Page:Through Bolshevik Russia - Snowden - 1920.djvu/141

 Or a dead husband has left his wife bound in the chain of his Russian nationality. One Government or the other refuses to give the necessary papers.

What the sufferings of the citizens of Petrograd and Moscow must have been in the early days of the Revolution, and during the whole of the period of the first Revolution, chiefly from the general disorganisation and the advantage taken of it by disorderly bands of soldiers and ordinary thieves and criminals it is impossible properly to imagine.

One young Communist told me something of the experiences of himself and his wife. He told the story quietly, in the passive Russian fashion, as if it were the kind of tale one tells at the nursery fire to a sleepy child. This fatalism is the most amazing quality of the Russian character.

"We had our little house in Petrograd, my wife and I. We expected our first baby very soon. We were very happy in each other, but cold and hungry all the time. That didn't matter. We were happy." Here he stopped and gave a despairing look.

"I blame myself bitterly," he said. "My wife is an English girl. We were married in England the year before the War. I brought her to Russia. Russia was England's ally then. How could I foresee the war that very few wiser people foresaw? How could I know that revolution would come