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Tatiana used to leave at six-thirty to get the rations -- herself as punctual as a Ger in line and the ration store being all the way on Fontanka, she could be back by eight when the bo formations flew overhead and the air-raid sirens sounded But she had noticed that either the raids were starting earlier or she was getting out later, because three ht in the shell fire while still on Nekrasova returning home

Only because she had promised, sworn to Alexander that she would, Tatiana waited out the bo her precious bread to her chest and wearing the helmet he had left her and made her promise and swear to hen she went out

The bread Tatiana was holding wasn’t delicious bread; it wasn’t white, and it wasn’t soft, and it didn’t have a golden crust, but still a smell emanated frolared at her from all directions, and finally an old woirlie, share with us Don’t just sit there holding the loot Give us a bite"

"It’s for my family," Tatiana said "There are five of us, all woive it to you, they will have no food today"

"Not irlie," the old wo stopped, and Tatiana was the first one out After that shebehind anyet to the ration store and back before the boo at ten was impossible Tatiana had to be at work; people depended on her there, too She wondered if Marina would do better, or maybe Dasha Maybe they coulduniforht Tatiana couldn’t possibly send hernowadays, trying to finish a few uniforet soo because she had to do laundry in theMarina also refused, which was just as well She had nearly stopped going to university Taking her ration card, she picked up her own bread and ate it iht when she came back to Fifth Soviet, she demanded more food from Tatiana "Marinka, it’s just not fair," Tatiana would say to her cousin "We’re all hungry I know this is hard, but you have to keep yourself in check--"

"Oh, like you keep yourself in check?"

"Yes," Tatiana said, sensing that Marina was not talking about the bread

"You’re doing well," Marina said "Very well, Tania Keep it up"

But Tatiana didn’t feel she was doing well

She felt that she was doing worse than ever before, and yet her faht with the world in which her fa botch It wasn’t that she felt herself to be slow that bothered her, but that she felt herself slowing down All her efforts at haste, at deliberate speed, were met with an unknown resistance -- resistance fro as fast as it used to, and the inarguable proof of that lay with the Gerht o’clock flew their planes over the center of the city and for two hours sounded the le, to disrupt the rush hour of the ht also Tatiana walked to the store and back in near-dark

Oneon Nekrasova and withoutin the sa a hat

Only when she passed him did it occur to Tatiana that she hadn’t passed anyone in a long time People walked at their own pace, but it was never an overtaking pace Either I’ht, or he is even slower than me

She slowed down, then stopped As she turned around, she saw hi and keel over to his side Tatiana walked back to him, to help hihten hi eyes stared at Tatiana They reo when he had been walking on the street Noas dead

Horrified, Tatiana let go of thearound On the way back with her rations, she decided to take Ulitsa Zhukovskogo instead so as not to walk by the corpse The air raid had started, but she ignored it and walked on If they wanted to takeI could do to stop the Alexander’s hel she told her family she had seen a dead ed it "Oh?" said Marina "Well, I saw a dead horse in thethemselves to the horse’s flesh And that’s not the worst part I walked up behind so left for me"

The man’s face, his walk, his silly hat stayed in Tatiana’s ht It wasn’t his death that tormented her, because, unfortunately, Tatiana had seen death before -- in Luga, in the abject absence of Pasha, as she watched her father burn But it was this ait that Tatiana sahen she closed her eyes, because when he died, he had been walking, and though he alking slower than Tatiana, he was not walking slower by much