That student chap cares not whether he dies to-day or to-morrow.” “Bravo!” I cried, curious for the officer’s reply. Instantly his face sobered. “Hush, man! Do you forget you are now in Russia?” I laughed unbelievingly, and the attaché who was sitting next to me and who had been listening said: “Let me tell you a little story. Once I was in a village church when an old woman suddenly made a scene in the gallery. She was carried down-stairs and into the air, where a crowd gathered about her. ‘What is it?’ ‘What is the matter?’ we all asked her. Amid her tears and with shortened breath she said: ‘I was in the gallery. I had no prayer-book, so I asked the sexton to give me one. He went down-stairs and handed one up to me from below.’ ‘Well?’ ‘He stood on the floor and handed me the book--and I was in the gallery.’ “‘That would be impossible, woman,’ we said. ‘No man could reach that distance.’ “‘But I say he did. He did hand it to me,’ protested the woman. At last an old body on the edge of the crowd exclaimed: ‘It could not be the churchman. It was surely the devil.’ “The excited one grew calm then, and after a minute said quietly: ‘Perhaps it was. It is so hard, sometimes, to tell who is man and who is devil.’ “Remember that, sir, as long as you are in Russia--it is hard to tell who is man and who is devil.” The discussion raged hot till near midnight. Only the officer remained silent. He could not speak. He dared not--then. He listened intently and his eyes often glistened with interest. At last he took from his grip a bottle of liquor and a traveling drinking-cup. Filling the cup he held it high above him and in a voice that sounded to me full of hollow mockery shouted: “Vive la Russie!” The carriage suddenly fell silent. The student evidently hesitated whether to speak his defiance or not. I felt confident that the officer was heart and soul with the sentiments of the student, so I ventured to murmur, distinctly, but not too openly: “Vive la Revolution!” The glass was near his lips, but at my words he paused, and, leaning toward me, whispered: [Illustration: Moscow barricades] “That is better, but not so loud, please.” And then, this man, the Russian wearing the uniform of the Czar, drank to the toast--not of “la Russie”--but “la Revolution”! Punctually at eight-thirty the next morning we rolled into the so-called Warsaw station in the “Quiet Capital,” and I drove directly to a hotel where friends awaited me. Outwardly, St. Petersburg preserved that appearance of calm which makes the city one of the most charming in Europe.