The  man  said  again,  "Tovarish,  did  you  hear  what
I  said?  Give  me  money!"  Not  another  soul  was
in  sight.  On  one  side  was  a  deserted  street,  on  the
other  a  steep  embankment  down  to  the  ice  of  the
Little  Neva.  The  man  said  a  third  time,  "Tovar-
ish, give  me  money  or  it  will  be  worse  for  you!"
My  friend,  who  spoke  Russian  and,  in  fact,  was


74  RUNAWAY  RUSSIA

born  in  Russia,  turned  around  and  swore  at  the
would-be  robber.  Then  he  walked  on.  The  man
followed  him  and,  getting  uglier,  threatened  him
with  all  kinds  of  awful  things  unless  he  handed
over  all  the  money  in  his  pockets.  My  friend
turned,  and  before  the  man  could  defend  himself
gave  him  a  furious  bloyv  on  the  jaw,  which  sent
him  spinning  down  the  embankment  to  the  ice  be-
low. My  friend  turned  around  and  walked  home.
Every  day  one  heard  of  apartments  being  en-
tered. People  were  even  robbed  on  the  Nevsky.
Soldiers  stopped  women  and  begged  money  from
them.  One  dared  not  refuse  them,  at  least,  a  Rus-
sian dared  not.  I  did,  and  they  did  not  insist.
Some  of  the  criminals  released  from  Peter  and
Paul  Fortress  by  the  revolutionists  were  rounded
up  and  interned  again,  but  a  great  many  of  them
remained  at  large.  As  all  records  had  been  de-
stroyed, it  was  extremely  difficult  to  identify  these
escaped  convicts.
One  had  a  feeling  that  mysterious  things  were
going  on,  a  feeling  that  is  rather  uncomfortable,
and  one  saw  strange  things  that  were  never  ex-
plained. One  night  in  April,  on  my  way  back  to
the  hotel,  I  turned  at  the  Austrian  embassy  into  the
street  that  faced  it.  I  was  with  an  American.
