April 8th.—To-day we revisited the camp of the light-infantry, desiring to see my godson, the newly converted Melakani soldier, who by the way, is several years older than his godmother. I was horrified to hear that he had just been sent to the hospital. Presently, amongst our soldiers, the comparatively healthy ones are only those who have recovered already from the typhus-fever; it is pitiful to see their pale and meagre faces. Mr. Popoff told me that the sight of a Russian woman would help them to forget, for a moment at least, that they find themselves in a strange and hostile land, so far away from their native country.
April 12th.—To-day is Maundy-Thursday. The Catholic Archbishop has invited us to assist at the ceremony of the washing of the feet of twelve little boys belonging to the best Armenian families of Erzeroum. These children dressed in long white garments and wearing crowns of flowers on their heads, had taken their seats on a long bench, covered with red cloth. After having each one bared the right foot, one of the priests poured some water into a golden dish and the Archbishop, in rich sacerdotal vestments, knelt before each of them on one knee, took the bared foot, washed it and dried it with a towel. After this he offered each child a lighted wax-taper and a box of bonbons tied with a green ribbon.
In the evening a service was held in the dwelling of General Heimann, who was in Kars at the present moment, dangerously ill. The reading aloud of the twelve Evangelists by our Russian priest, in this foreign land, to a mass of Russian officers each holding a wax-light, produced a great impression upon me. After the second Evangelist an officer came into the room, a telegram in his hand, and gave it over to my husband who perused the despatch with an air of consternation, and whilst it passed from hand to hand, I noticed the troubled expression of the faces about me. This telegram announced the decease of General Heimann, carried off in five days by the typhus. Is then the prediction of one of our friends going to be realised? He said that we should all die here, and that none of us should see his native land again; the turn of each one is the only thing unknown to us. After the reading of the twelve Evangelists, a requiem was sung for the peace of the soul of General Heimann.
April 13th.—The Russian colony at Erzeroum decided to celebrate the Easter-night ceremony with great pomp; a rather difficult thing to do in this Mussulman country. An attempt was made to illuminate the streets leading to the Greek cathedral, but the inhabitants hadn’t the slightest idea how to do it, and it was our house only which was lighted with lanterns taken from “mosques.” When my husband had put on his uniform and red ribbon, we proceeded to church on horseback, in complete obscurity, with a dozen Cossacks and zaptiehs to protect us. It is very sad to feel oneself in a Mussulman country on this great Christian feast. Nothing recalls to mind the customary animation of that holy night; the streets are so dark and silent! On approaching the cathedral we saw a detachment of Russian soldiers standing under arms. The church was illuminated a giorno and filled with officers, soldiers and Christian inhabitants, the latter take off their fezzes now in church, which they didn’t dare to do before the entry of the Russians into Erzeroum. In a corner of the cathedral lay heaps of painted eggs and Easter-cakes brought by our soldiers to be blessed. Cannons were fired; the first shot was at midnight precisely. After mass, my husband invited all the Russian colony to supper. Our guests left us only at five o’clock in the morning.
April 14th.—On waking this morning I heard men’s voices singing in chorus “Christ is risen!” It was a group of Cossacks who had come to congratulate us with Easter-Sunday. Later on, from ten o’clock, visitors of different nationalities continued to arrive until dinner-time.
It is reported that the Turks circulate exaggerated rumours about the pitiful state of our troops and say that the moment for revenge against the Christians has come. What troublesome times we are living through, good God!
The Mussulmans had the custom of firing guns through the whole night during the eclipses of the moon, but my husband has forbidden this now, in order not to frighten the Christians.
April 17th.—It is the birthday of our Emperor to-day. After a Te Deum in the Greek cathedral, there was a great review of our troops on the square; four military bands executed our national hymn, whilst our soldiers acclaimed their sovereign enthusiastically. The square was crowded with lookers-on. Egueshi caught the drift of a dialogue between an Armenian and a Turk; the Turk announced, pointing to the citadel from whence discharges were heard: “The Russians are unable,” said he, “to frighten us with their cannon-shots, one sees directly that these cannons are not Turkish ones for they make too little noise.”
“You are much mistaken,” broke in the Armenian. “They are precisely Turkish cannons, and it is Maksoud Effendi who has procured the gunpowder.”
“Ah! now I see the reason why we are able to hear these cannon-shots, for if they were Russian guns, they would not be heard at all from the citadel,” concluded the Osmanlie, not a bit disconcerted.