This is important because air is not a normal thing to think. If he had been thinking about something specific (even something trivial—Why is that bubble bluer than the other?) instead of being such an airhead, that thought would have helped him realize that he couldn’t treat the crowd—composed as it was of children, women, laborers, the homeless, and others—like they were organized rebels. Because reliable sources confirm that the tsar gave orders to treat them like rebels. A soap bubble isn’t a rebel, it’s an uncontainable emptiness (though that goes without saying, we’re just trying to shed a little light on the bathing tsar). Because rebels bear arms. Because the leaders of a rebellion are crushed by the powers that be. If the tsar hadn’t been such an airhead, he would have done something to prevent the catastrophe that would lead to his downfall. Which was unthinkable to him, because how could anything bring about the downfall of the tsar himself? The tsar, elevated so far above all others. The tsar, who made a grave error in thinking that the people coming to him for mercy were rebels. They weren’t. Oh, all right, a handful were rebels—Kollontai is a prime example—but the rest weren’t.

The Imperial Guard receives the order to attack the crowd—though not from the tsar; he can’t give orders because he’s covered in a blanket of soap bubbles. His brother may have given the order, but others say it was his uncle, and yet others say no order was given, that the horses’ panic spread from their hooves to the Cossacks’ swords and the infantry’s triggers.

And this panic manifested itself in drawn swords and bullets, or perhaps it was an order to attack—history favors the latter, but it’s such a stupid mistake that common sense favors the former, even if it’s not true—and some say the Cossacks came down the stairs in military formation, their polished boots treading each step in a dance of death. But there weren’t any stairs. Let’s not confuse the issue further.

The news doesn’t spread quickly through the avenues, streets, canals, and rivers of the city, it meanders in a daze, and that’s why most Petersburgians spend the next few hours as if it’s any old Sunday, which would have been the case for Anya, too, if it weren’t for Aleksandra.

27. Back in the Karenin Palace Kitchen

27. Back in the Karenin Palace Kitchen

“What I heard was bullets, ma’am. Before the swords, there were bullets. We were two hundred feet from the Narva Triumphal Arch, we could see the river. The soldiers fired three times into the air. The fourth shot was the signal to charge. They kept firing until they were out of ammunition. Then the Cossacks came at us.”