I went into the refreshment-room to get some food, and had soup with sour cream in it, and ate chicken and bread and butter and cucumber and drank kvass as a change from the eternal tea. I watched the people on the platform and as the shades of night fell began to wonder where I should sleep. I would have chosen the platform, but it looked as if it might rain, so I went into the ladies' waiting-room, dragged a seat across the open window, and spread out my rugs and cushions and established myself there. I wanted to have first right to that window, for the night up in the hills here was chilly and I felt sure somebody would come in and want to shut it. My intuitions were correct. Buchanan and I kept that open window against a crowd. Everybody who came in—and the room was soon packed—wanted to shut it. They stretched over me and I arose from my slumbers and protested. For, in addition to a crowd, the sanitary arrangements were abominable, and what the atmosphere would have been like with the window shut I tremble to think. I remembered the tales of the pestilential resthouses into which the travelling exiles had been thrust, and I was thankful for that window, thankful too that it was summer-time, for in winter I suppose we would have had to shut it. At last one woman pulled at my rugs and said—though I could not understand her language her meaning was plain enough—that it was all very well for me, I had plenty of rugs, it was they who had nothing. It was a fair complaint, so with many qualms I shared my rugs and the summer night slowly wore to morning.
And morning brought its own difficulties. Russian washing arrangements to me are always difficult. I had met them first in Kharbin in the house of Mr Poland. I wrestled with the same thing in the house of the Chief of Police in Saghalien, and I met it in an aggravated form here in the railway station waiting-room. A Russian basin has not a plug—it is supposed to be cleaner to wash in running water—and the tap is a twirly affair with two spouts, and on pressing a little lever water gushes out of both and, theoretically, you may direct it where you please. Practically I found that while I was directing one stream of water down on to my hands, the other hit me in the eye or the ear, and when I got that right the first took advantage of inattention and deluged me round the waist. It may be my inexperience, but I do not like Russian basins. It was running water with a vengeance, it all ran away.
However, I did the best I could, and after, as my face was a little rough and sore from the hot sun of the day before, I took out a jar of hazeline cream and began to rub it on my cheeks. This proceeding aroused intense interest in the women around. What they imagined the cream was for I don't know, but one and all they came and begged some, and as long as that pot held out every woman within range had hazeline cream daubed on her weather-beaten cheeks, and they omitted to rub it off, apparently considering it ornamental. However, hazeline cream is a pleasant preparation.
Having dressed, Buchanan and I had the long day before us, and I did not dare leave the railway station to explore because I was uneasy about my luggage. I had had it put in the corner of the refreshment-room and as far as I could see no one was responsible for it, and as people were coming and going the livelong day I felt bound to keep an eye upon it. I also awaited with a good deal of interest the gentleman with the variegated uniform and my ten-pound note. He came at last, and explained in French that he had got the change but he could not give it to me till the train came in because of the thieves and robbers, as if he would insist upon tearing the veil of romance I had mapped round Siberia. And God forgive me that I doubted the honesty of a very kindly, courteous gentleman.
It was a long, long day because there was really nothing to do save to walk about for Buchanan's benefit, and I diversified things by taking odd meals in the refreshment-room whenever I felt I really must do something. But I was very tired. I began to feel I had been travelling too long, and I really think if it had not been for Buchanan's sympathy I should have wept. No one seemed at all certain when the next train west might be expected, opinions, judging by fingers pointing at the clock, varying between two o'clock in the afternoon and three o'clock next morning. However, as the evening shadows were beginning to fall a train did come in, and my friend in uniform, suddenly appearing, declared it was the western train. Taking me by the hand, he led me into a carriage and, shutting the door and drawing down the blinds, placed in my hands change for my ten-pound note.
“Guard your purse, Madame,” said he, “guard your purse. There are thieves and robbers everywhere!”
So all the way across Siberia had I been warned of the unsafe condition of the country. At Kharbin, at Nikolayeusk, at Blagoveschensk men whose good faith I could not doubt assured me that a ten-pound note and helplessness was quite likely to spell a sudden and ignominious end to my career, and this was in the days when no one doubted the power of the Tsar, a bitter commentary surely on an autocracy. What the condition of Siberia must be now, with rival factions fighting up and down the land, and released German prisoners throwing the weight of their strength in with the Bolshevists, I tremble to think.
When he made sure I had carefully hidden my money and thoroughly realised the gravity of the situation, my friend offered to get my ticket, a second-class ticket, he suggested. I demurred. I am not rich and am not above saving my pennies, but a first-class ticket was so cheap, and ensured so much more privacy, that a second-class was an economy I did not feel inclined to make. He pointed round the carriage in which we were seated. Was this not good enough for anyone? It was. I had to admit it, and the argument was clinched by the fact that there was not a first-class carriage on the train. The ticket only cost about five pounds and another pound bought a ticket for Buchanan. We got in—my friend in need got in with me, that misjudged friend; it seemed he was the stationmaster at a little place a little way down the line—and we were fairly off on our road to the West.