Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/155

Rh replace the one reduced to a pulp by the wheels of the train. When recovered they reappeared in society without exhibiting any shame. Incredible, is it not?

Some spoke of an unhappy love affair, others of politics; my humble opinion is the general one, that they found themselves compromised by the arrest of their friend.

The affair was suppressed, thanks to the influence of their Uncle Trepoff, the chief of police, and without any ill-feeling, poor man, on his part!

Every day some fresh bomb explosion took place, causing many victims in some part or other of the Empire.

One day I happened to be walking on the Champs de Mars—where so many of the Revolutionaries who perished last March [1917] now lie buried in their red coffins—when my attention was drawn to a certain individual with a most evil countenance walking a few paces in front of me; when all of a sudden an izvo— diminutive of the word meaning "hackney carriage"—drew up quite close to me, and two men jumped out precipitately, throwing themselves on this individual and dragging him along with them into the carriage. One of them was a member of the military police, and the other a member of the secret police in plain clothes.

They had the greatest trouble to secure their prisoner, who was a most vigorous ruffian and made use of all his strength to free his