Some were brought to life again ; many died afterwards in the hospitals from the injuries received. One little boy was found sitting quite unhurt under a bench, where he had crept when the falling fragments began to shower down fire and flame upon the heads of the doomed multitude. The beams and dead bodies had so fallen over him as to form a protecting roof against the flame and smoke, and there the clilld remained till he was dragged out.
Oil the following day public prayers were offered up for the souls of tlie sufferers on the place that had witnessed the scene of their last agony.
The upper classes take part, as we have seen, in the common amusements of the Katsheli, but it is only for a few hours at noon ; they resort then to other diversions, and revel after their own fashion. To speak first of the theatres. Many as there are in St. Petersburg, they are all in full play during the butter-week ; while it lasts, there is no rest for the poor actors. Towards the close of the week they play twice a day, morning and evening, French, German, Russian, and Italian. In the great theatre (Bolshoi Tlieater) the great masked ball takes place in the butterweek, and this may also be reckoned among the popular diversions, since every well-dressed person is at liberty to go, whatever be liis rank, the emperor himself holding it his duty to appear there.