There was a steady decrease in our food supplies and an increase in illicit alcohol. Everyone lacked sleep. There was horrible tension in the air, a morbid sense of doom, longer bread-queues, longer rows of wounded waiting for transport or a hospital bed, larger crowds of beggars, hucksters and prostitutes on the quays and boulevards. So many aristocrats had left for Petrograd’s old rival, Moscow. Newspapers increasingly resorted to references to the Patriotic War against Napoleon as if preparing us for guerilla action with invaders on our own soil. Many people felt we were already defeated. The air of melancholia spread even to
I took to writing longer and more optimistic letters to my mother, to Esmé, to Captain Brown: life in the capital was full of good cheer; the Tsar and his family appeared in public every day; the Germans were bound to retreat soon; this winter would see the end of them. Because of difficulties with transport it was unlikely I would return at Christmas. They should not be surprised, though, if I did especially well at the Polytechnic. I wrote in cafés and restaurants. I wrote at school. I posted the letters sometimes twice a day. I was feeling homesick for the ordinary discomforts of Kiev. Petrograd’s filthy, uneven pavements, piles of refuse, menacing beggars, were all the worse for being unfamiliar. I received replies which were as optimistic. My mother said her health had improved. With God’s help and a mild winter she was looking forward to returning to the laundry. Esmé said she had applied to train as a nurse. She would soon leave the grocery. Captain Brown’s vaguely Anglified, sprawling letters, in which Russian characters took on the appearance of modified English ones, insisted that ‘Johnny Turk’ was on the run. He was only good at ‘defensive tactics’. ‘Fritz’ was useless without his officers and there were precious few of those left alive. British armour would soon shift the Hun from his ratholes. This would improve the morale of the ‘Frogs’, who had no real stomach for War, as they constantly demonstrated. He supplied maps in which military positions were described. He demonstrated how we would ‘smash through’ the German positions on a narrow front, with the Rumanians closing on them in a pincer movement. None of these battles ever came to be fought. Indeed the trench war was interminably boring. Larger numbers of men were killed and wounded. It seemed summer would never come again. Fimbulwinter and Ragnarok were actually with us.
Along the Nevski a few high-stepping horses still pulled fine carriages. As snow fell and rivers froze and ice formed on the streets some troikas appeared. But along the gravel walks between the main pavements and the roads, there hopped a variety of cripples. They had missing legs and arms, bandaged faces, peculiar, rolling limps; they wore uniforms and frequently paused as if expecting a friend to approach and offer help. They lined up beside newspaper kiosks. They stood talking in low voices as they leaned against the railings of parks and private gardens. The
Stories of Rasputin grew increasingly bizarre. One afternoon Kolya took me to a great Petrograd house overlooking a more picturesque part of the river. Various members of the Mikhishevski family were gathered for tea. Clearly neither I nor the Count was particularly welcome. The over-furnished house contained a bewildering mixture of old, heavy sofas and tables and the very latest modern furniture from France and England. Here I met my first aristocrats ‘at home’. They seemed a rather ordinary group of people. They were richly dressed, had perfect manners and the china from which they drank their tea was very thin, but their conversation was not as brilliant as I had hoped.
When the older relatives had left, two girls and a youth, cousins of Kolya, who appeared to be their hero, gathered about my friend and discussed the Court gossip. Rasputin had strengthened his grip on the Tsarina. As a result the Tsar, who doted on her, was losing interest in the War. Only his honour, and the Rumanian alliance, made him refuse to consider making peace with Germany.
