TRAGIC PICTURE

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10292, 29 May 1919, Page 7

TRAGIC PICTURE

THE DOOMED CITY HUNGRY, ABANDONED PE.TROGKAD. * The following account of conditions in Petrograd appeared on February 7th, 1919, in the columns of the “Libavskoje Ruskojo Slovo,” a Russian paper published at Libau;— What is happening in Petrograd, and is life at Petrograd really as terrible as people say and as the newspapers describe it? ' It is difficult for me to answer this question. Those who feast do not understand the hungry, and I, who have recovered on the fleshpots of Lihau, find it difficult to return to the exciting and fantastic moods evoked by hungry, abandoned Petrograd.

I will not dabble in tho horrors of Petrograd; I will not relate how educated people beg for alms in thej streets, hang round tho public eatinghouses, gaze piteously into the eyes of those who eat there and wait greedily In case anyone should leave some morsel behind. I will not relate how children rummage in the refuse pits and ravenously devour putrid heads of herrings, entrails .of fish; and rotting onions—all the things despised even by the hungry Petrograd housewife, who ts so experienced in making use of all kitchen offal, all the things undiscovered even by the lean, enfeebled Petrograd oats. Nor will I tell of the terrible judicial proceedings where, ten-year-old, dehumanised boys admit with sullen cynicism that they deliberately killed a little brother or sister who embittered their lives and devoured all the bread rations. All these things made up the- chronicle of daily happenings—for at that time we still had a Press. All these things are still mere events, mere occurrences,"• massoccurrences, that at least are hidden behind the scenes of everyday life and do not form its habitual background. How do they live who have not become wild beasts? » How are those “normal’’ human beings who have not yet abandoned the front, who still con-, tinue to bear the burden of daily affairs and worries?

Indeed, these '‘normal” human" be ings still take-such an interest in tho problems connected with hunger and cleath_ by starvation that the leaders of medicinal science are able to give lectures at Petrograd where exact and detailed descriptions are given of the way in which people die of starvation. It is shown that tho human organism can exist for , three or four weeks without taking any food. During this period from the first signs of an appetite to the final extinction of all.life, the starving organism passes through a whole series of entirely different stages, of which one of the last is characterised by the fact that the pangs of hunger l disappear completely and are replaced by a_ strangely fantastic condition of hallucination.

All that is left in my memory of the ’manners and of the every-day life of Petrograd- seems the product of such feverish imagination, - If you carefully scan the faces of passers-by you will observe that each onejof them does not wear his own face, •so fey bwp‘faeo'ivith whfcli' he used, "to associate his. personality, his ego—-but something different, something mute and cold and torpid They are all hungry, and hunger tortures them all. But each one knows that all the others are hungry, and that is why no one speaks of his-hunger. Human suffering has lost its individuality. Who will pity me if I nearly die of hunger when everyone is, hungry, himself? Everyone will turn away and say in a surly voice: “I; too, am dying' Better show how much pity you feel for.mo I" Men and women cease to complain.They learn to he silent about that which comforts them the .most. Men and women drop in the streets through sheer starvation, hut you seldom hear anyone complain about Ills hunger, his own torturing, enervating hunger. They all pretend to be busy with their Wonted affairs, as though they had come' to an unspoken agreement, as though their customary existence were still going oh, and nothing had altered, A schoolgirl is running along with her bundle of books to catch an electric tram. Her dress is hanging from her body, her little face has drawn together so that it is now about the size of a fist. She is assuredly hungry—is not a good appetite a sign of youth, is it not one of the privileges or even one of the virtues of youth? But she runs as she used to run in days long ago with her hooks to catch the electric tram. She even smiles at some acquaintance, and waves her hand, as though someone were chasing and chasing her and whispering in her ear that she must run on and on, that life would cease to exist if there were no more schoolgirls in tho streets who run after electric trams andwave their hands and laugh; l ' . Qn a garden path a little boy is playing. His mother calls him and gives him a piece of bread made of some doubtful flour-substitute. He eats it very carefully, and collects all the crumbs, and then he goes' hack to his game. Nor does his mother, groan or sigh, hilt hurriedly takes from her little basket a worn stocking, and, drawing it over a wooden spoon, she feverishly pulls one thread after another over the outstretched hole. Her face has become quite grey, her skin hangs in folds from her throat. She has assuredly forgotten the very remembrance of 'food, hut yet she hurries on with her work and plies her needle with careworn mien. .If she were to let her work slip out of her hands, who then would preserve our whole life? You can feel a certain strain, a certain inhuman effort in the present daily life of Petrograd. You can feel everything is only held together by the power of imagination, hy the power of hypnosis that may cease at any moment. And that is why all this visible existence seems so ghostly, so fruitless, as though at any moment it Would be raised from the ground and vanish into thin nh. w -

Patrograd, tho city. It is Potrograd, and it is not Pctrogrnd. It is not the Petrograd of wartime, of the home organisations and of positive work. It is not the St. Petersburg of Pushkin and Dostoiovski, “the most prosaic and tho most fantastic of all towns.” Not tho St. Petersburg of ■ geometrical symmetries, built np on the ghostly background of,white powers, tho St. Petersburg burdened by tho mythical curse bestowed upon Peter, the tyrannical rationalist—“St. Petersburg shall bo empty.” Doomed city, city sick to death, a city that, has taken upon itself all the sins of our life, and will perhaps bring us salvation through its own suffering.