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More oxford books @ www.OxfordeBook.comFore more urdu books visit www.4Urdu.com14THE EDUCATION OF AYN RAND, 1905–1943leave Russia, to flee with his family across the Black Sea, but for once hestood firm against her. The decision to return was not wise. Their apartmentand adjoining property had been given to other families, althoughthe Rosenbaums were able to secure a few rooms in the building Zinovyhad once owned outright.Years later Alisa described in her fiction the grim disappointmentof her family’s return to Petrograd: “Their new home had no frontentrance. It had no electrical connections; the plumbing was out oforder; they had to carry water in pails from the floor below. Yellow stainsspread over the ceilings, bearing witness to past rains.” All trappings ofluxury and higher culture had vanished. Instead of monogrammed silver,spoons were of heavy tin. There was no crystal or silver, and “rustynails on the walls showed the places where old paintings had hung.” 12 Atparties hostesses could offer their guests only dubious delicacies, such aspotato skin cookies and tea with saccharine tablets instead of sugar.Under the Soviet New Economic Plan Zinovy was able to brieflyreopen his shop with several partners, but it was again confiscated. Afterthis latest insult Zinovy made one last, futile stand: he refused to work.Alisa silently admired her father’s principles. To her his abdication wasnot self-destruction but self-preservation. His refusal to work for anexploitive system would structure the basic premise of her last novel,Atlas Shrugged. But with survival at stake it was no time for principles,or for bourgeois propriety. Anna found work teaching languages in aschool, becoming her family’s main source of support. But her teacher’ssalary was not enough for a family of five, and starvation stalked theRosenbaums.Even with money it would have been difficult to find enough toeat, for 1921–22 was the year of the Russian famine, during whichfive million Russians starved to death. In the city limited food supplieswere parceled out to a subdued population through rationcards. Millet, acorns, and mush became mainstays of the family diet.Anna struggled to cook palatable meals on the Primus, a rudimentarySoviet stove that belched smoke throughout their living area.In later years Alisa remembered these bleak times vividly. She toldfriends she wrapped newspapers around her feet in lieu of shoes andrecalled how she had begged her mother for a last dried pea to staveoff her hunger.