We took an apartment which looked out on to the Piazza Vittorio, where the Municipal band played in the afternoon. The weather was cold and raw, it rained steadily and we were forced to remain indoors.
Naples is not a cheerful place in wet weather and we were ready to turn our back to it and return to Russia, but the weather having cleared up on the third day of our sojourn, we decided to prolong our stay for a fortnight. We wrapped ourselves up warmly and took the tram to make a tour round the town. When passing the Emigrant’s Office we saw a long line of pale-faced emigrants, with babies and bundles clasped in their arms, who were going to America, sitting on the ground and waiting their turn to subscribe themselves for expatriation. After our drive, the guide took us through the Royal Palace, where we admired the beautiful Concert Hall, constructed by the Bourbons, with the marble statues of the nine muses standing along the walls.
Profiting by our stay in Naples, I wanted to take a few lessons on the mandoline, and Sergy bought me a costly pearl-inlaid instrument at Vinacio’s, the best mandoline-maker. A lady-teacher, recommended by our hotel-keeper, was engaged to instruct me in the difficulties of the “tremolo” on the strings, but she proved to be a very mediocre teacher and taught me the “tremolo” with her gloves on. I did not repeat my lesson and Professor D’Ambrosio, a well-known musician and composer, was invited in her place. I spent hours studying my mandoline, playing scales and exercises.
During the summer and autumn months, the San-Carlo, one of the biggest theatres in the world, is closed, and we went to see “Faust” at a small theatre, where the performance began very early, at six o’clock in the evening. The chairs in the first row cost only two francs. The conductor of the orchestra seemed little more than a boy and could not be over twenty, and the performance didn’t please me: Faust was too fat and Mephistopheles not diabolical enough; Siebel had a fine mezzo-soprano, but boy’s clothes did not suit the outlines of her stout figure, and Margaret had nothing of the woman but the skirt, and struggled against the almost impossible task of the mature woman impersonating a girl of seventeen, and was listening with all the coyness of forty years and six children at home, to the love-making of Faust. At eight o’clock a new performance of “Don Giovanni” was about to begin, but our eyes closed with sleep and we did not purchase any more tickets.
On the 12th November we took the train to Rome. I became suddenly aware that one of our fellow passengers, a dandy-looking young Italian, was staring at me over his newspaper. He wore an eyeglass which made him squint a little and through which he couldn’t see, I am sure, but his sight, evidently, was so excellent that he could well afford to sacrifice the vision of one eye, now and then, for the sake of effect. He faced me with a gaze that made me long to box his ears. Feeling awfully disturbed I looked anywhere but in his direction, and throwing myself back in my corner, I opened a magazine and pretended to be deeply engrossed in its pages. I slowly turned leaf after leaf; I turned so many that he became impatient and tried, in altering his position by moving up opposite to me, to take a better view of me and catch my eye, but my eye refused to be attracted. Then the persevering man tried to enter into conversation with me in asking permission to smoke. I bent my head in careless assent and pretended to become violently interested in the landscape. “What a splendid scene!” he exclaimed suddenly, but I continued to gaze out of the window and made no reply, laughing inwardly at this little manœuvre and regretting that I had no eyes behind my back to look on the other side and see his discomfiture. When we reached Rome we seized our bags and descended on the platform. We had to cross the railway line, running to catch the Florence train. Whilst my pursuer was calling a facchini to look after his luggage, he lost sight of us in the hurry of changing trains, rather to my regret, I must confess, for like Faust’s “Margaret” “Je voulais bien savoir quel etait ce jeune homme et comment il se nomme,” I was so sorry that I didn’t know who he was and where he came from. We entered an empty car, and Sergy promised the guard a good tip if he would leave us to be sole occupants of the compartment. All at once we saw my “Faust” running about the platform and peeping anxiously into all the cars. He started when he saw me at the window, and prepared to step in, when the guard slammed the carriage door in his face, and I never saw him any more!
When we arrived at Wirballen, the sight of our frontier, the Russian voices, the Russian train, the Russian porters were a joy to me. How nice it is to be home again! We found Moscow in full winter: all the streets were white.
CHAPTER LVIII
PROMOTION OF MY HUSBAND TO THE POST OF GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF THE AMOUR PROVINCES IN EASTERN SIBERIA
There was much talk about my husband’s appointment to the post of Governor-General of the district of the Amour, including the provinces along the valley of the Amour river and the entire Eastern section of Siberia, instead of Baron Korff, whose health was beginning to fail. About this time my husband was frequently called to St. Petersburg on business. One morning an urgent telegram arrived; the Minister of War summoned my husband without delay to St. Petersburg. Sergy promised to send me a wire containing two words: “Great News,” if the question concerned his nomination. I was in a state of great excitement until the telegram arrived. The next evening brought a wire from Sergy, it ran: “Great news!” I had expected it, and yet, it was a shock. But I resigned myself to my lot. I loved Sergy far too well to injure his prospects and I would follow him to the world’s end resignedly.