I was passing through Kyiv. The city was bustling with demonstrations just like Moscow. Although mottoes “Away with!..” and “Hurrah!” were called out in Ukrainian, and they were singing “Zapovit” by Shevchenko and “Sche ne vmerla Ukraina” instead of La Marseillaise.
I have to buy coffee, the price of which has gone up by 30%. I am going to buy 14 pounds of coffee, 20 pounds of malt, and 16 pounds of chicory. This should last the year. It seems, after all, that coffee will form the larger part of our diet, and while my mixture of malt and coffee is, of course, less inspiring than pure coffee, it is undoubtedly more nutritious. Only a well-stocked parlour will save us.
A fine clear morning. These days while the crops are not entirely good, the harvest is a success. The prices are as follows: rye wheat - 5 r. 50 k., and only by ration cards from the peasants. Fish, it seems, has disappeared completely, one perch is 80 kopeks, margarine - 2 r., eggs - 1 r., cotton and iron have disappeared, so have wheat and peas, salt is 2 r. a pound, tobacco has disappeared, and a year ago was 1 r. 25 k., the monthly ration of sugar is a pound at 38 k., leather has disappeared. One feels that soon only air and water will be left.
You can write ten volumes on Akhmatova’s little book - and there would be nothing more you could add. And you could only write one book - the size of Akhmatova’s book - on countless volumes of Bryusov’s complete set of works, and there will also be nothing more to say.