March 2nd.—The gradual lowering of the temperature is very sensible. Since yesterday the punkahs in the salon had ceased to work and the light dresses and straw hats on board have been replaced by warm coats and woollens of all kinds. The wind is getting fresher and the sea begins to ripple. It is the “mistral” coming on; we are rolling terribly on the Mediterranean. It is not at all jolly, especially with the perspective of quarantine at Marseilles.
During the stay of the Laos at Bombay many new passengers boarded the ship, amongst them a rich Indian nabob with a face like a wicked monkey, who is going to London to be presented to the Queen. He is dressed in European garb, which doesn’t suit him at all and makes him look more like an ape than a human being. But the Hindoo was thoroughly unconscious of his own deficiencies. He sat next to Mr. Shaniavski at dinner and found fault with all the passengers during the repast; especially with those belonging to the yellow race, and said that the Chinese and the Japs were all monkey-faced creatures. And he himself—whom does he look like, I should like to know?
March 5th.—Thank God we are close to Marseilles. At seven o’clock in the morning the washing of the deck was already over and the boat had put on her best toilet. At ten the French coasts were in sight. Shall we be able to come into the harbour or shall we be confined to quarantine? That is the question which preoccupies us all.
Hurrah! the sanitary state of our boat is declared satisfactory and we are permitted to land.
We decided to rest one day at Marseilles at the Hôtel de Noailles. I could think of nothing else but bed and the bliss of laying my ailing body down to rest between clean sheets that smelt of lavender.
March 7th.—We are on our way to Paris. I am so happy to see the miles added to miles, and the distance separating me from darling St. Petersburg decreasing visibly. The whole country is covered with a deep mantle of snow. I wanted snow so badly in the tropics, and must be satisfied now!
CHAPTER CXVIII
ST. PETERSBURG
We are back from our exile; home in Russia! At last our wanderings have come to an end. We have crossed the globe almost in all directions by land and sea, but I know of no place as dear as St. Petersburg.
We are staying at the Grand Hôtel, and have had such a good time since we came here, and no end of a better one in prospect. I feel myself free of all constraint and etiquette; all my words and acts are not taken up and discussed as at Khabarovsk. We were full of lovely plans for spending the summer abroad, but man proposes and circumstances master him. We have just been at St. Petersburg for a week, when an event occurred which upset all our plans. My husband was offered, quite unexpectedly, the brilliant post of Governor-General of Turkestan, a territory in Central Asia, between Siberia and Afghanistan. He accepted the post. I was awfully taken by the rapidity of the events—it gave me quite a shock! All my little castles in the air have been shattered at one blow, and my day-dreams have come to nothing. It was such a sorrow for me to leave St. Petersburg, and a great sacrifice to give up going abroad. I am so tired of being a bird of passage, hunting about from place to place, until I could scream for rest, leading a life of constant travel in overheated trains and on rolling seas. And we are obliged now to undertake another long journey! A new existence is in store for us at the other extremity of our spacious native country. A new home, a new life! What will it be like? But the die is cast; there is nothing to do but submit. I must be reasonable and look the matter fairly in the face and endeavour to take a philosophic view of what can’t be helped.