We installed ourselves at Alexandropol in the house of a rich Armenian merchant. It was a dreary home, my new one, with its cross-barred windows, and suggested to my mind being in prison. I suffered a great deal from the cold, for our apartments were very badly heated, and we were obliged to put up an iron stove in the drawing-room.
Alexandropol is surrounded by high mountains; one of the summits named “Alagöse” is always covered with snow. The town with its low houses and flat roofs, uniformly built of grey stone, reminds one of Pompeii. The costume of the native women is as gloomy as everything else in this town. Enveloped in a yashmak, a piece of white muslin leaving only the eyes exposed, they looked exactly like ghosts.
We lived in a very unpretending style. General Loris-Melikoff, who tried his best to cheer our Russian colony, pursued me with invitations, which I generally managed to evade.
One of our favourite diversions was to visit the citadel, a miniature fortified town, situated at about a mile’s distance from Alexandropol. General Kobsieff, the commander of the citadel, was awfully nice to me; he lent me books and sent me flowers.
One of our most frequent guests, General S⸺ was so old that I was afraid all the time he’d go to pieces. He showed a distinct preference for my society and looked at me as if I were something good to eat. This old general gave me to understand that I had captured his venerable heart and that he was deeply enamoured with me, which sounded somewhat ridiculous from that aged warrior, and though he was far too ancient for my taste, I let him make love to me, for what harm could come of it? My old admirer was dying to show me the renewal of his vigour, lost in the night of time; an occasion soon presented itself. One rainy day I went out for a walk accompanied by two cavaliers, my out-of-date adorer and a sprightly young officer. Whilst I held my nose up in the air looking at the state of the sky, a gust of wind tore away my umbrella and the old warrior, trying to get it before the young one, ran as fast as his old legs could carry him towards the rolling parasol, and brought it back triumphantly to me, like a perfect knight. Gallant old creature!
A score of “djigites” belonging to General Loris-Melikoff’s escort, consisting of different Asiatic tribes, gave circus performances on the square, where a military band played every afternoon on the roof-platform of the house opposite our abode. Below, a band of Armenian street urchins went through all sorts of military evolutions, under the command of a little chief, decorated with Russian paper-stars and crosses.
I had a great desire to cross the Arpatchai, a small frontier river between Alexandropol and Asia Minor, in order to be able to say that I had actually stepped upon Asiatic ground. The Arpatchai was frozen at this time of year. As soon as I found myself with Mrs. Zezemann, one of our military ladies, on the other side of the river, a group of Cossacks who guarded our frontier cried out to us to go back, apprehending, surely, that we had the intention of running away to Kars, where the Turkish army was concentrated. The Turkish sentinels, in their turn, regarded us with suspicion. Finding ourselves thus between two fires we had to retreat speedily, to my great disappointment, for we had nearly reached a small cottage inhabited by a Turkish major, with a dozen of soldiers. But “well begun is half done,” I made a fresh attempt at my exciting expedition, accompanied this time by Sergy and his interpreter. My heart beat quickly as we went under the roof of our future enemies, encircled by a group of red-fezzed soldiers who stared very hard at us. When the usual greetings had been exchanged, our courteous host, who seemed quite willing to be friendly, offered us black coffee, served in tiny cups. Fearing that the beverage was poisoned, I entreated Sergy not to taste it, but, notwithstanding, he drank a whole cupful and I hastened to follow his example, for if the coffee had been poisoned, we should undergo the same fate, both of us. In bidding good-bye to our host I expressed my intense desire to possess a white Persian cat with silky long wool, and the Turkish major promised to send me a beautiful specimen of that feline race. It was very charming of him, but though we had been treated first rate, I must say I was glad when we were safely home again.
Meanwhile the political horizon grew very dark, and the shadow of evil hung over us. A great number of the heroes of the last Russo-Turkish war are buried in Alexandropol in the “Dale of Honour,” and when I thought that a new war was very near to bursting out, I had a ferocious desire to fling myself into the Arpatchai. I tried to keep up my spirits as best I could, deluding myself with vain hopes that in a short time we should return safe and sound to Tiflis; but the menace of coming war became more evident every day, it was no use deceiving myself. “Is war inevitable then?” I asked Sergy a hundred times a day, and he could give me but little comfort. How could I live then with this sword of Damocles hanging over me?