I went down about half-past ten to the Square at the end of the Sadovaya and found it filled with a vast concourse of peasants, not only the Square was filled, but the Sadovaya as far as the eye could see.  They were arranged in perfect order, about eight in a row, arm in arm.  Every group carried its banner, and far away into the distance one could see the words “Freedom,” “Brotherhood,” “The Land for All,” “Peace of the World,” floating on the breeze.  Nevertheless, in spite of these fine words, it was not a very cheering sight.  The day was wretched—­no actual rain, but a cold damp wind blowing and the dirty snow, half ice and half water; the people themselves were not inspiring.  They were all, it seemed, peasants.  I saw very few workmen, although I believe that multitudes were actually in the procession.  Those strange, pale, Eastern faces, passive, apathetic, ignorant, childish, unreasoning, stretched in a great cloud under the grey overhanging canopy of the sky.  They raised if once and again a melancholy little tune that was more wail than anything else.  They had stood there, I was told, in pools of frozen water for hours, and were perfectly ready to stand thus for many hours more if they were ordered to do so.  As I regarded their ignorance and apathy I realised for the first time something of what the Revolution had already done.

A hundred million of these children—­ignorant, greedy, pathetic, helpless, revengeful—­let loose upon the world!  Where were their leaders?  Who, indeed, would their leaders be?  The sun sometimes broke through for a moment, but the light that it threw on their faces only made them more pallid, more death-like.  They did not laugh nor joke as our people at home would have done....  I believe that very few of them had any idea why they were there....

Suddenly the word came down the lines to move forward.  Very slowly, wailing their little tune, they advanced.

But the morning was growing old and I must at once see Vera.  I had made up my mind, during the night, to do anything that lay in my power to persuade Vera and Nina to leave their flat.  The flat was the root of all their trouble, there was something in its atmosphere, something gloomy and ominous.  They would be better at the other end of the town, or, perhaps, over on the Vassily Ostrov.  I would show Vera that it was a fatal plan to have Semyonov to live with them (as in all probability she herself knew well enough), and their leaving the flat was a very good excuse for getting rid of him.  I had all this in my head as I went along.  I was still feeling ill and feeble, and my half-hour’s stand in the market-place had seriously exhausted me.  I had to lean against the walls of the houses every now and then; it seemed to me that, in the pale watery air, the whole world was a dream, the high forbiding flats looking down on to the dirty ice of the canals, the water dripping, dripping, dripping....  No one was about.  Every one had gone to join in the procession.  I could see it, with my mind’s eye, unwinding its huge tails through the watery-oozing channels of the town, like some pale-coloured snake, crawling through the misty labyrinths of a marsh.