Towards midnight the American coast showed itself to view. In the distance appeared a great multitude of twinkling lights. Our ship fired rockets and burnt Bengal fires. Alike in steerage and first-class saloon, pulses beat fast with joyous anticipation. On the after-deck stood the emigrants full of hope and expectation; they sang hymns and patriotic songs. I couldn’t help thinking of the day when they will wake up to the unpleasant realities of Yankee life. The poor wretches will not find the streets paved with gold.
Bedland Island showed itself afar off with its towering figure of Liberty, the most wonderful statue I ever saw, a majestic giantess holding a torch up to light the world. We saw the statue getting bigger and bigger, and soon New York appeared as bright as day with electricity: one mass of wonderful lights.
A new pilot came on board to take us into port. We advanced cautiously amongst floating lighthouses and dropped anchor in Hudson Bay near the quarantine office, in order to land in the morning.
22nd June.—Sergy woke me at six o’clock and took me up on deck to admire the grand sight of Hudson Bay, with picturesque villas strewn along the banks, and menacing fortresses rising on green hillocks. In the middle of the immense bay, battleships, merchant vessels and yachts are anchored. A big ship, carrying only fishermen, passes by going out into the open sea.
At seven o’clock sanitary and custom officers came on board and stood on guard before the cabins. In this Land of Liberty there were formalities without number to be gone through. Under the fire of cross-examination we had to give our age, name and business, and to explain how long we are going to stay and what was our object in coming; and this is the Land of the Free!
Towards nine o’clock our steamer touched New York quay. We were a long time in getting in and came at last to the broad embankment. Not until eleven were we given permission to land on American ground. A crowd was massed on the dock to welcome the Bourgogne and her passengers. There was a wild waving of hands and handkerchiefs on board. The moment had come to bid the ship good-bye. Our fellow-passengers hurried to and fro, carrying off their parcels. When all was in order, passengers’ papers looked through and all the formalities over, the bustle of disembarkment began. Friends are meeting each other, kisses, hearty greetings are exchanged.
A row of all the letters of the alphabet are printed very large and black on the wooden wall of the dock. When stepping from the ship we were taken to the stall bearing our own letter “D.” The “D’s” men were busy with our luggage, also dumped down under the letter “D.”
There was much shouting and general tumult. We were jolted hither and thither by hordes of passengers with their bundles, baskets, children and pet animals. I felt a little lost amid all this bustle. Our Russian consul, Mr. Olarowski, was on the quay to meet us. Thanks to him, a gallant official of the custom quickly marked crosses on our luggage without opening it.
Everything was new to us in America. We saw a nurse holding in her arms a baby in long clothes, about a year old, adorned with rings and bracelets, who was placidly sucking his thumb and kicking his feet with delight.
Mr. Shaniawski has been before in America, and his knowledge of American customs was very useful to us. He took upon himself the task of finding us a lodging. We went to an hotel called the Clarendon, a sort of boarding-house, situated in the 18th street, where big and small apartments are the same price, three dollars and a half for each, including breakfast, lunch and dinner; there is a bathroom to each room. The head waiter led us up the handsomely carpeted stairs to our apartment. The room was pleasant and cool, with pictures on the walls and a thick carpet.
We were just in time for an early lunch when we arrived at the hotel. Fruit was served to us before the meal, which ended with iced-tea. The American custom is having a vast number of small dishes, each counting separately.
All the men in America are clean-shaven and have the appearance of actors, and it seemed strange to me that one of the waiters who served at table-d’hôte, wore a big moustache. A law had just been promulgated forbidding the waiters in the restaurants to wear moustaches, but they all declared that they would obey only if their wages were increased. Having announced that ultimatum they left their patrons, and had thus their own way. The servants in this country are very highly paid, the waiters in our hotel received eighty dollars a month. They believe in the social equality of all human beings but do not seem to mind admitting that there is a class above their’s. They just condescend to wait upon us, and think they can demonstrate their equality by being as rude as possible. Dr. Pokrovski asked a waiter to close the window during dinner, and that uncivil man answered coolly: “Why don’t you do it yourself?” The day of our arrival happened to be on a Sunday, and the servants here are very scrupulous about keeping the Sabbath. Mrs. Serebriakoff called the chambermaid to take away a broken glass, and the girl, resenting the advent of visitors on a Sunday, replied impertinently that she did not work on Sundays. It was also impossible to have our boots cleaned at the hotel, and we had to go into the street for that operation.
