Some of the younger Russians wore their rags with a kind of swagger and cheerful unconcern, only intent on keeping warm, by bits of sacking used as shawls round the neck, or by wearing seamen’s jerseys under their black jackets. Even in Petrograd youth had not lost all its spirit of gaiety, and Bertram heard a laugh now and then from young folk who went hurrying by, arm in arm. But the general impression of the faces he passed was haggard, mournful, and anxious. Christy gave an explanation.
“This city is running short of food. Moscow, with its crowd of Soviet officials, has first call on supplies. These people we pass are wondering if their next meal will be their last.”
“I want to talk to them,” said Bertram. “If only I knew a bit of Russian! I want to see inside their lives.”
“Try them with French, or German, or English,” said Christy. “Some of these people shovelling snow used to spend the season in Paris, Berlin, London.”
It was a woman selling cigarettes outside the station whose life was revealed to Bertram.
She leaned against a wall, coughing, in a thin dress that was no proof against a temperature of forty degrees below zero. She was a middle-aged woman, with a thin face and sallow skin through which the cheekbones showed. Bertram asked her in French for ten of her cigarettes, and paid her ten times too much, in filthy paper.
“You’ve given me too much,” she said, in a weak voice, “and I have no change.”
Her French was more perfect than Bertram’s.
“Never mind the change,” he said. “It’s cold for you, standing here.”
“Soon I shall be dead,” she said. “Are you French?”