When we arrived at the frontier some Prussian officials rushed into our compartment, and having taken possession of our passports, they declared, to our profound stupefaction, that we had to go out and began to fling our hand-bags out of the window. We had scarcely time to jump out when the train began to move, carrying away our heavy baggage which had been more lucky than we were, and we were left to our own devices. It appeared that our passports had not been signed by the German Consul in Moscow, and although it was stated in my husband’s passport that he was going to Italy on a special mission, these horrid Germans tumbled us out of the train, finding sufficient ground for detaining us until permission be received by wire from their Consul in Moscow to let us proceed further. We stood for some time on the platform a picture of forlorn discomfort, looking at each other helplessly, and trying to collect our scattered wits. How perfectly dreadful it was! Our position can be better imagined than described. We had positively no notion where to go and what to do with ourselves. The day was closing rapidly, it would soon be night. What were we to do? Sleep in the open air perhaps, for except the station, there was not a house within sight, and to return to our frontier was impossible, there being no other train that night. Clutching our bags we mournfully entered a vast “Warte-Saal” where a party of bearded Teutons were loading themselves with beer out of huge pint-mugs, and were all talking at once amid clouds of tobacco smoke. The atmosphere making me feel faint and dizzy, we hastened back to the platform in search of the station-master to beg him to give us somewhere to lay our heads. He came up to us, a fiercely moustached man, awfully stiff and puffed up, and asked us what we wanted. We begged him, expressing ourselves somewhat lamely in German, to give us shelter for the night. He led us to his quarters and ushered us into a little slip of a room, low-roofed and white-washed, furnished with two huge feather-beds with eider-down quilts, where we felt ourselves as prisoners put under arrest. A bad night is soon passed after all! The first thing I did was to remove, with all haste, the obnoxious coverlet and lie down, but I could not sleep for the stifling air in the room; I tossed and turned in bed till morning.