"At first all went well. I spent four hours a day in my socialist paradise. Old Barbessoul was triumphant. His part in the organization was something between priest and foreman. Papa thought I was mad.
"You won't be surprised to hear I had soon had enough of it, if only because things began to go wrong. Feeling safe under my protection, the members of the community used to go out in boats at night to rob the hen-roosts of the riverside farmers. Papa had very kindly consented to relieve them of taxation and compulsory labour. It was perfectly alarming the amount of kwass they drank. Old Barbessoul was the only one who couldn't perceive how strongly they smelt of drink, even the women. Why, after two months, one of them found himself the possessor of all the agricultural implements. All the others had pawned them to get kwass. Then, as they could not work, they loafed about all day and spent the night robbing the neighbouring peasants. One night there was a regular battle. Two moujiks were killed. Papa was wild with rage, called me a silly fool, and wanted to hang old Barbessoul. On my entreaties he refrained, but the community was broken up.
"That was my last experiment with Socialism. It is certain that if it had not been for Papa's Cossacks all those folk would have cut each other's throats.
* * * * * *
"One day in February, 1909, when I was just on twenty, I was shooting duck from a boat in a branch of the Volga when I saw on the bank Papa's favourite Cossack signalling wildly with his cap on the end of his sabre.
"He was shouting as well, though I couldn't hear him. I gathered that something must have happened at home, but I wanted to appear indifferent in spite of my burning curiosity to know what all the fuss was about. I only put in to the bank an hour later, when the poor man was almost dead with waving his arms and shouting so much. He told me the Prince wanted me in his study. I took as long as I could getting there, anticipating a good lecture.
"I got nothing of the kind. Papa seemed radiant about something. He kissed me, then, showing me a large envelope with red seals on his bureau, he told me what it was about.
"It was a letter to Papa from the Czar. It informed him that in May the Emperor William was to visit St. Petersburg and that there would be great celebrations, ending up with a review at Tsarskoïe-Selo; that he therefore wished the Astrakhan and Aral Cossacks to be represented, and begged the Tumene Prince to bring a brigade with him. 'The Czarina,' he added, 'will be glad to make her little niece's acquaintance on this occasion.' I had forgotten to tell you that I was her niece, owing to Papa's marriage with a Grand-Duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt.
"I can assure you that I had never found the days long in our Volga palace, yet, as I listened to my father, I must confess to a feeling of joyous excitement, and from that moment I had only one idea—to astonish the Czar, the Czarina, the German Emperor and, indeed, the whole world. I spent days on end looking into my glass, and admit that I was not altogether displeased with what I saw there.
"Hitherto I had had my clothes made at Astrakhan by Menjuzan Sœurs, excellent French dressmakers who visited Paris once a year for their models and did good business with fashionable Circassian society. Papa gave me unlimited credit and two days later I left with Mlle. Jauffre. But I must tell you I had a scheme of my own.