On approaching Naples, I was delighted to see on the quay a group of Russian sailors belonging to the man-of-war which had cast anchor in the bay. I hastened to land, in order to boast of my countrymen before our fellow passengers. But, O horror! it appeared that the sailors were all desperately drunk, and looked awful. With bleeding faces, their clothes all in tatters, they made a disgusting spectacle of themselves. We were told that they had just had a fight with some Italian sailors who had cheated them in a tavern where they had been drinking together. Our compromising compatriots were shouting in Russian, “Give back our money or we’ll throw you into the water!” It was not a very edifying scene and made me blush for my country. On our way to the hotel we met another group of Russian sailors walking in a friendly way—arm-in-arm—with their Italian comrades, also tolerably drunk and zig-zagging somewhat, their two feet being hopelessly at variance. There will be a fight between them ere long, I am sure. Passing by a coral shop, we entered to purchase a necklace, and made out that the owner of the shop was a fellow-countryman of ours, living in Naples for the last thirty years. He had been sexton at the Russian church, and having married the daughter of an Italian merchant, he had settled down for good in this country. His eldest son can just speak a few words in Russian, but the younger ones cannot speak a word of our mother-tongue. The next day we started back to Russia. I left _La bella Napoli_ with regret. CHAPTER XXXVI PEISSENBERG Once back in Moscow, we resumed our usual mode of life. My husband is working very hard, and I see him only during our meals. Our doctor finds repose and change of air necessary for us both, and sends us to make a cure in the sanatorium of the famous Wunderfrau Ottilie Hohenmeister, at Peissenberg, in the Bavarian mountains. Our journey occupied three days. I grew rather excited as we neared our destination, and when the train steamed into the station of Peissenberg, I felt downcast and nervous at the thought that we should have to undergo a serious cure here. We drove in a carriage sent by Frau Hohenmeister to her sanatorium—beautifully situated on the slope of a hill—and followed her head-manager into a parlour where a fire was burning brightly. After having put our names down in the register-book, we climbed to the top-floor by a creaking staircase of seventy steep steps which led to our apartment, consisting of two rooms high up in the attic. Our turret bedroom was close under the roof, and our eyes were above the tree-tops. It had a window in its sloping ceiling through which stars might be studied at night. And we are first-class boarders at the sanatorium! How are the second-class tenants lodged, I wonder? In return we have a beautiful view from our sitting-room window, looking on to the vast forest and on snowy hill-tops in the background.