My husband’s health had failed a good deal of late, and the doctors have ordered him an absolute change and rest. Sergy was overworked and a good holiday will set him right. He wants to take a long leave and go abroad for some time. Kissingen was recommended by the doctors, but we meant to have a jolly good time and went first to Paris to visit the World’s Fair. Mr. Shaniavski was nominated as representative of the Turkestan section and was sent before us to Paris. He met us at the Gare du Nord, accompanied by four Bokharians and a Turkoman, sent to the Exhibition to look after the rich objects exposed by the Emir, and to serve also as a vivid decoration in the Asiatic section, where the place of honour was assigned to Turkestan. These decorative personages, when passing through St. Petersburg, attracted much curiosity by their magnificent costumes, it is not astonishing therefore that they produced a great sensation in Paris. When our train came to stop at the platform, we saw a crowd of eager spectators waiting to see the arrival of the exotic personages whom the Orientals had come to meet, expecting to see no less a person than a Rajah. People stood on chairs to get a peep at us, and great was their disappointment, when simple mortals clad in European dress, stepped out of the train.
We took a carriage and went to Passy, a western suburb of Paris, where a villa, overgrown with lilacs, bearing the name of Villa des Lilas, was secured for us by Mr. Shaniavski, in the quietest part of Paris, in the neighbourhood of the Exhibition.
Mr. Shaniavski had put up with his Bokharians in a house in the Passage des Eaux, described by Zola in his novel Une page d’Amour. The small Asiatic colony consists of a Bokharian colonel, a captain, a merchant who speaks a few words of French and serves as interpreter, and four servants. The Bokharians, arrayed in rich “khalats,” walk about the streets quite indifferent to the stare of wondering Parisians. When they go out shopping, they are taken for princes, and are made to pay princely prices. One day, when visiting the Grands Magasins du Louvre, they were received at the entrance door by the directeur, surrounded by his assistants, who proposed to the princes to show them through the house, expecting to fleece the Bokharians, who asked the prices of everything they saw without any views as to purchasing them. After having visited in detail the section of jewellery, tapestry and other fancy goods, they made the insignificant purchase of half a dozen crockery plates, after which the splendid directeur, and his satellites, disappeared as by magic, forsaking the stingy Bokharians.
Though the Exhibition has been opened a whole month, the section of Central Asia is not quite ready yet; it is only the section of Turkestan which came to an end, thanks to the energy of our delegate. Next to it are the sections of the Caucasus and Siberia. A crowd of Russian workmen, wearing red shirts, put the finishing stroke to them.
The best place at the Exhibition is assigned to Central Asia, called “Russie des Indes,” quite near the Trocadero. This section, which is a duplicate in miniature of the Kremlin, in Moscow, is surrounded by a high crenelated wall with a row of turrets ornamented with the Russian Double Eagle. When you enter it, the Russian architecture gives place to an Arabian style. An immense panorama represents a large square in Samarkand, with a lively crowd of natives; only when seen quite close, one perceives that it is but a picture, not a reality. Our section is striking by its vivid and bright colouring. A fountain plays in the middle of an immense hall, decorated with beautiful Asiatic carpets and armour, and filled with all kinds of products of our possessions in Central Asia. The best appreciators of a remarkable collection of plants and seeds, appeared to be a legion of mice; these gnawing little animals arranged for themselves, in broad daylight, Lucullus-like repasts, without being disturbed in the least by the crowd of visitors. The grains disappeared visibly, and poison was put in every attractive place, but the cunning mice, preferring the tasty grains, carried their victory on to the battle-field.
Next to our Asiatic section stands the pavilion of Polar Russia. The morose Siberian nature is such a contrast with our bright Turkestan. The panels on the walls represent a seal-chase; all sorts of stuffed polar animals fill the big halls, as well as an ethnographic collection of manikins, which represents in a very life-like manner, different types of the inhabitants of Siberia. The model of a sledge, harnessed with a team of dogs, reminded me vividly of our drive on the frozen Amour during carnival-week at Khabarovsk. On long tables, in the middle of the hall, lay all sorts of furs: beautiful sables, blue fox, beaver, etc. It is curious that according to official information, only 7-8 beavers are killed yearly in Kamtchatka. How can we explain then that hundreds of real beaver skins are sold in Russia. (It is the fur-traders only who can unriddle the thing).
The Caucasus section is just opposite. In a large separate building a panorama represents the new Siberian railway-line. The Sleeping-car Company has exposed the model of a Transcaspian train, composed of an engine and three cars belonging to the International Company, in which one experiences the illusion of a journey through Siberia. The guard whistles, the train seems to move, but in reality it is only the panorama on the walls which is put into motion by a special mechanism. The travellers perceive through the windows the whole way leading from Moscow right to the terminus station—Pekin. When you pass through all the cars, to the other end of the hall, you are in the Chinese section, where the front gate represents a part of the walls of the city of Pekin.
