Having read Jules Verne’s descriptions of floating icebergs in the Arctic regions, for some reason or other one imagines that all very frozen water in very cold countries must convey icebergs, but I was cruelly disappointed at not having my expectations realized to the full on that point at the time of the débâcle in Russia and by seeing only huge agglomerations of ice being carried along, all as flat as vulgar pancakes. It seemed an interminable flow as it passed, as not only the Neva freed itself thus of its winter coat, but also the great lake Ladoga; and, watching, one could not help associating all this apparently aimless rush of the ice towards the great salt sea with the passage of life, with all its hurry and scurry—here to-day, gone to-morrow!
At Petrograd the water is—or rather was—undrinkable, and my aunts recommended me never to touch a drop; consequently one is obliged to buy the drinking water at the chemists, who get it at a certain special place.
A most virulent form of typhoid fever is rampant there, especially during the spring at the time of the melting of the ice, when all this frozen mass of winter snow has to be broken up by axes in many places, and on the removal of which many microbes are set in motion. Russia then becomes a veritable sea of mud, which state, however, is almost immediately succeeded by the sudden bursting forth of spring with all that season’s richness and loveliness. I felt I actually saw the grass growing, so forcibly does Nature revenge herself. Very few diplomats really liked Petrograd, the cold climate, the expensive life, the absence of light in winter, the light nights in summer, were so many subjects of complaint. It is no doubt plus chic to show oneself dissatisfied; but I who found all delightful, thought this attitude of mind very tiresome.
Among the discontented ones was one of my friends, Marquis de M..., Secretary at the Embassy. His father had been in the army under the command of my grandfather. He had brought from France an old family dagger which had formerly been the weapon of a not less valiant ancestor, a Crusader, who had reddened it with the blood of infidels, and his dream was to hunt bears with it, being anxious himself to plunge it into the heart of so stout and dangerous an adversary; almost a profanation, it seemed to me. I tried, but in vain, to curb this dangerous ardour, being without confidence that my little Marquis, with his small stature and his somewhat flabby air, would emerge victorious from a hand-to-hand struggle with a majestic bear as ferocious as hungry. He stamped with rage and anxiety when explaining that he might, perhaps, not have the luck to find one even if he went to the enchanted spots from which others returned crowned with laurels.
I informed him then that there was a very flourishing industry where a victim was supplied you at the indicated time and place, out there in le pays des ours, and he could very easily acquire a skin for a rug; but my Marquis listened with horror to the suggestion of this subterfuge, asking only for the simple glory which he could honourably accept. How many there are less honest who supply themselves with the white skins so easy to achieve.
Nevertheless he dreamt delightful dreams, of hunting Bruin throughout the winter, which were never realized, for very soon he packed up his ancestral dagger and returned to his beautiful country. I saw him again a last time on the eve of his departure, dapper and spruce. “My servants have started, my horses also,” he said, laughing, for he possessed neither. “To-morrow it is my turn.”
I often teased him about his political opinions, and it was a real joy to see him pose as a republican fanatic.
At one of Madame Bompard’s Wednesdays some of the ladies took it into their heads to ask the Marquis his Christian name, and each of us played at guessing it. The one who teased him the most was a young and pretty Rumanian—Madame Z... Impossible to obtain an answer; very strange, it must have been that name! The most extravagant names of saints flew about. “I know, I know,” suddenly cried the young Rumanian lady in her fresh, gay voice. “His name is Joseph.” And of course we all yelled out in unison, calling him Joseph. The more he protested, the more we insisted. It seemed to pain him singularly, when suddenly a defender arose. “Joseph, and why?” protested the Dutch Minister from behind his eyeglass. “He has nothing in common with him.” None of the ladies dared to continue the subject.
Lord Hardinge, afterwards Viceroy of India, was then British Ambassador at Petrograd. I very much admired Lady Hardinge, who is now no more. His counsellor was Sir Cecil Spring Rice, now our Ambassador at Washington.[B]
The Dutch Minister was a shrewd, distinguished man; he always teased me very much. He had a biting wit and did not lack brains. One day when two of the gentlemen were telling in my hearing a story to which I preferred not to listen, he said to me: “You play the ingénue’s part charmingly, you ought to be in the Comédie française. I shall remember that in thirty years’ time. The conclusion one comes to is that one may tell you a little more,” he said to me mischievously. And another time when I was going to skate, and his secretary had instituted himself my professor, he said: “You are on slippery ground, very slippery, Mademoiselle.” This with a glance which he launched above his eyeglass, of which he seemed to have no need, as nothing ever escaped him even without its aid.