Читать книгу The Red Reign. The True Story of an Adventurous Year in Russia онлайн

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“Why do they not play the Russian national hymn?” I asked of my friend before we left the table.

“Because the national air of Russia, like the ‘Marseillaise,’ is prohibited,” he replied. And thereupon he told me of how, a little while before, he had been one night in a famous St. Petersburg restaurant called “The Bear,” when, during the playing of the national hymn, a guard officer had shot and killed a man ostensibly because he lolled over the back of his chair instead of standing erect, squarely on both feet. The police authorities, fearing further disturbance of a similar nature, immediately prohibited the playing or singing of the national air!

It was nearly midnight when my friend and I returned to our hotel, but there we found other friends still up. Hardly had we laid off our greatcoats when the door was thrown open and in rushed a common acquaintance—a Russian—tremendously excited, but radiant. He had been with a group of intellectuals in a home just around the corner. Suddenly the police appeared and placed all present under arrest. Only our friend escaped, and he through some clever ruse. While he was still relating to us his experience we heard the sound of singing, in the street below, and as we went to the window caught the words of a favorite revolutionary hymn. My blood stirred in my veins when I learned that the singers were being led away to prison, and I thought then, as I often thought later, after wide experience in Russia, that few things on earth are more thrilling than the sound of voices under such circumstances—brave men and women marching through frozen streets, often half-clad, to prison, or tied to Cossack saddles being dragged to tortures, and fearlessly, gloriously singing the words of freedom.