We left the quay at four, hung on to a buoy outside the breakwater till midnight, and then left by the Demerara steamship (Cunard), Captain Jones, from Trieste to Venice. At six a.m. we anchored in a rolling sea, with a heavy fog a couple of miles outside the Lido, but at twelve it lifted sufficiently to let us see the entrance to Malamocco, and we got in. It was so raw, damp, and thick, and cold to the bones, that everybody was ill, and we took rooms at the Britannia so long as the ship should stay. We then had a splendid passage to Fiume, where we had a very pleasant time with old friends for nearly a week. On the 25th we had just finished writing up the biography, when they came to tell me that the ship had to sail that day, which caused me a good deal of sorrow, as I was to be left at Fiume; my expenses were not paid, and we personally had not enough money for two, so Richard was to go on to the Guinea Coast alone. I watched the ship till it was out of sight, and felt very lonely. I had supper with Consul Faber, and we looked over his splendid book of "Fishes," which was going home to the "Fisheries." The next day we had an expedition to Tersate with Count and Countess Hoyos, and the following day I went back to Trieste. Meantime Richard went on to Petras and Zante, Messina, Sardinia, Gibraltar, Lisbon, and Madeira. Then arrived at Trieste Lady Mary Primrose, now Lady Mary Hope (Everard Primrose's sister).
1882.
Life and Incidents of Trieste.
Our usual parties took place, the children's, the servants', the English party, and the Foreign party; that was a regular Christmas thing.
About this time, at the end of January, arrived Mdlle. Sara Bernhardt, who gave us three or four performances. I had the pleasure of calling on her, and found her very charming, and she wrote something for me. Her performance enchanted every one; but the theatre, the only one disengaged, was quite unworthy of her.
This year I fretted dreadfully at Richard's absence, and not being allowed to join him, and made myself quite ill. I worked at my usual occupations for the poor, and preventing cruelty to animals, studying and writing, and carrying out all the numerous directions contained in his letters.
On the 25th we got the intelligence of poor Captain Selby's (of H.M.S, Falcon) death, who was murdered by Albanian shepherds. Two hours after his skull had been broken by the axe of the assailants, he was able to climb on board the ship, and died on the 22nd of February, 1882. He was a brave and good man, and could ill be spared.
On the 1st of March I had a telegram from the present Lord Houghton to tell me that his father lay dangerously ill at Athens. He arrived himself at Trieste on the 4th, and I saw him off the same day to Athens.
I got a sort of feverish cold in April, and was confined to my bed, and I was very much surprised at getting a summons to the Tribunal. My doctor (Professor Liebman) arrived, and I said, "I wonder what I am wanted at the Tribunal for; I have not done anything wrong that I know of?" and he said, "I shall certainly write and say that you cannot come." Later in the day my door opened, and in marched a solemn procession of gentlemen in black, with pens and ink and papers. I was rather taken aback, and asked them "what they wanted." They then produced a letter in Italian, which purported to be, though it was very incorrect, a translation of a letter I had written to Mr. Arthur Evans in Herzegovina. They asked me what I knew about Mr. Evans. I said, "I know nothing but good of him; but why do you ask?" "Because," they said, "he is in prison for conspiring against the Austrian Empire." "Oh," I said, "what has he done?" They said, "You must know something about it, because you have written to warn him. What do you know?" I said, "I only know that I heard some of the officers here saying that he was meddling in what did not concern him, and that, if they could catch him off civilized ground, they would hang him up to the first tree, and as I know his wife and her family, and they are my own compatriots, I thought I would write and say to him, 'What are you doing? Whatever it is, leave it off, as you are incurring ill will in Austria by it.'" I meant to be very kind, but I ought not to have done it, as it not only vexed Mrs. Evans, whom I liked very much, but unluckily, as the post was slow between Trieste and Herzegovina, it did not reach until after he had been put into political confinement, and consequently the authorities had opened it, read it, and had it translated, and had summoned me to give an account of myself. However, on my assuring them that I knew nothing but what I had heard from themselves, they were quite satisfied, and took their departure.
It was now discovered by Professor Liebman that I had the germs of an internal complaint of which I am suffering at present, possibly resulting from my fall downstairs in Paris in 1879. I had noticed all this year that I had been getting weaker and weaker in the fencing-school, and sometimes used to turn faint, and Reich (my fencing-master) used to say, "Why, what is the matter with you? Your arms are getting so limp in using the broadsword." I did not know, but I could not keep up for long at a time. I think I went no more after that.