Entry 37 - Good-bye, Tumen!

37


My sole connection with the rest of the world is my work in
the Princess' garden. A dull, tiresome, uninteresting work, in
fact -- labor. As a diversion -- the corpulent cook. My God! If she would
only wash oftener!...

When I come home -- I look out of the small window; the landscape is
magnificent: about twenty yards of virgin soil with Spring grass on it
and the barn on the horizon. Behind -- the fence, over which I see the
tops of the heads of passers-by.

"Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis spectare laborem...." 

[ "Sweet it is, when on the high seas the winds are lashing the waters, to gaze from the land on another's struggles." ~ Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, II. 1]

I forget how it runs further! My latin gets weak. I wish I had Virgil,
or even "Commentarii de Bello Gallico." I'd be arrested and tried if I
asked for them in a book store....

If only I could obtain some money, and buy a decent suit and get
away, -- to Vladivostok, and then through America to France. It seems as
though France is all. It is life. It is salvation from my miseries.

In the evenings I try to arrange in shape my documents and writings
after the looting. For the documents I could be well paid, here, -- but
I do not want that. Let the Russia of to-morrow see what has been done
by our present leaders, and by those who gave us to the scaffold....
M. Kerensky's letter to Grimm -- alone would make me happy if some day
its contents are known....

Where is Lucie now? How empty my house is!

The Princess came out to me in the garden and asked me whether I could
go to Tobolsk and deliver a letter to Mr. Botkin there.

"Of course, I can, your Ladyship, if I have enough money."

"I don't mean that," she answered coldly, looking with disgust at the
manure I was mixing, "don't worry, we will pay you. I mean whether you
could arrange with your Bolsheviki for a permit."

"Why not?" I answered, "they do not want me. I am not a rich man,
nor a Nobleman...." (I simply love to annoy her).

"That will do, Alexei," she said, casting at me a nasty look, "You may
come for the letter at dinner time. Tell the cook that you want to see
me."

She does not think that I am a man. She hates me. Under my beard and
shabby flannel shirt she sees neither my face nor my person. She has
no shame before me: were I in my uniform of a gentleman-in-waiting,
cleanly shaven and speaking her language, and not in the one I
acquired lately, she would have buttoned her shoes, gartered her
stockings, and would not have shown the bad quality of her corset
cover under her wide-opened robe-de-chambre. If she only knew how
her hired help understood her.

At four I was in the kitchen. Here -- another interesting phase of life!
The woman from Moscow who claims to be a cook, does not think I am
from her midst, but feels with her organic cleverness that I am an
imposter.

"You, -- gentry! You liar! Hate your face! Hope the devil will get you
soon!" she says, -- but she isn't a bad woman, she means well, only she
is not as clean as her profession demands. Altogether the kitchen is a
mournful place.

"What is your business?" she asked, "You want to see the Princess?
Don't lie to me!"

"My business is none of your business," said I, "Forget it! Better
tell me if I can have some beer? Go on, cookie, lay it out. Don't be
so stingy!"

The stubborn woman would not give it to me, until I took her gently
around the waist and pinched her arm with all of my force, -- that's
the way to get cook's sympathies; it's astonishing how it works! I got
some beer.

Then I was invited in: "Come in, you scabby devil."

"You will have to take this," said the Princess, giving me a letter
so that she wouldn't touch my hand, "and be sure they don't catch you
with the letter. Be careful, don't drink, Alexei. It's bad to drink;
when you come back we'll give you 500 rubles."

"Je ne le tolere pas," she said to the Prince, "il a l'air si
commun! Il nous vendrait tous, s'il etait assez intelligent!"

The Prince did not answer (I guess he knows more than her Highness)
and looked aside, grumbling something just to calm his better half.

I stared at her, just to scare this bad female, from under my
eyebrows.

"Vous voyez," the Princess almost cried, "Vous voyez! Mon Dieu!
Quel type horrible! J'ai peur de lui! C'est un degenere! il nous
trahira!" 

She complimented me in this manner for a while, and then
started to give me some silly instructions, -- how to get there, etc.

Finally, I left the house, went to Schmelin and got his permission in
a minute, and tonight -- I am leaving.

My house and all in it will be taken good care of, -- Schmelin promised
to look after it.

Good-by, my humble hut! Good-by Tumen!