I slept under a rock last night. A large boulder had fallen on three other rocks and made a little cavern. One had to let oneself in very gingerly, for the opening was so small. It felt like sliding into a letter-box to sleep. But the bottom was soft sand and the place was secure from men and from rain. I was soaked through; my blanket weighed at least a hundred-weight with the water that was in it. But I slept. This morning I have been drying myself. My blanket is open wide to the sun and is steaming. I have taken my coat off, and it also is lying on a rock getting dried.
MLETI
By road to Mleti it is eighteen versts; cross-country it is only five. I came across country accordingly. But it is a very difficult matter, Mleti being 2500 feet lower. The road zig-zags extraordinarily, and I crossed it six times before getting to this valley.
Mleti is verdant. It is pleasant to get into a land of leaves and flowers after two days among the desolate, barren passes. And there is no river. Consequently there is extraordinarily stillness and peace. It is the first time I have been out of hearing of a river since I have been in the Caucasus. I am sitting on a bank where sweet-scented violets are growing; the air is filled with their perfume. There are hollyhocks on the slopes, hundreds and thousands of them, some over six feet high, and covered with saffron-coloured blossoms. I came through some weeds so high that they closed above my head and shut out the sky, a waste of dead nettle, comfrey, teasel, canterbury bells and convolvulus. Clusters of pink mallow hung like bouquet-baskets from these tangles. On the rocks there is an abundance of stone-crop and bryony and pinks which look like sweet-williams. The rock-roses are perfect gems. High up, near Gudaour, I found several plants which could not have been other than tradescantia, which is not supposed to grow wild out of Asia. But there is no end to the wild flowers of the Caucasus, and plants brought up with tender care in England grow brightly and abundantly without any care at all on these wildernesses.
There were three letters from Nicholas; he has saved up money and thinks of going to London again. They are highly characteristic letters, full of poetry. The first one begins, “And someone has moved a stone with his accursed hand,” which sounds very tragical in the Russian of Lermontof. It means, I think, that Fate has separated two friends who ought never to have been put asunder. Later on in his letter he writes, “For you the road to happiness lies open, for me it is closed for ever.” This sentence reminded me of the day when he plastered up the mirror with newspaper so that he shouldn’t see his face. He proposes that I come to Lisitchansk in the autumn, and that we return from there to London. “Couldn’t I go, if only for a month?”
EPILOGUE
ON my way back I found a cottage at Kobi for next summer. It is made of stone and has two rooms. A sparkling rivulet comes past, washing, as it were, the toes of the cottage. It will be empty if I come and claim it in the spring, and I think I shall. Now my summer draws to a close. Already the procession of autumn has commenced: the trees at the summits of the mountains have turned from green to golden. The messenger has come to Proserpine. Presently, where I used to count five snowy peaks, I shall find seven and then ten, till at last the little Sphinx mountain that squats outside Vladikavkaz will also be a peak and glisten like the rest. The thorn-apples have already burst and thrown out their crimson seed, and like dusty yellow balls the Cape gooseberries have appeared on the mountains. The glories of gold and brown have spread downwards like fire into the valleys. The leaves are falling from the trees on the hills where the wind roars, from the trees in the valleys, even from the trees in the town, where there is no wind at all, and the snow is descending in the valleys. The sleet falls in Vladikavkaz, and then snow, and then in November even Vladikavkaz is, as Moscow and St Petersburg and the whole wintry north, a snow-clad town. The cycle of seasons has gone round; winter turned to slush on Palm Sunday at Moscow, it changed to laughing spring on the hill-slopes at Vladikavkaz. Summer followed the plough over the fields and blushed in a myriad flowers. The maize fields waved, the sunflowers gazed. Then autumn was seen in the streets, whilst all the village folk threshed the corn with flails. The priest blessed the first fruits and autumn was past. Once more it became the turn of winter, the most Russian of all seasons. Quick pace the winter came just as it had passed away. As in the spring sledges gave way to wheels in a day, so now did the wheels give way and the sledge ruled the road.
A wave of intense longing came and I must see England again. So one day found me once more in the city of fog and rain. As I walked down Fleet Street in Russian attire I heard someone say, “There goes a Pole.” But when I came into the city people were not deceived, and despite my shabby soft black hat, unclipped hair, and furry overcoat, a young man in Throgmorton Street persisted in whistling behind me that Gilbert and Sullivan air:—