Lucie? Well if she is not the crookedest woman! I do not think I could get rid of her now even if I would. Schmelin knows of my going out of town, it is clear. Of course he closes his eyes,--but I never can doubt that he will be the first to "put me on a clear water" as soon as he apprehends that the other commissaries know of my wanderings and trading with the Letts, and of what is now under our bed. Something new: Lucie received a rubber bath, so I have to warm up the water and then wait.... (_end of page missing_) ... She would come back, as soon as I shall be ready putting the wires instead of the ropes in the yard for drying the linen. I was glad to know it. Certainly. Personally I am very glad to see her around: she is a nice little woman when she does not plot. It is agreeable to have tea at five and then everything looks so clean and neat since she came. Good God, should she be simply a nice little Lucie! How agreeable everything could become--as if there were no Revolution, no Bolsheviki, no Emperor.... But no; Fate has to put a drop of tar in a barrel of honey. However, perhaps I would have hated to see a cook around here: as soon as a woman gets too domestic--she infallibly becomes unattractive. As for Lucie--enclosed in a cage as we are--I never saw her unwashed, uncombed, frivolous or unladylike. So let her be a plotter. I must be grateful as we never quarrel.... She sends me away when.... (_end of page missing_) 32 (_Fifth letter to M. Goroshkin_) "... a man by name Alexander Petrovich Mamaev from Novo-Nikolaevsk. He has a plan of his own, which he wants to accomplish. He has some people working for him, nothing serious, if I may judge. Mamaev's plan is being worked out this way: his people will buy out the sentinels and take the Emperor and the Heir (perhaps the Princesses, but, as he says "the old woman will never be considered") and rush both eastward by the old highway. On the stations Mamaev's people are now hiring horses and coachmen. They have collected money amongst the merchants. They plan to take the Emperor as far as Blagoveshchensk-on-Amur. Thence to San-Haliang, on the Chinese side of the river. From San-Haliang somewhere out of the country,--I never heard where to. The organization works successfully in the region of Tomsk, where all is ready for immediate action. There is much imagination in Mamaev's plan, and though I know his preparations are watched in Ekaterinburg, they do not meet with approval at all. Captain Kaidalov of the Crimea Horse Regt. is now the soul of Ekaterinburg and he does not approve. He is a fine fellow, I know, and very courageous: he went to the local soviet, became their confident and _persona grata_ and I think is virtually the only one who really understands the problems and realizes their difficulty and their danger. Please let me know whether I should inquire any longer about all of this! Yours, Alex. Syv." 33