We arrived at Moscow in the beginning of May, and settled down for the summer months in a wing of the Petrovski Palace, situated in a beautiful park two miles out, to wait for our apartments to be got ready in town. This palace is a majestic building flanked with four red-brick turrets, looking like a mediæval castle.
The summer passed quickly. It was autumn now, and yellow leaves were falling thickly on the paths outside. The last week of September we took up our winter quarters in town. It was great pleasure to settle in our new home. We have bought a pair of carriage-horses, beautiful steppers, and a pair of lovely ponies to drive myself, sweet little pets they are.
We are leading a very happy life. Sergy keeps from me all knowledge of the world’s misery and wrongs. I have really drawn the great prize in life’s lottery, and am one of fortune’s favourites. There never was a tenderer husband in the world. His one idea is to keep every cloud out of my life. He smooths my path and clears away all the thorns and briars. He is my protector, my guardian and my guide. If there were more men like Sergy there would be fewer miserable women. Sergy surrounded me with comforts and gave me everything my heart could desire, guessing my wishes before I knew them myself. There was nothing under the sun which he wouldn’t do for me; I had only to reach my hand out for anything I wanted. I was really born with the traditional silver spoon in my mouth, and I think myself the most fortunate of human beings to have such a husband.
For social distraction I have now but little taste, and delight in staying at home with Sergy. My time is well filled up and my hours are regulated as clock-work. My daily life begins early in the morning. I usually rise at seven o’clock and am never for a moment idle, working, reading, playing the piano and trying to keep the house in order. I am rather new to housekeeping, it is true, but am determined to begin it in a thorough fashion. It is not a small affair to make myself respected by our servants. The management of that unmanageable creature, the cook, is especially difficult; I have had many struggles with him, and often see a sneer on his lips, but nevertheless I have never allowed him to fleece us too much. Sometimes I had a terrible turn for cleaning, and visitors often caught me perched upon a chair with my sleeves rolled well above my elbows, and my dress shielded by an apron, with a sponge in my hand, busy washing the plants in our drawing-room.
We had to mix a little in society, and Sergy took me out occasionally to pay formal calls, a task I particularly disliked. There seemed to be no end of card-leaving and card-receiving. It is such a bore going out visiting or holding a drawing-room—and this was my only crumpled rose-leaf. I had got thoroughly tired of the vapid folly and hypocrisy of social life, which is a daily lie, and mentally consigned all dinner-parties and deadly “At-Homes” to perdition. Nothing is more horrible than these “At-Home” days; it is such a nuisance to have to be nice to people whom in the bottom of your heart you despise, and who devote their ample leisure to passing criticisms of no tender character on their friends behind their backs. All these Grandes Dames of the so-called Best World are more like mechanical dolls moving on wires, than living, feeling women. Their lives are framed uniformly on a fixed set of rules, and their gossip is perfectly intolerable to me. They talk either platitudes about chiffons, or make remarks about the weather; they murmur mechanically hospitable phrases, and then tear their guests to pieces and mock the weak points of the very people whose hands they had just pressed.
I have the courage to order my life independently of the conventions which govern the existence of most women of my position, and I want to keep myself apart from the Great World. I am no longer fond of the pleasures and the admiration of society, finding no interest whatever in balls, which are insipid without a little bit of flirtation, for I can’t enjoy the actual exercise of dancing quite irrespective of whom I dance with; and now that I am married, I certainly will not admit any more courting. People wonder how I manage to kill my time, hiding myself from the world in a monastic seclusion. I am being talked about. “Mrs. This” and “Mrs. That” disapprove of my manner of life which gives rise to comment, but I am hopeless, and they have quite given up trying to reform me. They boycott me now when they meet me and cut me dead, giving me only the tips of their fingers. I pay them back in the same coin, even more, by giving them the ends of my nails. I do not care at all about what people say or think. Why should others busy themselves with my affairs? I am perfectly well able to act for myself and intend to do so now, and to always brave public opinion. It is difficult to imagine my ranging myself among the slaves, and certainly I am not going to permit my life to be interfered with. If my husband is satisfied with me, it’s all right then; only we two—the rest of the world does not count.
Sergy is occupied all day with his business, but in the evenings I have him to myself. He is the only man for me, the rest of the people are mere furniture. We understand each other perfectly; Sergy never plays the domestic tyrant over me, and is ready to do anything to please me, yielding in many respects for the sake of peace, but he knows how to manage me, nevertheless, and is a rock of resolution when serious things are concerned, and keeps his ultimatum for the great occasions. He has completely changed me from what I had been, and made me what I was to be. However, as I have a very inflammable temper, I often make shipwrecks in a tea-cup tempest, during which Sergy always acts like a tonic on my temperament.
Prince Dolgorouki, the Governor General of Moscow, gave great receptions on Sundays after mass held in his private chapel, where the fashionable world met to stare at each other and criticise each other. After service, the Prince invited everybody to take tea and chocolate in his apartments adjoining the chapel. During the reception I noticed that the over-ripe damsels, fearing to be classed as old maids, kept apart from the married matrons. It was very comical to see them planted stiffly on the edge of a sofa in their virginal nook, trying to look young and waiting for future husbands who did not come.
A new and desperate plot was hatched to assassinate the whole Imperial Family. The winter palace has nearly been blown up by dynamite which was to explode at a quarter past seven, during dinner, but luckily the Court was awaiting that day the arrival of a foreign prince, whose train was half-an-hour late, and this delay saved the Tzar and his family.
Sergy began to be anxious for my health; finding that I was looking rather pale, he wisely decided that I must have more exercise and made me go out for a walk every day. Hating to do things by halves, and wanting to prove to Sergy that I was a first-rate walker, the idea came to me one day, whilst taking my afternoon walk, to pay a visit to my aunt Galitzine, who lived about three miles away. I returned home dead tired and awoke next morning with a bad cold. I had to lie in bed with bronchitis for at least a week to be restored to health. For company’s sake I always took Tiger, my big Danish dog, with me in my walks, whereat he rejoiced exceedingly, wagging his tail with violence. I had no need to elbow the passers-by with such a companion, every one cleared the way for us. There was much fuss with Tiger, he had to be led by a chain at which he tore with all his might, nearly choking himself with his collar in his desperate struggle to get free; I had to do my best to keep his spirits within decent bounds. Sometimes he would stretch himself full length on the pavement, and it was hard work to make him get up without threatening him with his whip, at which he would stumble close against my skirt, doing the penitent, with the peculiar aspect of conscious wrong.