Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/20



URING the winter of 1839, just before the Festival of the Epiphany, there was a great thaw in Petersburg. The weather was so warm, that it was almost like spring: the snow melted during the day, water dripped from the roofs, the ice on the rivers became blue, and open water appeared in many places. On the Neva, just in front of the Winter Palace, there was a large open space. A warm but very high wind blew from the west, the water was driven in from the gulf, and the signal guns were fired.

The guard at the Palace at that time was a company of the Ismailovsky regiment, commanded by a very brilliant well educated officer named Nikolai Ivanovich Miller, a young man of the very best society (who subsequently rose to the rank of general and became the director of the Lycium). He was a man of the so-called "humane tendencies," which had long since been noticed in him, and somewhat impaired his chances in the service, in the eyes of his superiors.

Miller was really an exact and trustworthy