I am a water-drinker, but soon found that I should give offence if I refused to return the toasts in wine; so I did at Rome as Rome does, held my glass up, clinked it with other glasses, and sipped as occasion required. The Tsar’s Prohibition Act had not found its way into Chinese Turkestan, and never have I seen such a bewildering array of bottles. The first toasts led off in vodka, after which different wines and liqueurs were served in unending succession. Among the guests was a savant who had spent some years in the Gobi Desert copying ancient inscriptions, and had halted at Kashgar on his return to civilization. His exploits with the bottle were so remarkable that my table-companion said he must be slaking his two years’ thirst at one go!
When we had sat till three o’clock at one table we were requested to adjourn to the second, where ices, sweetmeats, champagne and coffee, and of course cigarettes, were served. After an hour of this our host proposed that we should take a little promenade de digestion; so off we all went along dusty paths bounded by high mud walls and round freshly irrigated fields. To compass these latter we had to walk carefully on the top of the irrigation banks, the ladies finding this somewhat difficult owing to their heels of abnormal height. At one place we came to a ditch where the gentlemen insisted on helping us across, though it was a very small jump, but my companions had such extremely narrow skirts that they could not have done it unaided. On our return to the garden the Princess wished to wash her hands; so soap and towels were provided and in turn we held out our hands for a servant to pour water over them, our gallant host waving a bottle of eau-de-Cologne, with which he besprinkled the ladies.
My heart failed me when I saw tea in readiness, with cakes, biscuits and sweets galore, and I had to wrestle for some time longer with linguistic difficulties, thankful that three of those assembled could talk French fluently. When a surreptitious peep at my watch told me that it was half-past six, we took our leave amid many exclamations as to the extreme earliness of our departure from the lunch party!
Nice and friendly as the Russians all were, my brother and I led lives of such a different kind that we could not well coalesce. If we dined with them we could never leave before midnight, and they themselves said that they liked to stay on till five o’clock in the morning, the domestics serving up a supper, or rather an early breakfast, from the remnants of the dinner, and possibly they would stroll out to see the sun rise before they repaired to their homes. Owing to their love of late hours they did not rise till mid-day, and as they could not enjoy the cool of the mornings as we did, they used to “take the air” by moonlight.
They did not play bridge, and we could not learn their difficult card-game, nor was it possible to play a kind of loto with them, owing to ignorance of the language.
Those forming “society” lived apparently in one another’s houses all day long, never liking to be alone, and the little colony reminded us of the Florentines rendered immortal by Boccaccio, who, when the plague was raging, left their city and went to a lovely garden outside its walls, caring nothing for the misery and death they had so skilfully avoided. In this case it was not a plague, but the World War, that our neighbours appeared to ignore, except now and again when the Germans approached some place where they had relatives or friends.
I cannot refrain from giving the menu of one of the dinners we gave the Russians, in order to show what Daoud and I could accomplish when working together:
MENU.
Hors-d’œuvres.
Caviare on toast. Salmon mayonnaise. Fried sausages.