Our consul came to call upon us with his wife, a smart young Californian with yellow locks, who looked like a pretty wax figure in a show-window. She doesn’t speak a word of Russian, though her little daughter, aged six, has had a Russian nurse since her very birth. The Olarowskis took us to a music hall on the top of a ten-storied house, lighted with different coloured lamps, from which you have a bird’s-eye view of the great city. The lift carried us to the roof of the big house, transformed into a garden. We entered a vast hall with a glass roof. It was most interesting and quite without the feeling that you might fall off.
Nearly all the houses in New York are twelve-storeyed, with terrace roofs which serve sometimes as play-grounds for school children. In the working quarters the municipality has organised Roof-Gardens, where the poor people can breathe a purer air than in their hovels. In Madison Square, one of the richest quarters of New York, a sculptor has arranged a study on his roof, and in the next house a sportsman has organised, at the height of ninety yards above the pavement, a big dog-kennel where he breeds bull-dogs. In Eighth’s Avenue a Protestant church with a belfry is perched on the roof of an immense building. The houses here are all divided into flats. In Broadway, the main street of New York, they are all built in different styles and architecture, and in the next street, on the contrary, the houses are all alike.
Next day we went to call on the Hollands, our Cairo friends, who live at Windsor Hotel. We started down Fifth Avenue, a street lined with solemn stately buildings with pillared porticoes, all of the self-same pattern. The height of the houses amazed me, some of them being from twenty to twenty-five stories high. The streets are mostly numbered and run in rows. The life in the streets is tremendous. There was an appalling thunder of trains rushing every minute above our heads.
Finally we got to the Windsor Hotel which, like all the big hotels, has its own telegraph and telephone offices, its milliner, hairdresser, etc. We were told at the office that the Hollands had gone the day before to Lake Mohawk. We sent a wire to tell them that we were here, and started back to our hotel by the “Elevated,” an electric suspended railway built upon iron struts above the houses, which cuts through New York in all directions. It made abrupt turnings, and rushed at a reckless pace over the roofs of the houses, or raced through tunnels beneath them. It is great fun looking through other people’s windows, and getting a peep into comedies and tragedies sometimes. The train suddenly stops short with a jerk that sends the passengers into a conglomerate struggling mass, and throws them into each other’s arms. The train brought us to the hotel with a flourish that precipitated me on the knees of my vis-a-vis, an odious man with a red nose.
The Hollands had wired that they were coming over by the night train, and early next morning they sent me a bandbox full of beautiful red roses—so enormous, they looked like peonies—with a note to ask us when we would receive them. The Hollands came to call on us in the afternoon. To meet their kind faces again was charming; the greetings between us were warm. I thought dear Mrs. Holland would never leave off kissing me.
The Hollands offered to drive us in their landau through Central Park. The beautiful weather had brought out all New York, driving, riding, walking. We returned by a lovely place called the Riverside Drive, a long road running along the banks of the Hudson, with charming houses looking straight out on the river, and bordered by trees on each side that spread their branches over us and made the roadway shady. Between the trees the river glistened like a silver ribbon.
