Red Dusk and the Morrow · Chapter
I: One of the Crowd explained
The narrator recounts witnessing the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in Petrograd on March 11, 1917, describing the tense atmosphere, bloodshed, and the sacking of the Kresty Prison.
What happens
The narrator recounts witnessing the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in Petrograd on March 11, 1917, describing the tense atmosphere, bloodshed, and the sacking of the Kresty Prison. After a year of Bolshevik rule, he works with the American Y.M.C.A. in Samara, training boy scouts, until he is urgently recalled to London. There, he is recruited into the Secret Intelligence Service and tasked with returning to Soviet Russia under a false identity. He meets Melnikoff, a monarchist seeking revenge for his parents' deaths, who helps arrange his secret crossing into Finland and then to Petrograd.
Themes in this chapter
Revolution and Its Betrayal
The narrator reflects on the initial hopes for freedom in the revolution and how they were 'blighted' by the Bolsheviks, leading to starvation and serfdom.
Survival and Everyday Resistance
The narrator's work with boy scouts in Samara and his secret intelligence mission represent acts of resistance against Bolshevik control.
Deception and Identity
The narrator adopts a false identity to re-enter Soviet Russia, and Melnikoff disguises himself as a seaman to cross the frontier.
Characters to notice
- Melnikoff
A monarchist seeking revenge for his parents' murder by Bolsheviks; helps the narrator arrange a secret crossing into Petrograd.
Key passages
“The snow glittered brilliantly in the frosty sunshine on the afternoon of March 11, 1917. The Nevsky Prospect was almost deserted. The air was tense with excitement and it seemed as if from the girdling faubourgs of the beautiful city of Peter the Great rose a low, muffled rumbling as of many voices.”
On March 11, 1917, the Nevsky Prospect was nearly empty under bright snow, but the city hummed with a tense, angry murmur from the outskirts.
Sets the scene on the eve of the revolution.
“I saw the first revolutionary regiments come out and witnessed the sacking of the arsenal by the infuriated mob. Over the river the soldiers were breaking into the Kresty Prison.”
The narrator watched revolutionary regiments emerge and the mob storm the arsenal, while soldiers broke into Kresty Prison across the river.
Key events of the revolution's outbreak.
“I had always associated rabbit-warrens with subterranean abodes, but here in this building I discovered a maze of rabbit-burrow-like passages, corridors, nooks, and alcoves, piled higgledy-piggledy on the roof.”
The narrator was surprised to find a labyrinth of narrow passages and rooms built on the roof of the London building, like a rabbit warren above ground.
Describes the secret intelligence office's confusing layout.
“Melnikoff gave me two addresses in Petrograd where I might find him, one at a hospital where he had formerly lived, and the other of a small caf├ę which still existed in a private flat unknown to the Bolshevist authorities.”
Melnikoff provided two contact points in Petrograd: a hospital he had lived in and a secret caf├ę operating in a private flat.
Details the underground network for the narrator's mission.