There were more and more soldiers coming and going in the city: marching troops, military trains, artillery teams clattering through the streets, large guns being transported on wagons to and from the station. The papers at one time made a great deal of Kiev being threatened and swore that the Germans would ‘never take our Mother City!’ The War had almost ceased to be one in which various allies fought various other allies. It had taken on the nature of a Patriotic War, like the war against Napoleon. Increasingly the newspapers harked back to this. Since the Germans did not take Kiev, I did not worry very much and was in the main unmoved by the War news. Kiev could never come to harm and even if the Germans occupied it, my mother and Esmé would not suffer. There was a good deal said of rape, crucifixion and wholesale murder and looting by German troops, but I did not expect such things to happen in Kiev, even if they happened elsewhere. The Germans, I knew, were an orderly, scientific people. I was not completely undisturbed by the thought of our Mother City being entered by Teutons. But the original founders came from Northern Europe in the first place. Better Teutons than Turks or Tatars.
The Petersburg spring arrived. It was greeted by the entire population as if Jesus had created a miracle! It was true that the famous ‘crystal days’ of the winter were the only positive factor in favour of the months between October and April, but I, coming from the South, could hardly believe it when that pathetic Baltic spring filled the hearts of the citizens with so much joy. Wading through dirty slush in felt overshoes, having miniature green buds pointed out to me, being shown some already-wilting flower as proof that summer was on the way, watching a demonstration of Futurists, in orange top-hats and yellow frock-coats, marching along the centre of the Nevski holding placards announcing the death of art, the end of ’the greater illiteracy’ and so on, was one of the most disappointing times of my life. I had been led to expect a great deal more. For me, St Petersburg was at her most beautiful in the mist. Then all but the great buildings were obscured and the trees looked like petrified, many-tendrilled Martians forming a guard of honour for the few of us who chose to walk the boulevards and parks. The blocks of flats and offices, set back from the Prospects, became natural cliffs, orderly and quiet and completely devoid of life. This impression was best gained in the early mornings of spring. In the evening, the yellow gaslight and electricity (including the multi-coloured advertising signs) would make every building a cave in which denizens crowded around their fires and plotted forays into the world. In this most artificial of all cities, this forerunner of the great housing estates and high-rise pseudo-towns of the modern world, boredom seemed endemic. As the War went on, little theatres and cabaret bars proliferated and crime and vandalism, violent terrorism and morbid ‘modern’ art were at their peak. Police and soldiers appeared in even greater numbers but revolutionary literature poured from secret presses. The police and soldiers had become as corrupt as their masters, and were everywhere held at bay, by profiteer and Red alike, by the greased palm or the threat of death. Jewish agitators knew how to wheedle their way round their ‘comrades’ the soldiers; and Jewish speculators knew where to find the weaknesses in their ‘friends’ the police and politicians. The Russian people were being sold back into slavery by the very men employed to protect them.
For my part, of course, I knew very little of this at the time. I studied. Even through the Summer vacation I continued to study. It was a joy to learn from Dr Matzneff. He evidently got great pleasure from teaching me. He swore to me that he would make up for the injustices I had suffered. He appeared to focus all his idealism upon me. I believe he made enemies amongst the pupils and staff as a result. He encouraged me in every field of learning. He encouraged me to think for myself; to speculate. As the end of the year exams arrived, he told me I had no need to fear them, for I was bound to pass. And pass them I did (they were chiefly oral). I would leave the Institute with flying colours, Dr Matzneff told me. If I kept up my studies as well as I did, a diploma was assured. I would be a qualified engineer and ready to begin working for a firm.
