I saw from Varia’s manner that she was a self-possessed and intelligent girl and I resolved to speak to her first regarding my staying the night, lest I terrified Stepanovna by the suggestion.
“When I went to my home this afternoon,” I said, “I found it locked. I expect the housekeeper was out. It is very far, and I wonder if I may stay the night here. A sofa will do to lie on, or even the floor. I am dreadfully tired and my leg is aching from an old wound. Ivan Sergeievitch said I might use his flat whenever I liked.”
“I will ask Stepanovna,” said Varia. “I do not think she will mind.” Varia left the room and, returning, said Stepanovna agreed—for one night.
The soup was soon ready. It was cabbage soup, and very good. I ate two big platefuls of it, though conscience pricked me in accepting a second. But I was very hungry. During supper a man in soldier’s uniform came in by the kitchen door and sat down on a box against the wall. He said nothing at all, but he had a good-natured, round, plump face, with rosy cheeks and twinkling eyes. With a jackknife he hewed square chunks off a loaf of black bread, one of which chunks was handed to me.
“This is my nephew Dmitri,” said Stepanovna. “He has just become a volunteer so as to get Red army rations, so we are better off now.”
Dmitri smiled at being mentioned, but said nothing. After two platefuls of soup I could scarcely keep my eyes open. So I asked where I might spend the night and was shown into the study, where I threw myself on the couch and fell fast asleep.
When I awoke I had such a strange sensation of unaccustomed surroundings that I was completely bewildered, and was only brought to my senses by Varia entering with a glass of tea—real tea, from Dmitri’s Red rations.
Then I recalled the previous day, my adventurous passage across the frontier, the search for Marsh and Melnikoff, the secret café, and my meeting with my present humble friends. With disconcerting brusqueness I also recollected that I had as yet no prospects for the ensuing night. But I persuaded myself that much might happen before nightfall and tried to think no more about it.
Stepanovna had quite got over her fright, and when I came into the kitchen to wash and drink another glass of tea she greeted me kindly. Dmitri sat on his box in stolid silence, munching a crust of bread.
“Been in the Red army long?” I asked him, by way of conversation.
“Three weeks,” he replied.
“Well, and do you like it?”
Dmitri pouted and shrugged his shoulders disparagingly.
“Do you have to do much service?” I persisted.
“Done none yet.”
“No drill?”
“None.”
“No marching?”
“None.”
Sounds easy, I thought. “What do you do?”
“I draw rations.”
“So I see,” I observed.
Conversation flagged. Dmitri helped himself to more tea and Stepanovna questioned me further as to how Ivan Sergeievitch was doing.
“What were you in the old army?” I continued at the first opportunity to Dmitri.
“An orderly.”
“What are you now?”
“A driver.”
“Who are your officers?”
“We have a commissar.” A commissar in the army is a Bolshevist official attached to a regiment to supervise the actions of the officer staff.
“Who is he?”
“Who knows?” replied Dmitri. “He is one like the rest,” he added, as if all commissars were of an inferior race.
“What is the Red army?” I asked, finally.
“Who knows?” replied Dmitri, as if it were the last thing in the world to interest anyone.
Dmitri was typical of the mass of the unthinking proletariat at this time, regarding the Bolshevist Government as an accidental, inexplicable, and merely temporary phenomenon which was destined at an early date to decay and disappear. As for the thinking proletariat they were rapidly dividing into two camps, the minority siding with the Bolsheviks for privilege and power, the majority becoming increasingly discontented with the suppression of the liberties won by the revolution.
“Have you a Committee of the Poor in this house?” I asked Stepanovna. “Yes,” she said, and turning to Dmitri added, “Mind, Mitka, you say nothing to them of Ivan Pavlovitch.”
Stepanovna told me the committee was formed of three servant girls, the yard-keeper, and the house-porter. The entire house with forty flats was under their administration. “From time to time,” said Stepanovna, “they come and take some furniture to decorate the apartments they have occupied on the ground floor. That is all they seem to think of. The house-porter is never in his place in the hall” (for this I was profoundly thankful), “and when we need him we can never find him.”
Varia accompanied me to the door as I departed. “If you want to come back,” she said, “I don’t think Stepanovna will mind.” I insisted on paying for the food I had eaten and set out to look again for Melnikoff.
The morning was raw and snow began to fall. People hurried along the streets clasping bundles and small parcels. Queues, mostly of working women, were waiting outside small stores with notices printed on canvas over the lintel “First Communal Booth,” “Second Communal Booth,” and so on, where bread was being distributed in small quantities against food cards. There was rarely enough to go round, so people came and stood early, shivering in the biting wind. Similar queues formed later in the day outside larger establishments marked “Communal Eating House, Number so-and-so.” One caught snatches of conversation from these queues. “Why don’t the ‘comrades’ have to stand in queues?” a woman would exclaim indignantly. “Where are all the Jews? Does Trotsky stand in a queue?” and so on. Then, receiving their modicum of bread, they would carry it hastily away, either in their bare hands, or wrapped up in paper brought for
