There then approached the tribune a businesslike-looking little man, rather stout, round-shouldered, and with a black moustache. “This is Badaev, commissar of food,” I said to my neighbour. Sitting in front of us were two young soldiers who seemed to treat the proceedings with undue levity. When the plump Badaev mounted the tribune they nudged each other and one of them said, referring to the graded categories into which the populace is divided for purposes of provisioning: “Look! what a tub! Ask him what food category he belongs to”—at which little pleasantry they both giggled convulsively for several minutes.
Badaev spoke well but with no oratorical cunning. He said the food situation was deplorable, that speculation was rife, and mentioned decrees which should rectify defects. Badaev could hardly be called a logician. He said in effect that, though the soup was bad, the Communist provisioning apparatus would be the most perfect in the world. He admitted abuses in the communal kitchens. Communists, he acknowledged regretfully, were as bad as the others. “You must elect controllers for the eating-houses,” he said, “but you must never let them stay long in one job. They have a knack of chumming up with the cook, so you must always keep them moving.”
There were several other speakers who all sang the praises of the Communist Party and the good judgment of the electorate. At first attentive, the audience became languid after midnight. Periodically the “Internationale” was played. Toward the end many people lolled over the desks with their heads on their arms. Like school-children, they were not allowed to leave before the end except upon some good pretext.
At last the “Internationale” was played for the very last time, the men did up their loosened belts and donned their coats and the audience streamed out into the cool summer air. My head ached violently. I walked along to the quay of the Neva. The river was superb. The sky-line of the summer night was tinged with delicate pink, blue, and green. I looked at the water and leaning over the parapet laid my throbbing temples against the cold stone.
A militiaman touched my arm. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“I come from the soviet.”
“Your order?”
I showed it. “I am going home,” I added.
He was not a rough-looking fellow. I had a strange impulse to exclaim bitterly: “Comrade, tell me, how long will this revolution last?” But what was the good? Though everybody asks it, this is the one question nobody can answer.
My path lay along the beautiful river. The stream flowed fast—faster than I walked. It seemed to me to be getting ever faster. It was like the Revolution—this river—flowing with an inexorable, ever-swifter, endless tide. To my fevered fancy it became a roaring torrent tearing all before it, like the rapids of Niagara; not, however, snowy white, but Red, Red, Red.