Rescuing the Czar: Two authentic diaries arranged and translatedSmythe, James P.
History
Rescuing the Czar: Two authentic diaries arranged and translated
Smythe, James P.
Diary fiction; Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia, 1868-1918 -- Fiction; Russia -- History -- Nicholas II, 1894-1917 -- Fiction
Sunday she came back from the trip. I felt quite lonesome all of this
week. Two men were with her: one--a Russian, the silent type, with a
big hat, who was taking care of the horse: the other, a tall, broad
faced Anglo-Saxon fellow, whose bronzed face would be appropriate
in the tropics but not on the white steppes of Siberia. A little
longhaired pony brought the trio in a fancy sledge early in the
morning. The Englishman (his name is Stanley) started to work with
the radio, silent, serious, smoking a short black pipe. He took me for
Lucie's servant. If I had had any doubt of his nationality, I never
could have mistaken his tobacco: Navy Cut,--_the one make_ I can't
tolerate. He filled our small house with blue clouds of stink. When
they all came I ran to the sledge, but from a distance Lucie signaled
to me with her eyes that no tender expressions were needed. She sent
me out for food, then to a drug store, then to the post-office, etc.,
etc. I obeyed.
So around noon I went to see the Princess. They all make me sick,
especially since the L. tragedy. "If God does not help--we cannot." A
certain Mme. K-v is now hanging around her. A suffragette--that's what
she is. She said "some women are now here--we know nothing about ..."
alluding of course to me. I hardly could wait until evening.
It was evening when S. finished connecting the kitchen station with
the city current. When I came home he and the Russian were trying to
harness the pony. The poor little horse was choking from the smoke of
his pipe and trying to bite the torturer.
"Say, Lucie," the Englishman said to her, as shivering in my overcoat,
she came out to say good-bye to him, "the benzine is in the barn,
over there under the hay. Tell your man to be careful and not to smoke
around here."
"If it did not explode after your pipe, sir," I replied in my best
Shakespearian, "my cigarette won't do any harm. So don't be alarmed."
It took him about half a minute to digest the fact that I could
understand his cockney. Lucie became almost hysterical with laughter
and ran into the house.
Then he made a serious face and sprang into the sledge and the Russian
flicked the horse with the whip. Near the corner, I saw him say
something to the Russian and they turned back.
"Say," the Englishman asked, "are you English? Or Canadian, I fancy?"
"Never mind me, Major or Captain, or whoever you are. I'm just I.
Don't fancy, and proceed. I'm busy."
I closed the gate and heard another formidable crack of the whip on
the pony's fat flanks.
Hundreds of bells started ringing again, and then died away in the
distance, drowned out by a locomotive whistle....
And here I was in my room again. In the corner stood Lucie, lovely
creature with all her funny actions and thoughts, Heaven knows by what
and whom inspired.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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