I went again to lovely Michaelovka for a little; and it was with a heart as heavy as lead that I turned my back on this country to which I belong in part, on this country which I had learnt to adore, where the sun is so loath to set or to rise, this country of dreams, beneath its glorious spring verdure, again of dreams beneath its snowy white mantle, to this glorious Neva on which I had so often watched the huge barges silently gliding on the still waters, bearing to Petrograd their great loads of silver-birch wood from distant Finland, manned by bargemen in scarlet shirts which gave such a touch of colour and brightness to the landscape.
I felt almost envious of these poetic barges, and longed to float away on one of them; but, alas, one must not indulge in too much romance in this prosaic age! “The West” was calling—so, with a broken heart, I turned my back on dear Holy Russia.
And there a last time on the platform of that Berlin Station, beside that train which was going to take me away no doubt for ever, I embraced for a last time my good and dear Aunt de Nicolay, whom I was not to see again.
My heart swelled with gratitude, but I felt too choked to express my feelings:—
“Partir c’est mourir un peu.”
Never have I felt this so much as on that day.
Did my aunt understand the tumult in my heart? I do not know, I do not think so, and in her pretty voice of which I shall never forget the pure, warm accents so full of real affection she said to me, “Renée, you have not consented to recognize the qualities of—and I fear you will regret it.” These were her last words, once more she pressed me to her heart, the next moment I was far away.
And when I felt the woods and fields of the Kaiser unroll themselves through the dark night in the contrary direction in which thirteen months before, my heart full of joy, I had seen them flit by—oh, how different it all was.
No I had not been able to—the want of foresight of twenty summers perhaps, but also its frankness! That tall Russian with the pale face, with the blue eyes, of the Grand Duke type—but what was the good of dreaming, and even in that moment I did not regret. It was not, I expect, what Paradise had in store for me.