The Beginning of Spring

by Penelope Fitzgerald

‘Consider only whether we, the men of business deserve to have money to give to them.’

‘Look at the government expenditure this year! A hundred and ten million roubles on railways, eighty million roubles on education. Education means cheap printed books. They could be produced and even bound on the premises, using strong cartridge paper.’

In 1915, the year after next, there was to be an international printing fair in Berlin, the largest in history. These industrial fairs, in his opinion, were the guarantee of continuing peace in Europe.

They were collators, checking the order of the sheets, and seeing them, with the help of two boys and a bucket of water, through the hydraulic press. They had done the same work with the old screw press, and were never likely to do anything more difficult. Now they had an air of authority.

As they faced the ikon they crossed themselves, striking the forehead, each shoulder in turn, then the breast.

The ikon was not an old one. It was an example of a new photographic process which was said to be an exact simulation of oil painting, in reds and blues of excellent quality which neither time not lamp-smoke could darken, while the glittering halo of St Modestus and the letters of the alphabet in his bound book far outshone the ancient silver of the candlesticks.

Some of them, Frank knew, were agnostics. The storekeeper had told him that, in his opinion, soul and body were like the steam above a factory, one couldn’t exist without the other.

Because I don’t believe in this, Frank thought, that doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Thomas Huxley had written that if only there was some proof of the truth of religion, humanity would clutch at it as a drowning man clutches at a hencoop. But as long as mankind doesn’t pretend to believe in something they see no reason to believe, because there might be an advantage in pretending—as long as they don’t do that, they won’t have sunk to the lowest depths.

Why he had felt alarmed when Dolly told him that her teacher said there was no God, he didn’t know.

Perhaps, Frank thought, I have faith, even if I have no beliefs.

But remember, if that thought comes to you, that there are no accidental meetings. We never meet by chance. Either this other man, or this woman, is sent to us, or we are sent to them.’

Frank reminded them that he was English himself. ‘Yes, but you are Russian, you are used to everything Russian,’ said Toma, ‘you make mistakes, and you don’t mind our mistakes. God has given you patience, to take the place of your former happiness.’

He had had to disturb the habits of a lifetime, take the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway into London, get his visa from the Russian consulate, change his money into marks and roubles, confront the border inspections, lose his books (Raffles and Sentimental Tommy) and his pack of patience cards, both of which had been confiscated by the customs at Verzhbolovo.

aghast when Lloyd George had introduced National Insurance (though relieved when it turned out that there wouldn’t be pensions for criminals), worried—as he had told Frank—by the recent behaviour of Englishwomen and English railwaymen and printers,

Charlie, however, had been thinking of something on the lines of the Lost Boys in Peter Pan, who appealed to their mothers to come home.

She’s ‘‘just the sort of creature that Nature did intend’’.

‘It’s called ‘‘I met her in the garden where the praties grow.’’

‘And he’s a vegetarian, too, like George Bernard Shaw. But Shaw isn’t a poet. It must be easier for him, writing prose, to sustain himself on vegetables.’

‘Show me a single man in this city who wouldn’t! Quiet, blonde, slow-witted, nubile, docile, doesn’t speak English, hardly speaks at all in fact, sloping shoulders, half-shut eyes, hasn’t broadened out yet though I daresay she will, proper humility, reasonable manners, learned I suppose behind the counter at Muirka’s.’

He would rather have liked Dolly to give him a hug, but she had apparently decided against this.

he had had a few glasses of kvass, the Russian beer made, they told him, out of bread,

When you’d seen one Orthodox church, you’d seen them all. And at the traktir they’d had a special dish, a fish-pie with a hole in the top, into which you crammed caviare.

He had taken to eating kasha, two or even three bowls of it, at breakfast, with a lump of butter in each. ‘I shan’t get this at home,’ he said.

‘I saw cabbage stumps everywhere. There’s too much reliance on the cabbage in Russia, Frank. If I have any criticism, it’s that these people aren’t like our allotment-holders at home. A farm or a factory can make a loss, but an English allotment, never.

We were talking about allotments—well, they’ve none of them ever seen one. I daresay they’ve never even seen a vegetable marrow.

‘This is the grocery section. Not the imported groceries, the Russian things. Tinned Sturgeon in wine, potted elk, dried elk, caviare of course, but this isn’t the best kind, partridges in brandy. Then down this way there’s the galanterya, amber beads, kid gloves, silk fans with pearl handles, velvet babies’ boots, all that sort of thing, or you can get peasants’ feast day dresses, you don’t have to buy the whole dress, you can just get a kokosnik or a shugai. Now we’re getting on to the gold and silver and jewellery and the religious objects.’

they bought a number of small birchwood objects and a cigar-case.

the Khitrovo market which was not much like the shops in the Rows, and the lodging houses where job-seekers, cholera suspects, military deserters and wanted criminals hid themselves by day.