On the 4th July, the day of the Anniversary of the Independence of America, we were wakened in the morning by crackers and rockets. In the afternoon the Hollands took us to Coney Island, a fashionable watering-place situated a few miles out of town. We took the tram to reach the port, and drove through streets bedecked with flags. We took places on board the Taurus, a pleasure steamer black with people going out for a boating picnic. The boat had a holiday air about it. The passengers were all workmen with their families, gay, noisy people all of them. On the stern a troupe of Neapolitans danced the tarantella. Leaning on the railing we admired the immense bay of New York, swarming with ships of different nationalities, amidst which we saw our Bourgogne on the point of leaving for Europe. From afar we heard the cannons saluting our Russian cruiser, the Admiral Nakhimoff, which was entering the port just then. The wind rose suddenly, and it took more than two hours before we could land at Manhattan Beach. At last we succeeded in dropping anchor. The boat was overcrowded, and all the people on the deck made a rush towards the stern, making the ship incline on one side, and I had to cling fast to Sergy’s arm not to be swept overboard.
On landing we took the Elevated, which brought us in a few minutes to Brighton Beach, a sea-side resort, the meeting-place for members of fashionable high life. We walked along the sea-shore and met ladies and gentlemen in bathing suits, and bare-legged children with toy spades, playing merrily with sand and bright sea-washed shells. We found ourselves soon in the midst of a large fair with all sorts of show-tents of various shapes, displaying brilliant banners, and queer little booths where you could get your fortune told. The feast was in full swing. We looked at the many merry-go-rounds, flying wooden horses, donkey races, etc. We mounted, for fun, the flying horses, and had a good gallop. We walked for nearly half-an-hour, exposed to the rays of the pitiless sun, in search of a restaurant; we had eaten nothing since our breakfast and were horribly hungry. Mr. Holland, who was completely ruled by his imperious spouse, at times had rebellious fits; he wanted to dine in one place, his wife in another, which made them both cross. He wrangled for about a quarter-of-an-hour; I was a good deal flushed and so weary that I could scarcely drag myself along. I wasn’t able to bear the heat and the fatigue any longer and begged Mr. Holland, who led the party, to take pity on us and pause to draw breath, but he paid no attention whatever to my entreaties and pushed on stubbornly, both hands in his pockets, panting like an engine and mopping his forehead from time to time. There was nothing to do but walk on with a sigh of submission. Mrs. Holland got her way in the end, and announced, in a tone which didn’t suffer contradiction, that she would enter the first hotel on our way. We stopped before the porch of the Oriental Hotel, and were told by the porter that there was a table d’hôte at the hotel, at which the lodgers only could partake. We were ready to retreat, famished and awfully disappointed, but Mrs. Holland, flying into a violent temper, forced herself in, declaring authoritatively, “Here we are, and here we remain!” and made her entrance into the hotel with the step and mien of a woman perfectly determined to have her dinner. Whilst she went to speak to the manager, we came into a large entrance hall, where a long row of negro boys were ranged along the walls, armed with cleaning brushes. They rushed at us and began to dust our clothes. Mrs. Holland must have had a very persuasive way with the head-waiter, for she returned triumphant. We had a very good dinner to which we did ample honour, and were in no way bashful about our appetites. Fortified by our meal, we soon recovered our good spirits, and went by train to Brooklyn. We crossed East River to New York on a ferry full of passengers, horses and carriages. The ferry was sumptuous, the walls of the state cabin entirely of looking-glass.
When we returned to our hotel we found the captain and two ship officers of our cruiser the Admiral Nakhimoff who had come to invite us, as well as all our companions, including the Hollands, to come and take a cup of tea on board that night. Being awfully tired, I was not fit for visitors just then, and as our guests settled themselves into a comfortable position in their chairs, making no attempt to go away, I went to my room under the pretext of a bad headache.
