3. Mleti.
Mleti.
I slept under a rock last night. A large boulder had fallen on three other rocks and made a little cavern. One had to let oneself in very gingerly, for the opening was so small. It felt like sliding into a letter-box to sleep. But the bottom was soft sand and the place was secure from men and from rain. I was soaked through; my blanket weighed at least a hundred-weight with the water that was in it. But I slept. This morning I have been drying myself. My blanket is open wide to the sun and is steaming. I have taken my coat off, and it also is lying on a rock getting dried.
MLETI
By road to Mleti it is eighteen versts; cross-country it is only five. I came across country accordingly. But it is a very difficult matter, Mleti being 2500 feet lower. The road zig-zags extraordinarily, and I crossed it six times before getting to this valley.
Mleti is verdant. It is pleasant to get into a land of leaves and flowers after two days among the desolate, barren passes. And there is no river. Consequently there is extraordinarily stillness and peace. It is the first time I have been out of hearing of a river since I have been in the Caucasus. I am sitting on a bank where sweet-scented violets are growing; the air is filled with their perfume. There are hollyhocks on the slopes, hundreds and thousands of them, some over six feet high, and covered with saffron-coloured blossoms. I came through some weeds so high that they closed above my head and shut out the sky, a waste of dead nettle, comfrey, teasel, canterbury bells and convolvulus. Clusters of pink mallow hung like bouquet-baskets from these tangles. On the rocks there is an abundance of stone-crop and bryony and pinks which look like sweet-williams. The rock-roses are perfect gems. High up, near Gudaour, I found several plants which could not have been other than tradescantia, which is not supposed to grow wild out of Asia. But there is no end to the wild flowers of the Caucasus, and plants brought up with tender care in England grow brightly and abundantly without any care at all on these wildernesses.
There were three letters from Nicholas; he has saved up money and thinks of going to London again. They are highly characteristic letters, full of poetry. The first one begins, “And someone has moved a stone with his accursed hand,” which sounds very tragical in the Russian of Lermontof. It means, I think, that Fate has separated two friends who ought never to have been put asunder. Later on in his letter he writes, “For you the road to happiness lies open, for me it is closed for ever.” This sentence reminded me of the day when he plastered up the mirror with newspaper so that he shouldn’t see his face. He proposes that I come to Lisitchansk in the autumn, and that we return from there to London. “Couldn’t I go, if only for a month?”