Many other things are gone, too, never to return. Desolation has penetrated even to the heart of our little home. I was obliged to give up all thoughts of repapering. The cost of living has risen to such a degree as to make a poor man look with apprehension at the future. Bread and fuel. … But why should I fill my diary with the prosaic details of everyday life? Dear, dear, the war is proving a monster, indeed!
The Germans continue to advance from Warsaw and are getting nearer and nearer to us. No one speaks about it, and all wait anxiously for new developments. We look askance at each other for any chance of some fresh news, but what fresh news can there be? Even the Germans, it seems, know nothing, and no one in the whole world knows or understands. … The world is turned upside down.
21st August.
Kovno has fallen. Our military experts declared this fortress impregnable, and it was cracked like a nut and consumed instantaneously.
25th August.
Osovetz has fallen.
28th August.
The fortress of Brest has been taken.
It’s a lucky thing for me that I have this diary, where I can speak of my fears without any sense of shame. One has to put on a brave countenance before others, and hide one’s horrible fear. It would be a dreadful thing indeed if the whole population of Petrograd were to begin to tremble and to scream with terror, as I feel inclined to do at any moment! And the terror is real, not silly talk calculated to alarm others, that gives the person creating the alarm a secret sense of pleasure. It makes you feel that you want to run away and hide and you don’t know where to go, nor how you’ll get the money. You seem like a tree standing at the edge of a wood exposed to a hurricane that is drawing near; you fold the leaves closer about you, while inwardly you quake to the very roots.
I am living in the one hope that our office may be moved. There is a lot of whispering going on about it, and gathering together of books. I only wish it were true!
I no longer try to understand what it is that I fear so much, both for myself and the children. The word “war” no longer conveys any meaning to me. It is a dead word we have grown accustomed to using. Something living is drawing close to us now with a wild roar, something living and immense, and it shakes the earth as it comes. “They are coming!” There are no words terrible enough to equal these. “They are coming! They are coming!”
The white nights after Lidotchka’s death with all their torments, would have been preferable to this. You felt safer in the light. What can one do during the dark Autumn nights, terrible enough without any Germans? Last night I couldn’t sleep for fear. Horrible pictures floated through my brain. I saw the advancing Germans, I heard their unfamiliar speech, I saw their strange Teutonic faces and guns and knives, ready for their murderous work. As in a dream I saw them bustling about a baggage-train; they were shouting at the horses in their own tongue; they were rumbling in crowds over bridges; I could hear their voices, so vivid did my vision of them appear.
There were millions of them—preoccupied, busy men with knives for our throats—and their ruthless faces were turned to us, to Petrograd, to Post Office Street, to me. They marched through country roads and villages; they scrambled into motorcars; railway trains swarmed with them; they were in aeroplanes dropping bombs from above; they leapt from hill to hill; they hid for a while, then rushed out again, coming another mile nearer to us; they showed their teeth; they dragged their knives and guns; they set fire to houses; and nearer and nearer they came. My hair stood on end. I felt myself in the midst of a lonely wood surrounded by cutthroat robbers creeping up to the house in the darkness of the night.
I was reduced to such a condition in the end that I lay craning for every sound, and the merest rustle made me think that someone had come ready to pounce upon me. It was unbearable! I am truly a coward, I can see that now, but I can’t help it. What can I do? It’s horrible!
And not so long ago I was idiotic enough to think of repapering my rooms!
29th August.
I have come to myself, somewhat, and take a more reasonable view of our position. The newspapers say, and the fellows in the office, too, that the Germans will never get to Petrograd. I wonder if they are right? The streets are horribly dull, and if you happen to forget the Germans for a little, they seem the same dull streets as of old. There are the trams and the cabs and the shops, which are open as usual. There is more dust and dirt abroad, and a strong gust of wind nearly blinds you and chokes you with dried horse manure. Houses and palaces seem deserted and dirty too, and like clouds of dust and smoke, a thick fog hangs over the Neva, obscuring the other side of the river.
I read the reports
