Even quite minor details, such as the curiously sumptuous Russian national dresses of the ladies of the Embassy at Court functions, the visits to Berlin of the Russian ballets and troupes of Russian singing gipsies, had all the same stamp of strong racial individuality, of something temperamentally different from all we had been accustomed to.
I was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing for myself at last this land of mingled splendour and barbarism, this country which had retained its traditional racial characteristics in spite of the influences of nineteenth century drab uniformity of type.
As the Petrograd Embassy was short-handed at the time, it was settled that I should postpone my leave for some months and proceed to Russia without delay.
The Crown Prince and Crown Princess, who had been exceedingly kind to me during my stay in Berlin, were good enough to ask me to the New Palace at Potsdam for one night, to take leave of them.
I had never before had an opportunity of going all over the New Palace. I thought it wonderfully fine, though quite French in feeling. The rather faded appearance of some of the rooms increased their look of dignity. It was not of yesterday. The great "Shell Hall," or "Muschel-Saal," much admired of Prussians, is frankly horrible; one of the unfortunate aberrations of eighteenth century taste of which several examples occur in English country-houses of the same date.
My own bedroom was charming; of the purest Louis XV, with apple-green polished panelling and heavily silvered mouldings and mirrors.
Nothing could be more delightful than the Crown Prince's manner on occasions such as this. The short-lived Emperor Frederick had the knack of blending absolute simplicity with great dignity, as had the Empress Frederick. For the curious in such matters, and as an instance of the traditional frugality of the Prussian Court, I may add that supper that evening, at which only the Crown Prince and Princess, the equerry and lady-in-waiting, and myself were present, consisted solely of curds and whey, veal cutlets, and a rice pudding. Nothing else whatever. We sat afterwards in a very stately, lofty, thoroughly French room. The Crown Prince, the equerry, and myself drank beer, whilst the Prince smoked his long pipe. It seemed incongruous to drink beer amid such absolutely French surroundings. I noticed that the Crown Princess always laid down her needlework to refill her husband's pipe and to bring him a fresh tankard of beer. The "Kronprinzliches Paar," as a German would have described them, were both perfectly charming in their conversation with a dull, uninteresting youth of twenty-one. They each had marvellous memories, and recalled many trivial half-forgotten details about my own family. That evening in the friendly atmosphere of the great, dimly-lit room in the New Palace at Potsdam will always live in my memory.
Two days afterwards I drove through the trim, prosaic, well-ordered, stuccoed streets of Berlin to the Eastern Station; for me, the gateway to the land of my desires, vast, mysterious Russia.