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Madame Dravikine, seated in a corner, leaned back in her chair and let her heavy eyelids fall. Presently, out of the night, came the voice of Ivan Veliki, from the distant Kremlin, booming the eleventh hour. As the last stroke trembled through the room and echoed into silence, Sophia Gregoriev lifted herself suddenly to a sitting posture.
I ascended to the top of the cathedral steeple, called Ivan Veliki, which commands a view of the whole city; from thence I saw the palace of the czars, who conquered by their arms the crowns of Casan, Astracan, and Siberia.
Isolated in a great measure from the various quarters of the city, Russian and Tartaric, by the gardens, the large open spaces, the markets, and the river, the Kremlin looms up high over all in solitary grandeur a mass of churches, palaces, and fortifications, surmounted by the tower of Ivan Veliki, which stands out in bold octagonal relief against the one with its numerous bells swung in the openings of the different stages, thundering forth the hours of the day, or tolling a grand chorus to the chanting of innumerable priests in the churches below.
Large barracks, hospitals, palaces, and public buildings crop up here and there. Right through the town winds the Moskva in the figure of an S, and the walls of the Kremlin with their towers are reflected in the water. In the tower of Ivan Veliki hang thirty-three bells of various sizes. At its foot stands the fallen "Tsar" bell, which weighs 197 tons and is 65 feet in circumference.
From Goritz to the sea heavy fighting which resulted in further Italian successes along the northern brow of the Carso Plateau continued on November 2, 1916. Here troops of the Eleventh Army Corps, which repulsed violent counterattacks during the night, took strong defenses on difficult ground east of Veliki, Kribach, and Monte Pecinka.
A few minutes later it was seen that the Sissoi Veliki was also on fire, she being now the leading ship of the Russian port line of battle, and, in accordance with Togo's tactics, the object, with the Navarin and Admiral Nakhimoff, of the concentrated fire of our battle-line.
Soon the cupolas of the mighty Kremlin were in sight, all aglow with the bright sheen of the morn. Passing along its embattled walls, which now seemed of snowy whiteness, I reached the grand plaza of the Krasnoi Ploschod. Standing out in the open space, I gazed at the wondrous pile of gold-covered domes till my eyes rested on the highest point the majestic tower of Ivan Veliki.
Viewing it in connection with the city from the tower of Ivan Veliki, I certainly derived the most exquisite sensations of pleasure from the novelty, extent, and variety of the whole scene.
Looking from some great elevation, such as the tower of Ivan Veliki in the Kremlin, you see these clouds beneath you, agitated like waves, and forming a kind of nebulous sea, which is, however, soon taken up by the surrounding atmosphere.
On the other side are suspended some Damascus scimitars, and very curious Chinese sabres. The Arsenal contains nearly 900 cannon, weighing about 400 tons, a great number French, taken during the disastrous retreat in 1812. Among all these warlike trophies you will be proud to learn very few are English. Close to the tower of Ivan Veliki is placed on a massive pedestal the mighty bell.
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