The next day after our arrival at Paris, the section of Central Asia was inaugurated. To get there we had to elbow our way through a throng. A Te Deum was sung by the singers of the Russian Church, whilst all the Kremlin bells were ringing a full peal at which my Russian heart bounded with joy. That day we spent six hours at the Exhibition, and did not sit down for one minute. I was awfully hungry, having eaten only one croissant since morning, and Sergy carried me off to the Trocadero to have dinner in one of the best restaurants. The hall was full of guests. Two very disreputable-looking creatures sat at the table next our own; they were painted with cheap cosmetics, and the heat took off their paint, which came out in the wrong places, and very soon the powder on their faces was becoming paste, and the red on their cheeks and the black of their eyebrows began to run down in streaks, metamorphosing them into tattooed papouses, which didn’t hinder them in the least from casting coquettish glances around. They tried to make eyes at my cavaliers, but it was all in vain; their charms left them quite unmoved. We were too tired to walk home and got into a cab whose driver, with folded arms and bowed head, was nodding on his seat, his nose buried in an open newspaper. Both coachman and horse were dozing the whole way, and it is only a miracle that we got to our villa without running into other carriages.
Next day President Loubet visited our section, where he was presented with a map of France worked “in relievo,” in a frame of jasper; the seas were made of marble, the rivers of silver and the towns of precious stones, got from the Ural mountains. The huge emerald representing the city of Marseilles cost eight thousand roubles. President Loubet is a very different sort of person from what I had expected the ruler of France to be; he is an insignificant-looking little old man, saluting cordially from right to left. A Russian lady, who heard us speaking our mother-tongue, mingled into our conversation. Before leaving our section she favoured me with a condescending nod and a limp hand-shake, but when she heard our interpreter addressing me by my rank, she rushed back and squeezed my fingers effusively. Nasty woman!
We visited that day the Algerian village in the Trocadero Gardens. Superb natives, arrayed in rich costumes, sat on the threshold of their open booths, shrieking out the virtues of their wares. Close to the village stands the Dahomey pavilion, with its straw-thatched roof. Black natives stood on watch, perched on the top of a high tower. In the Singhalese village I patted the small brown babies, calling to mind my sojourn in Colombo. We entered a barrack close by, from which resounded the frantic strains of weird native music. Inside, women clad in Oriental costumes, gleaming with golden coins on their waists and wrists, performed the Danse du Ventre to the accompaniment of clapping hands. One of the beautiful “odalisques” stepped down from the estrade and passed round with a plate into which people dropped money. One glance was enough to show that this would-be Daughter of the Desert was a typical “Parisienne” from the “quartier des Batignolles.”
The pavilions of the different States are picturesquely scattered along the banks of the Seine. All these magnificent buildings, made of plaster, will be in three months’ time reduced to the level of the “Champ de Mars.” One can’t believe that these enormous palaces are only temporary visitors, like the people, and will be destroyed in a few months, after the closing of the Exhibition. It is only the “Palais des Beaux Arts,” built of brick and mortar, which will not be thrown down. A most beautiful and interesting collection of old masters is exhibited in this building. We became so fascinated with some of these wonders, that we could hardly get away from the place. It amused me to see how insufficiently cloaked statues upset the decorum of a pair of prim old maids in large turned-down hats surrounded by green gauze veils, unlovely and unloved creatures, belonging to that sort of Puritans who do not admit kisses because no one ever kissed them. This part of the Exhibition is situated near the principal entry on the side of the Place de la Concorde, with the famous “Parisienne” made of stone and perched very high on the top of a triumphal arch. It is queer to see the reproduction of a fashionable lady dressed up-to-date, posted in such a dangerous and uncomfortable place; we are accustomed to see symbolic figures in that risky position, defying in posture to the laws of equilibrium.
There was a great crowd walking about the Exhibition, a constant going to-and-fro of people who had come from all quarters of the globe. The human whirlpool made me quite giddy. Several bands play in different parts of the grounds near the “Pont Alexandre III.,” which illustrates in stone and bronze the famous Russian Czar. We listened to the music of an American orchestra led by Sousa, the king of marches, in like manner as Strauss and Waldteufel had been the kings of the waltz in times of yore.
Our walks through the Exhibition lightened visibly our pockets. The prices of all the objects exposed for sale are exorbitant, money melted like snow and we came home utterly penniless.
There are different means of locomotion through the great extent of the Exhibition, beginning by the Tonqinoise “puss-puss,” to the last technical invention—the “trottoir roulant,” moving sidewalks, three rows of which run along without stopping. The first row moves very slowly, and it is easy to jump on it; the second row moves faster, and the third one races with the swiftness of an express train. Great agility is needed to pass from one trottoir to the other, and it happens sometimes that the backs of clumsy pedestrians rest on one trottoir, whilst his legs are being dragged on the neighbouring one.
