472 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE- II 



mercy, in the midst of a lake in the Adirondacks eyes 

 which haunted me long afterward. And there comes back 

 the scene at the funeral ceremony in his honor at Berlin, 

 coincident with that at St. Petersburg his uncle, the 

 Emperor William I, and all about him, in tears, and a 

 depth of real feeling shown such as no monarch of a 

 coarser fiber could have inspired. When one reflects that 

 he had given his countrymen, among a great mass of 

 minor reforms, trial by jury ; the emancipation of twenty 

 millions of serfs, with provision for homesteads ; and had 

 at that moment as his adviser, Loris Melikoff, confessed 

 when dying a constitution ready for his people, one feels 

 inclined to curse those who take the methods of revolution 

 rather than those of evolution. 



My departure from Russia embraces one or two inci 

 dents which may throw some light upon the Russian 

 civilization of that period. On account of the blockade, I 

 was obliged to take the post from St. Petersburg to War 

 saw, giving to the journey seven days and seven nights of 

 steady travel ; and, as the pressure for places on the post 

 was very great, I was obliged to secure mine several weeks 

 beforehand, and then thought myself especially lucky in 

 obtaining a sort of sentry-box on the roof of the second 

 coach usually occupied by the guard. This good luck was 

 due to the fact that, there being on that day two coaches, 

 one guard served for both; and the place on the second 

 was thus left vacant for me. 



Day and night, then, during that whole week, we rum 

 bled on through the interminable forests of Poland, and 

 the distressingly dirty hamlets and towns scattered along 

 the road. My first night out was trying, for it was very 

 cold; but, having secured from a dealer in the first 

 town where we stopped in the morning a large sheet of 

 felt, I wrapped my legs in it, and thenceforward was 

 comfortable. My companions in the two post-coaches 

 were very lively, being mainly French actors and actresses 

 who had just finished their winter campaign in Russia; 

 and, when we changed horses at the post-houses, the scenes 



