I passed the Red Square where the heroes of the Revolution are buried along the Kremlin wall. Thousands of others, as devoted and heroic, lie in unknown graves throughout the country and on the fronts. A new world is not born without pain. Much hunger and misery Russia is suffering still, the heritage of the past which the Revolution has come to abolish forever.
On the wall of the old Duma, near the Iverskaya Gate, I read the legend cut into the stone: “Religion is opium for the people.” But in the chapel nearby services were being held and the place was crowded. The cassocked priest, long hair down his back, was musically reciting the Greek-Catholic litany. The worshipers, mostly women, knelt on the cold floor, continuously crossing themselves. Several men, shabbily dressed and carrying portfolios, came in quietly, bowed low and crossed themselves reverently.
A little further I came upon a marketplace, the historic Okhotny Ryad, opposite the Hotel National. Rows of little stalls on one side, the more pretentious stores on the other, the sidewalk between them—it has all remained as in the time past. Fish and butter were offered, bread and eggs, meat, candy, and cosmetics—a living page from the life the Revolution has abolished. An old lady with finely chiseled features, in a threadbare coat, stood quietly holding a Japanese vase. Near her was another woman, younger and intellectual looking, with a basket containing crystal wine glasses of rare workmanship. On the corner little boys and girls were selling cigarettes and lepyoshki, a kind of potato pancake, and further I saw a crowd surrounding an old woman busily dishing out tshtchi (cabbage soup).
“A fiver, a fiver!” she cried in a hoarse, cracked voice. “Delicious tshtchi, only five kopeks!”
The steaming pot breathed an appetizing odor. “Give me a plate,” I said, handing the woman a rouble.
“God be with you, little uncle,” she eyed me suspiciously, “a fiver it costs, five kopeks.”
“Here’s a whole rouble,” I replied.
The crowd laughed good-humoredly. “She means five roubles,” someone explained, “a rouble is only a kopeck.”
“It ain’t worth that, either,” a little urchin chimed in.
The hot liquid sent a pleasing warmth through my body, but the taste of voblia (fish) was insufferable. I made a motion to return the dish.
“Please permit me,” a man at my elbow addressed me. He was of middle age, evidently of the intelligentsia, and spoke in accents of the cultured Russian. His shiny dark eyes lit up features of a sickly pallor. “Your permission,” he repeated, indicating the dish.
I handed him the plate. Avidly, like a starved man, he swallowed the hot tshtchi, gleaning the last shred of cabbage. Then he thanked me profusely.
I noticed a thick volume under his arm. “Bought it here?” I asked.
“Ah, no, how is it possible! I have been trying to sell it since morning. I’m a civil engineer, and this is one of my last,” he patted the book affectionately. “But excuse me, I must hurry to the store before it is too late. They haven’t given any bread out for two days. Extremely obliged to you.”
I felt a tug at my elbow. “Buy some cigarettes, little uncle,”—a young girl, extremely emaciated, held her hand out to me. Her fingers, stiff with cold, were insecurely clutching the cigarettes lying loose in her palm. She was without hat or coat, an old shawl wrapped tightly about her slender form.
“Buy, barin,” she pleaded in a thin voice.
“What barin,” a girl nearby resented. “No more barin,5 we’re all tovarishi now. Don’t you know,” she gently chided.
She was comely, not over seventeen, her red lips strongly contrasting with the paleness of her face. Her voice was soft and musical, her speech pleasing.
For a moment her eyes were full upon me, then she motioned me aside.
“Buy me a little white bread,” she said modestly, yet not in the least shamefaced; “for my sick mother.”
“You don’t work?” I asked.
“Don’t work!” she exclaimed, with a touch of resentment. “I’m typing in the sovnarkhoz, but we get only one-half pound of bread now, and little of anything else.”
“Oblava!6 militsioneri!” There were loud cries and shouts, and I heard the clanking of sabres. The market was surrounded by armed men.
The people were terror-stricken. Some sought to escape, but the military circle was complete; no one was permitted to leave without showing his papers. The soldiers were gruff and imperious, swearing coarse oaths and treating the crowd with roughness.
A militsioner had kicked over the tshtchi pot, and was dragging the old woman by the arm. “Let me get my pot, little father, my pot,” she pleaded.
“We’ll show you pots, you cursed speculator,” the man threatened, pulling her along.
“Don’t maltreat the woman,” I protested.
“Who are you? How dare you interfere!” a man in a leather cap shouted at me. “Your papers!”
I produced my identification document. The Chekist glanced at it, and his eye quickly caught the stamp of the Foreign Office and Chicherin’s signature. His manner changed. “Pardon me,” he said. “Pass the foreign tovarish,” he ordered the soldiers.
On the street the militsioneri were leading off their prisoners. Front and rear marched the soldiers with bayoneted rifles held horizontally, ready for action. On either flank were