Oh! that “Nakhimoff!” I shall never forget the trouble that cruiser gave us. All the way to the port I felt more dead than alive. The streets were transformed into a veritable battle-field, crackers were exploded under our horses’ feet, rockets were let off and guns fired in the air for joy. The horses, taking fright, began to fidget and prance. I heaved a sigh of relief when we reached the port. The “Nakhimoff” had sent a boat rowed by fourteen sailors to fetch us. We had already pushed off, when Mrs. Holland suggested that it was dangerous to go on the water to-day, because the captains of the numerous excursion boats must surely be drunk and would sink us in no time. She frightened me out of my wits. I was desperately afraid that our boat would be upset, especially when Mrs. Holland, with a very red face, and an expression of desperate determination, declared that she would jump overboard if we were not rowed back to the shore immediately. “Tell them to go back! I shall go back!” shouted the rebellious lady at the top of her voice. Our husbands tried to persuade us that there was no danger whatever, but they couldn’t bring us to reason. They landed us on the beach under the charge of Mr. Shaniawski and were rowed back to the “Nakhimoff.” A crowd of spectators, chiefly women, gathered round us and laughed openly at us, bestowing various uncomplimentary remarks on our cowardice. Awfully confused on being the laughing stock of the place, we decided to cross to the “Nakhimoff” at any price, and were so pleased to see the row-boat coming back to fetch us, in case we had changed our minds, with two ship-officers this time. When we stepped into the boat I became aware that the officer at the rudder, who was intrusted to bring us safely on board, wore two pairs of spectacles. He must surely be short-sighted! But come what may! We pushed off and got to the “Nakhimoff” in ten minutes’ time, somewhat confused, but awfully pleased to rejoin our husbands. The cruiser had hoisted the Russian flag which made me feel all I don’t know how, to look at it hanging there so far from home.
We were taking our tea in the mess-cabin when we heard the sounds of a band striking up our anthem, and shouts of “Hip, hip, hurrah!” We hastened upon the deck, and glancing eagerly in the direction from where the welcome music came we saw an American man-of-war passing before the “Nakhimoff” and saluting us thus gallantly, which roused me to a high pitch of patriotic exaltation. Night coming on, we had to hasten back on shore. The crew of the “Nakhimoff” cheered us as we left her deck and the officers assisted us down the ship’s ladder. We reached the coast all right. All is well that ends well!
The next day the papers said that there were about 200 persons killed in the streets of New York and more than 2,000 wounded during the national festivities, and that the rockets had set on fire a great number of houses. We have had a narrow escape, I must say!
New York is full of Russian anarchists. Quite recently a Russian general, Seliverstoff, has been assassinated by one of them. They managed to lay hands on his murderer, whose beard and moustaches are kept by Mr. Olarowski. Oh, the horror!
On the very morning when we read our names in the list of the arrivals at the “Clarendon,” Sergy gave audience to a suspicious-looking compatriot of ours, who had come expressly to ask my husband’s opinion upon the treaty between Russia and America, concerning the terms on which both countries had to deliver up their respective criminals.
The newspapers were full of us. Our hotel was besieged by reporters waiting in the ante-room for hours to have a word from us. The Harper’s Magazine asks for our photographs, and a type-writing machine office proposes to issue 250 correspondences concerning my husband. We received a lot of letters from autograph-hunters. Mrs. Vanderbilt, one of the richest women in America, wrote to Sergy requesting his autograph in order that she might add it to her collection of celebrities.
Glancing this morning over an illustrated paper, in the middle of the column I saw our faces, but couldn’t believe they were really there, in an American paper. I began to think I wasn’t awake yet. I am sure it is the Hollands who have given our photos to the papers, for we are carried about as a show by them. Under our pictures the magazine has printed our biography, with a number of ridiculous stories concerning us. There was a whole sheet with dark hints as to our private lives, every syllable false. My husband, according to the press, was an oppressor of the people, little better than “Nero,” and Colonel Serebriakoff, who was not able to hurt a fly, is also said to be noted for his cruelty. How do such revolting things get into papers? It is too ridiculous, but I didn’t laugh, I was too angry. The imaginative reporters described me as a Princess with Imperial blood in her veins, endowed with no end of beauty and money, and Mr. Shaniawski as a world-known traveller and explorer. Stupid fellows!
The Hollands are living all the year round at the “Windsor,” where they keep a splendid apartment, like a great number of Americans, who live in hotels to avoid the bother of servants and housekeeping. The Hollands had us to dinner at the “Windsor,” and Mrs. Holland wanted me to look my best in order to make the conquest of the paper-reporters, who take their meals at the “Windsor.” She insisted that I should wear my prettiest dress, but I didn’t take any pains to impress the journalists, and put on my walking costume. I wish the Hollands wouldn’t put me forward always!
