The Bronze Horseman Read Online Free PDF

ate.
    Tatiana’s task of buying up all the rice and vodka she could get her hands on was proving much harder than she had anticipated.
    The stores on Suvorovsky were empty of vodka. They carried cheese. But cheese would not keep well. They had bread, but bread would not keep well. The salami was gone, the canned goods, too. And the flour.
    With a quickening pace Tatiana walked down Suvorovsky, eleven blocks in all, over a kilometer, and every store was empty of canned or long-term provisions. It was only three o’clock.
    Tatiana passed two savings banks. Both were closed. Signs, hastily handwritten, said closed early. This surprised her. Why would the banks close early? It’s not as if they could run out of money. They were banks. She chuckled to herself.
    The Metanovs had waited too long, Tatiana realized, sitting around as they did, packing Pasha, bickering, looking dejectedly at one another. They should have been out the door in an instant, but instead Pasha was sent to camp. And Tatiana had read Zoshchenko. She should have been out an hour earlier. If only she had gone to Nevsky Prospekt, she could be standing in line right now with the rest of the crowds.
    But even though she strolled down Suvorovsky disheartened at not being able to find even a box of matches to buy, Tatiana felt the warm summer air carrying with it an anomalous scent of provenance, a scent of an order of things to come that she neither knew nor understood. Will I always remember this day? Tatiana thought, inhaling deeply. I’ve said that in the past: oh, this day I’ll remember, but I have forgotten the days I thought I would never forget. I remember seeing my first tadpole. Who would have thought? I remember tasting the salt water of the Black Sea for the first time. I remember getting lost in the woods by myself the first time. Maybe it’s the firsts you remember. I’ve never been in a real war before, Tatiana thought. Maybe I’ll remember this.
    Tatiana headed toward the stores near Tauride Park. She liked this area of the city, away from the hustle of Nevsky Prospekt. The trees were lush and tall, and there were fewer people. She liked the feeling of a bit of solitude.
    After looking inside three or four grocers, Tatiana wanted to just give up. She was seriously considering going back home and telling her father she wasn’t able to find anything, but the thought of telling him she had failed in the one small task he had assigned her filled her with anxiety. She walked on. Near the corner where Suvorovsky met Ulitsa Saltykov-Schedrin, there was a store with a long line of people stretching out into an otherwise empty street.
    Dutifully she went and stood behind the last person in line.
    Shifting from foot to foot, Tatiana stood and stood, asked for the time, stood and stood. The line moved a meter. Sighing, she asked the lady in front of her what they were standing in line for. The lady shrugged aggressively, turning away from Tatiana. “What, what?” the lady grumbled, holding her bag closer to her chest, as if Tatiana were about to rob her. “Stand in line like everybody else, and don’t ask stupid questions.”
    Tatiana waited. The line moved another meter. She asked for the time again.
    “Ten minutes after the last time you asked me!” barked the woman.
    When she heard the young woman in front of the grumpy lady say the word “banks” Tatiana perked up.
    “No more money,” the young woman was saying to an older woman standing next to her. “Did you know that? The savings banks have run out. I don’t know what they’re going to do now. Hope you have some in your mattress.”
    The older woman shook her head worriedly. “I had 200 rubles, my life savings. That’s what I have with me now.”
    “Well, buy, buy. Buy everything. Canned goods are especially—”
    The older woman shook her head. “Don’t like canned goods.”
    “Well, then buy caviar. I heard one woman bought ten kilos of caviar at Elisey on Nevsky. What’s