Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/32

20 the Red Tsars, Lenin and Trotzky, robbed people and destroyed whole sections of towns that were inhabited by Poles, Tartars, Armenians and Jews. It was the period of the pogroms of terrible memory. "Pogrom" is the Russian word for "thunder"—and those who lived through it will long remember this period when there rolled through the land the thunder that gave over to former prisoners and criminals whole towns of those marked for persecution to the plunder of these men with the silent permission of the local authorities and of the Central Government. Under such lashes the demands for a constitution and for the removal of criminals from high posts in the Government increased in volume and extent.

On January 10th I walked from my hotel to the Nevsky Prospect. Crowds of people thronged the sidewalks. Though there was a distinct feeling of restlessness and agitation in the air, nothing gave indication of any reason for, or expectation of, trouble. I was even surprised that so few policemen were in the streets—an unusual thing in the capital. While pondering over this, I was just arriving at the Catholic Church of St. Catherine, when I noticed the people in front of me stop suddenly for a moment and then in panic scatter and run to the other sidewalk or start down the middle of the street with shouts and cries. Even yet I did not understand what it was all about until, a little way up the Prospect, I saw a line of soldiers hurrying out to form a double rank across the street from house to house. The next thing I knew, two volleys came ringing down the Prospect. Without a sound a woman dressed in mourning twisted into a ball and lay still on the ground; a man with bulging and startled eyes ran past me, pressing his bleeding head with his hands; and a schoolboy