We the Living Read Online Free PDF Page B

frozen hands, of raised collars that did not prevent the raindrops from rolling down many backs, for many heads were bent.
    “Well,” said Alexander Dimitrievitch, “we’re back.”
    “Isn’t it wonderful!” said Kira.
    “Mud, as ever,” said Lydia.
    “We’ll have to take a cab. Such an expense!” said Galina Petrovna.
    They crowded into one cab, Kira sitting on top of the bundles. The horse jerked forward, sending a shower of mud on Kira’s legs, and turned into the Nevsky Prospect.
    The long, broad avenue lay before them, as straight as if it were the spine of the city. Far away, the slender gold spire of the Admiralty gleamed faintly in the gray mist, like a long arm raised in a solemn greeting.
    Petrograd had seen five years of revolution. Four of those years had closed its every artery and every store, when nationalization smeared dust and cobwebs over the plate-glass windows; the last year had brought out soap and mops, new paint and new owners, as the state’s New Economic Policy had announced a “temporary compromise” and allowed small private stores to re-open timidly.
    After a long sleep, Nevsky was opening its eyes slowly. The eyes were not used to the light; they had opened in a hurry and they stared, wide, frightened, incredulous. New signs were cotton strips with glaring, uneven letters. Old signs were marble obituaries of men long since gone. Gold letters spelled forgotten names on the windows of new owners, and bullet holes with sunburst cracks still decorated the glass. There were stores without signs and signs without stores. But between the windows and over closed doors, over bricks and boards and cracked plaster, the city wore a mantle of color bright as a patchwork: there were posters of red shirts, and yellow wheat, and red banners, and blue wheels, and red kerchiefs, and gray tractors, and red smokestacks; they were wet, transparent in the rain, showing layers of old posters underneath, growing—unchecked, unrestricted—like the bright mildew of a city.
    On a corner, an old lady held timidly a tray of home-made cakes, and feet hurried past without stopping; someone yelled: “ Pravda! Krasnaya Gazeta! Latest news, citizens!” and someone yelled: “Saccharine, citizens!” and someone yelled: “Flints for cigarette lighters, cheap, citizens!” Below, there was mud and sunflower-seed shells; above, there were red banners bending over the street from every house, streaked and dripping little pink drops.
    “I hope,” said Galina Petrovna, “that sister Marussia will be glad to see us.”
    “I wonder,” said Lydia, “what these last years have done to the Dunaevs.”
    “I wonder what is left of their fortune,” said Galina Petrovna, “if anything. Poor Marussia! I doubt if they have more than we do.”
    “And if they have,” sighed Alexander Dimitrievitch, “what difference does it make now, Galina?”
    “None,” said Galina Petrovna, “—I hope.”
    “Anyway, we’re still no poor relations,” Lydia said proudly and pulled her skirt up a little to show the passersby her high-laced, olive-green shoes.
    Kira was not listening; she was watching the streets.
    The cab stopped at the building where, four years ago, they had seen the Dunaevs in their magnificent apartment. One half of the imposing entrance door had a huge, square glass pane; the other half was filled in with unpainted boards hastily nailed together.
    The spacious lobby had had a soft carpet, Galina Petrovna remembered, and a hand-carved fireplace. The carpet was gone; the fireplace was still there, but there were penciled inscriptions on the white stomachs of its marble cupids and a long, diagonal crack in the large mirror above it.
    A sleepy janitor stuck his head out of the little booth under the stairs and withdrew it indifferently.
    They carried their bundles up the stairs. They stopped at a padded door; the black oilcloth was ripped and gray lumps of soiled cotton made a fringe around the door.
    “I