My first impression of that noble city, created by the founder of modern Russia, Peter the Great, was poor. It seemed like a mausoleum. The station was crowded enough, full of uniforms, but lacked the casual bustle of similar stations in Ukraine. There were comparatively few hucksters, the porters were smarter and considerably more servile than any I was used to. I had no trouble getting one. There seemed to be izvozhtiks a-plenty waiting outside for fares. There were also motor-cabs which tempted me, since I had never ridden in one. They would be much more expensive, I was sure. The streets of the capital were enormously wide, but there seemed hardly any life on them. Everyone was dwarfed. Perhaps all the life was in the great suburbs where the workers lived. In a sense it was, like Washington or Canberra, an artificial city, very conscious of its dignity. The double-headed eagle could be seen everywhere. Portraits of Tsar Nicholas and other members of the Royal Family abounded. The whole place felt like a series of extensions of the royal palaces. It seemed one could not even raise one’s voice here, unless it was to berate a servant.
I was also astonished at the way in which porters, cabbies and others were treated. Sharp, commanding voices carried through the cold air and bags were loaded into Carriages, horses were whipped into rapid trots (vehicles moved at an incredible pace in Petersburg, as if everyone were racing everyone else). Trams and motorcars, even, seemed better-bred than any I had seen before. They hardly made a sound. And when I gave the address of Green and Grunman, my uncle’s agents, to the cab-driver, I had to speak to him two or three times before he heard me. Partly this was because of the vast fur cap he wore, with his scarlet coat-collar folded around it, partly it was my soft ‘Southern’ accent which was unfamiliar to him. The whip snapped, the horse picked up her feet, and off we went, trotting past tall buildings which seemed to contain nothing but bright electric light and no people at all.
I was much impressed by the width of the streets, the classic beauty of the buildings. Our capital had been called the ‘Venice of the North’ because of the rivers and canals intersecting the streets, the palaces and public buildings, hotels and barracks laid out with precision to provide the effect of maximum grandeur. Odessa could not bear comparison in size or scope and seemed small, comfortable and welcomingly provincial to me. I regretted the trouble with Shura and wished I had elected to study in Odessa after all. I felt like a yokel. If St Petersburg had this effect on everyone (save, presumably, indigenous aristocrats) it was no wonder she had become a hot-bed of revolution. Such cities create more than envy, they create self-consciousness. And many who feel self-consciously inferior will resort to aggressive politics. There was something brooding and haughty, something distant about the city. The sky above was too wide. I could understand, at last, how the characteristic literature of Russia came to be written and why writers of light-hearted stories turned into melancholies as soon as they arrived at the centre of our cultural life.
The cab came to a halt outside a tall, grey building. A haughty commissionaire stepped forward to take my bags and to help me to the ground. I paid the cabby what he asked and added a small tip. The commissionaire wore an elaborate blue-and-gold uniform. I was used to a preponderance of uniforms, for almost everyone had one in Russia, but I had never seen quite so many as in St Petersburg. I told him to look after my luggage and I took an electric elevator to the third floor of the building to where the firm of Green and Grunman had their offices.
I knocked on a glass door. Behind it moved several shadows. There was a pause. One shadow loomed. The door was unlocked. A tall, white-haired man stood bending over me. He was one of the thinnest people I have ever seen. His hair fell over his face and almost reached his drooping white moustache which in turn touched his chin-beard (known in those days as a ‘Dutch’) which then appeared to blend naturally with his collar and shirt. He spoke good Russian in a whispering lisp I assumed to be some kind of English accent. He asked if he could help me.
I told him my uncle’s name. I understood that I was expected. He seemed relieved and he ushered me in. He took me through two offices where girl typewriters and clerks were hard at work at small, wooden desks, and knocked upon a polished oak door. ‘Mr Green?’ he said.
‘Enter,’ said Mr Green in English.
