Beyond this - utter darkness.
Out there stand strange trees capped with snow, looking like chandeliers wrapped in muslin, and neck-deep snowdrifts all around.
Terrifying.
Obviously no one, however courageous, is going to come here.
Chiefly because there is nothing to come for.
The City, though, is another matter.
A night of alarm, of military decision.
Street-lamps shining like strings of beads.
The Germans asleep, but with half an eye open.
A blue cone of light suddenly flashes into life in one of the City's darkest streets.
'Halt!'
Crunch . . . crunch . . .
Helmeted soldiers, with black ear-muffs, walking down the middle of the street. . .
Crunch . . .
Rifles not slung, but at the ready.
The Germans are not in a joking mood for the moment.
Whatever else may be in doubt, the Germans are to be taken seriously.
They look like dung-beetles.
'Papiere!''
'Halt!'
A cone from the flashlight . . .
A big shiny black car with four headlamps.
No ordinary car, because it is followed at a brisk canter by an escort of eight cavalrymen.
The Germans are not impressed, and shout at the car:
'Halt!'
"Where to?
Who?
Why?'
'General Belorukov, commanding general.'
That is another matter.
Proceed, general.
Deep inside, behind the glass of the car's windows, a pale moustached face.
Faint glimmer reflected from general's shoulder-straps.
The German helmets saluted.
Secretly they didn't care whether it was General Belorukov, or Petlyura, or a Zulu chief-it was a lousy country anyway.
But when in Zululand, do as the Zulus do.
So the helmets saluted.
Courtesy is international, as the saying goes. #
A night of martial deeds.
Rays of light slanting out of Madame Anjou's windows, with their ladies' hats, corsets, underwear and crossed cannon.
A cadet marched back and forth like a pendulum, freezing cold, tracing the tsarist cypher in the snow with the tip of his bayonet.
Over in the Alexander I High School the arc-lights shone as though at a ball.
Fortified by a sufficient quantity of vodka Myshlaevsky tramped around the corridors, glancing up at Tsar Alexander, keeping an eye on the switch-box.
There at the school things might have been worse: the sentry-posts armed with eight machine-guns and manned by cadets - not mere students . . . and they would fight.
Myshlaevsky's eyes were red as a rabbit's.
He was unlikely to get much sleep that night, but there was plenty of vodka and just enough tension in the air for excitement.
Provided it got no worse life in the City was tolerable in this state.
If you had nothing on your conscience you could keep out of trouble.
True, you might be stopped four times, but if you had your papers on you there was nothing to hold you up.
It might look odd that you were out so late at night, but still - pass, friend . . .