“There is misery to be found without going so far,” she said. “There are many who are hungry even in Moscow. I am one of them.”
“May I buy your crucifix?”
She glanced nervously on each side, and spoke to him in French again in a low voice.
“We are being watched. It is very dangerous for me to be in the market place. They do not like my name. Perhaps you would be good enough to go.”
He was aware of a young officer of the Red Army standing three paces away, watching and listening.
“Au revoir, madame.”
He turned away, stared into the face of the officer, and went further down the line.
The girl who had flamed scarlet at his glance was still there, and gave him a strange, wistful, lingering look which startled him. Then, as he drew near, she left her place in the line, and went to the lady with whom he had been speaking and whispered to her.
These people were frightened, in spite of the “New Economic Laws” which permitted private trading. They had come out into the open, but were not certain of this new liberty. Perhaps they had been trapped in some such way before.
After wandering about the streets and markets of Moscow for a long morning, Bertram became conscious suddenly of hunger, and he puzzled as to the way in which he could satisfy this desire. It was a long tramp back to his Guest House, across the river, and it would be more amusing to find an eating house of some kind. Christy had told him that two had just been opened in a street called the Arbat, the only two in Moscow—a city of two million people—which once was crowded with restaurants as luxurious as any in the world. He hailed a droschke, and by good luck made the isvostchik understand the name of the street, paying him a hundred thousand roubles from a wad of paper advanced by Christy, for the short drive.