American Falls press. [volume] (American Falls, Idaho) 1907-1937, 1917-11-13

and see whether he stood now 526 or
2S3 on the list.
Those who lived ia lodgings or with
the ordinary private family saw more
OF these difficulties than hotel guests,
for hotels remain, for some reason,
the last Gibraltars Of comfort. and they
keep on producing clean napkins and
rolls and coffee up until the moment
the shells begin 10 drop In the next
street. Ny ~landlady, who looked out
for one meal a day for me. would
come In with the announcement that
there a no bread. no butter. no rice.
40 meat nothing but tea. OF course.
one one, even IN the restaurants, had
white bread. One got presently into
that really delightful and hygenic state
10 which one is always hungry and
eats as a COW eats grass-anything 10
hil up.
Prices under such conditions became
all but ina possible. A dinner that
was rs kOpccks before the war, and
$50 rubles last year. cost S rubles
now. and IL was only barely enough to
exist on at that. A friend OF mine or
dered dinner az Pavlovsk one Sunday.
but before he could eat Il the waiter
had put a new bill on the table Ia
which prices we're all reased 25 per
cent Ready ?made shoes cost go or 80
rubles before the war the ruble was
worth SO cents), a suit OF clothes about
300 rubles. In short. the whole usual
~ invisible machinery which. in New
York, brings milk or bread TO your
door every morning had broken down
and this great capital returned almost
to a condition OF foraging. or 10 what
n could pick from the trees.
But. you say. things couldn't go on
In this way. This is what people did
say, over and over again. There must
be a change. There would be a coun-
t~er-revolution, a military Dictator
tomorrow. next week, the streets
would run with blood. Yet, as a mat
ter OF fact. life did go on very much as
oyer-as / presume IL has gone in the
past. during the Terror In Paris or
during the Commune. l went that
sunny Sunday afternoon out TO the
Islands and must have tramped ten
or fifteen miles through the woods.
Strielka Park. and along the shore.
Everywhere people We're picnicking,
rowing and wading. groups Of boys
stumbled along playing-Russian fash
ion-au accordion as they walked, and
10 some OF the open glades people
were dancing on the grass. You might
have thought all these thousands
hadn't a care Ia the world.
was taking tea one evening in a
fine old P%etrograd house, when my
hostess, speaking OF a possible en-
gagement for the following week, add
ed: THAT ls-if I'm still herel" And
she explained that she had received
a letter that day from some committee
or other. announcing that they needed
her house and that II she was not out
OF It by the following Monday they
would come and take Il. She had
written Prince Lvoff. president OF the
council OF ministers. and also the To-
cal police captain, who promised to
send her ten But after all. she
said with the greatest good humor.
just what could they do? The police
men themselves, a makeshift force,
hastily thrown together when the old
gendarmerie disappeared - suppose
they should take a fancy TO the house?
The government" could scarcely call
in the army. for Petrograd's army Of
three or four hundred thousand con-
sisted. at the moment, OF good-natured
peasants in uniform, loafing about the
streets and parks. eating sunflower
seeds. The Cossacks would doubtless
obey, but unless the workmen's and
soldiers council approved, the gov
eminent" might we'll decline TO start
a civil war Owe this house, as they
already had declined to do over the
villa Durnovo.
1T really gives n a curious feel
ing she said. Never In all my life
have | been In any place where there
vas not some one you could go to.
some one who knew; who could tell
you what 10 do. give the necessary
orders and know they would be carried
out. As a matter Of fact. when you
come to think OF Il. here In P~etrograd
today. there Is no such thing"