We have gone on again now and are settled for the evening. The carriage looks so comfortable, curtains drawn, lamps lighted, flowers on the tables, and quantities of books and maps. Sesmaisons and Corcelle have just been in with their maps and Napoleon's Memoirs. It is most interesting to follow it all. They read out bits here and there as we passed through some well-known locality. At the Beresina, I think, where the passage of the river was so awful—some of the men quite exhausted, and yet not wanting to lie down on the snow, made themselves seats out of the dead bodies of their comrades. What an awful retreat!
We have crossed the Beresina, where we saw a long procession of wood rafts. They are of the most primitive description—long logs lashed together, and in the middle a sort of cabin or hovel, where the women and children live. They were floating slowly down with the tide as we passed, and singing a sort of sad, monotonous chaunt, which sounded weird and pathetic, but impressionnant. They say all the Russian National songs have that undercurrent of sadness.
Our dinner to-night was very gay. Schimmelpenninck is most attractive. We have become great friends—I have even confided to him where my jewels are, as he thought I had left a bag in one of the stations, and was convinced it held my diamonds. I told him what dress I was going to wear at the Coronation, also my difficulty in finding out what the French Court dress was. The Empress never wore a regular Court train—her presentations in the Tuileries were always in the evening, in ordinary ball dress. I didn't think Queen Marie Amélie's would have been very pretty, so we concocted a Court dress from pictures, other people's souvenirs, etc.
I was glad to walk up and down a little—one gets cramped sitting so long, even with our outings for food, which are frequent. The tea is extremely good always, a sort of greenish flavour, but very delicate, and I should think very strong. Pontécoulant showed me Monsieur Philippe in the distance, talking and gesticulating, evidently considering himself a most important feature of the Mission—also the detective, who looks like an amiable well-to-do bourgeois travelling for his pleasure, until you meet his eyes, and there is a quick, keen look which tells you he is very much on the alert. He has again just given W. the pleasing piece of information that all the well-known Nihilist leaders will be at Moscow.
Hubert came up and says the horses are quite well—their rest at Berlin did them good. He is very much impressed with the absolute solitude of the country—"pas de villages—pas de barrières, pas même de chemins." We have also a telegram from M. Lhermite saying the house is quite in order, he and his cooks and attendants installed, and he will have breakfast ready for us to-morrow morning. We arrive about 8. We must be ready early, as they say the approach to Moscow is very fine. It stands low in a plain, but one sees the gilt domes and coloured steeples from a great distance.
Our engineer tells us the railway officials are out of their minds. He says the special envoys—Princes particularly—change their minds and their routes all the time. They all have special trains, and the confusion will be something awful. The Hessian Prince is just ahead of us. We haven't crossed many trains, and yet there must be frequent communication between Varsovie and Moscow.
I still feel rather in a dream, but not tired. I must stop now as it is nearly eleven—my next letter will be from Maison Klein, Malaia Dimitrofska, Moscow. Richard came in just now, and we have been talking over our future—Russia is a "terra incognita" to all of us. It has been certainly most novel and interesting so far. Just now we stopped for a few moments at a little station, quite alive with people and lights, as of course trains are going all night. The people look so different—generally fair, with flat features, and a repressed look, as if they had always been kept down.
This long effusion will go early to-morrow morning, as they send off a valise at once from Moscow.
To H. L. K.
Ambassade de France, Moscow,
Maison Klein, Malaia Dimitrofska,
Monday, May 21st, 1883.