He put his rifle behind the rain-pipe, straightened his belt, and started towards the entrance door.

The door of the Mansion squeaked and swallowed him, and before I heard him walking up the stairs I followed him.

All was dark inside, only a feeble light from the court penetrated through the windows.  We passed the corridor, then a large room, then a small room.  Here Pashinsky stopped—­and I heard his heavy breathing.  Then he threw open the door.

I saw mattresses on the floor and in a far corner pale, trembling figures, glued together by fear.

Pashinsky hesitated for a moment—­to pick out the one he wanted—­and then with an outcry, suddenly rushed to this mass of helpless panic-stricken bodies, and a struggle between a delirious man, feebled by desire, and these ladies, began.

I jumped on him from behind; preoccupied, he did not feel when I put the rope around his neck so that the collar wouldn’t be in my way, tightened my weapon in a deadlock and dragged him away—­almost before his carnal touch contaminated the Princesses—­into the next room, and shut the doors.

He was making some efforts to free himself, hitting my knees with his heels, and growling from rage; then he bit me in the hand.  But in a minute I was already firmly sitting on his back, with my knees on his awkwardly turned arms, twisting the rope with all of the strength I had.

“Please, don’t kill him,” I heard a sobbing whispering voice say, and other voices, too, repeated the “don’t kill.”

This Kerensky idea made me quite angry and I said as calmly as I could under the circumstances: 

“With all of my reverence for your order, your Highnesses, I refuse to obey.  Please shut the doors and don’t wake up the others,—­I have my own accounts to settle.”  And when the doors closed, I kept tightening and tightening the rope until his head turned and his tongue,—­rough and dry,—­came way out and was touching my hands, and his face became hot and wet.  He made a few convulsive movements—­and became still.

When his head fell with a dull sound on the floor, I took him out under cover of the night, and threw his body into the well.  I walked out onto Tuliatskaya Street and chatted for a while with Leibner and Vert.

I was changed and nobody asked me where my friend Pashinsky was.

52

Comrade Fost was shot yesterday at nine in the morning for murder.  It was a glorious inspiration to put the tassel under his pillow.  In the afternoon we buried Pashinsky.  I gave my share for a wreath with red ribbons and the inscription “To him who fell for Proletariat—­Long live the International,” and was present at the funeral.  Dutzman made a speech; a very pathetic one.

In the evening the sentinels were doubled.  There are lights in every room now.  There was a light in every corridor.  The ladies—­are,—­for the moment being, out of immediate danger.  The Soviet decided to transport all to Ekaterinburg,—­as soon as a steamer will be available.