Dinner was at half-past seven. Mr. Holland took me down to the dining-room, a large hall brilliantly illuminated and filled with gentlemen in full dress and bare-shouldered ladies. We made our way to the prettily spread table reserved for us, decorated with bunches of roses. Both Mrs. Holland and Mrs. Olarowski had put on their finest dresses. Of all those present I was the only one to appear in a wrong toilet. My modest frock seemed rather out of place amidst the gorgeous plumes of the other ladies, and Mrs. Holland’s eyes swept over me disapprovingly. Nevertheless, I was a great deal stared at and much annoyed, for I felt I was being made a show of, and exhibited as one would exhibit a giant or a dwarf.
We meant to spend a fortnight in New York, but had to leave the city much sooner. When I came down to breakfast one morning, I perceived immediately that something unpleasant had happened. All my companions seemed very preoccupied and gloomy, and ate their breakfasts in silence. After our meal I began turning over the leaves of a daily paper which happened to be on the table close to my hand, and saw an article which made my blood run cold. It ran thus: “Siberia’s Governor-General on a visit here—in imminent danger!” And then I was told that the manager of our hotel had thought fit to warn my husband of the danger to which we were exposed. He had received an anonymous letter that morning, signed A Victim of Siberia, in which he was threatened that his hotel would be blown up for having sheltered us. Further on the letter ran thus: There is now stopping at your hotel a man who is the sworn enemy of thousands of persecuted men and women in far distant Siberia. He has very recently been appointed to the governor-generalship of that accursed spot, but he is a marked man by men of my belief in this country, the Mecca of all, the land of the free. I write this to warn you of a plot to destroy Doukhovskoy, who will now go to rule over the victims of the Tzar in Siberia. But I feel it my duty to warn you to be on your guard against certain members of an organisation of which I am a member. This letter was sent to the superintendent of the police and he has no doubt made preparations to prevent any attempt at assassination, or at any rate to arrest the assassin, which may not be much comfort to us if there really be a plot. Sergy, however, was not to be frightened easily, but of course I was horribly frightened. What woman would not have been? Another morning paper announced: General Doukhovskoy will be assassinated with his wife and suite. In any case he wouldn’t be allowed to reach Siberia, where he is appointed general-governor to martyrise the people. And though the New York Herald had printed in big black letters a headline six inches tall: General Doukhovskoy is safe, we felt ourselves condemned to death.
The first thing to be done was to get away from New York and take the afternoon train to Chicago. I packed in haste and spent a frantic half-hour in thrusting my things in my trunk. The Hollands had invited us to share their box with them at the opera that night, and had announced it in the papers. We telephoned to them that we were obliged to leave New York quite unexpectedly, having been called to Khabarovsk by wire. We also telegraphed to an American lady, who had invited us to visit at her house in Philadelphia, that we were leaving for Boston, in order that they couldn’t get on our track.
My husband acceded to my entreaties that for the rest of our journey through America we would not be “The Governor-General and his wife,” but a plain party of tourists. After my fright I will enjoy it all, particularly because I could see everything I wanted to see, and that I could not have done if we were pointed out here and there as “The Governor-General and his wife.” And thus Sergy changed his name and sent away his luggage; we will travel across the Continent incognito.
We got hastily into a tram to be driven to the railway station, but we were not destined to go off unobserved. A very unprepossessing-looking individual, with long hair and spectacles, sprang on the steps of the tram and asked Mr. Shaniavski, in very bad English, if General Doukhovskoy was leaving New York for good, Mr. Shaniavski stopping him from entering the car, answered that he knew nothing about General Doukhovskoy. At that very moment the tramway started and we were delivered from the obtrusive spy. At the railway-station Mrs. Serebriakoff and I didn’t permit our husbands to leave our sides, and struggled hard to seem unconcerned, mistrusting all the passengers.