In the Rue de Paris, near the Eiffel Tower, different attractions are to be found: bearded women, mermaids, and other marvels of past, present, and future life. In a miorama we crossed from Marseilles to Constantinople without leaving Paris. Another panorama gives the illusion of a sea-voyage round the world. In the Palais des Optiques we went down under the sea, and were introduced to horrid monsters. We came upon a gigantic telescope showing the moon at the distance of sixty kilometres. A huge wheel 177 metres high, with thirty-two waggons, wheels round intrepid passengers. The Palais de la Femme contains amazing toilettes of past and ultra modern times. I fell in love with a costume of the last note of modernity, which Sergy wanted to purchase, but I was reasonable enough to refuse the present, for the price was unheard of. The Panorama du Mont Blanc shows a group of excursionists climbing up the Alps, which reminded me of our ascent on the Mont Blanc.
To come into the Vieux Paris representing the Paris of past centuries, we had to cross a drawbridge and enter through a tower-gate guarded by sentinels of the middle ages, holding long lances, into the Rue des Remparts, a corner of a street in the fourteenth century, with dwellings filled with mediæval attributes. On the front of the houses, instead of numbers, the pictures of different birds are reproduced. In the narrow, tortuous streets we found ourselves surrounded by people dressed according to the fashion of ancient times; knights in armour and ladies of the middle-ages walked to-and-fro. My imagination travelled, transporting me to the days of long ago, and I felt as if the clock had been put back several centuries. When we passed the Tour du Châtelet, the fourteenth century had vanished by magic into the time of the Tudors, making a jump through the space of over two hundred years. Chants resounded from the church of St. Julien, which belonged formerly to the “Minstrels Brotherhood.” On the Square we saw the gibbet watched over by mousquetaires armed with muskets and wearing three-cornered hats. In the Rue des Vieilles Écoles, the house inhabited by Molière is exactly reproduced. Ladies in paniers and powdered perukes promenaded, escorted by their cavaliers dressed as marquesses. Different processions circulated. Here is a band of clerks directing their steps towards the Court of Justice, with inkstands adjusted to their girdles, carrying in their hands burning torches. In the Criminal Hall, instead of law suits, Mysteries are represented.
Not far from the Vieux Paris is the Andalousie du temps des Maures. The entry represents the exact copy of the Alcazar in Seville; on the Plaza de Toros, instead of horrid bull-fights, pretty Andalusian gitanas (Spanish gypsies) with a rose placed above the left ear in their jet-black hair, dance seguedillas and habaneras. It was fire which ran in their veins. I was very much astonished to see our Turkoman promenading amongst the audience. We were told that the impressario had invited him to come every night gratis to his establishment, as a living decoration. I cannot conceive what can be in common between an inhabitant from Central Asia and Spanish life.
Opposite Andalousia an Alpine village has spread itself ungeographically, with its cattle, shepherds, watchmaker-shops and wooden toy-makers. Amidst natural glaciers and water-falls, an animated crowd dressed in the costumes of all the Swiss cantons, walk about. We saw the house where Bonaparte passed the night on his march with his army of 30,000 men across the St. Gothard pass, with all the furniture just as it was then. There was the armchair by the hearth in which the great man sat, gazing into the glowing coals. What pictures did he see in the flames? Did his thoughts wander back to Josephine, or to new laurels and glory?
The Exhibition opened at ten. We went there as soon as the gates were thrown open and left it only when we found ourselves almost too tired to stand. We met there many friends from Russia, Mr. Radde amongst them, director of the Museum in Tiflis, an eminent biologist versed in all the antiquities and questions of the past. He is awfully abstruse-minded, and always looking as if he just descended from the clouds. One day, when Mr. Radde called upon us at the Villa des Lilas, he made the acquaintance of our landlord, who had nothing of the Adonis about him, with his round moon face, and a tiny baby nose disappearing between his fat cheeks. In a fit of absent-mindedness he began to pity the cherub-faced gentleman for having such a terrible inflammation, and on both sides of the face all the more. Our landlord thanked him for his compassion, but said that happily, he never suffered from toothache, and was not afflicted therefore, with inflammation of any kind. I had to make a desperate effort to be serious when witnessing this comic scene.
We knew our Paris well, and had a jolly good time at night, enjoying theatres and café-chantants. I did feel gay going to naughty places in the quartier Montmartre without caring whether it was proper or not. At the Chat Noir the programme was very varied, exhibiting celebrities dressed in a costume remarkable for its lack of stuff, and famed for the height to which they could raise one leg and knock their own noses with it while standing upon the other. We visited the Cabaret du Ciel and the Cabaret de l’Enfer, two rather disreputable establishments with quaint representations of bliss in heaven and tortures in hell. In the first cabaret the customers are received by a bevy of white-winged, long-haired masculine beings, and in the second one, an establishment where the lights blaze red, the attendants, attired as devils, greet the visitors making demoniac grimaces. The Cabaret Alexandre Bruyant is very amusing; the proprietor of this establishment well merits his surname of Bruyant—(noisy.) He meets his guests shouting in a voice of thunder, and making mocking jeers. When an old lady with orange-coloured hair and a very powdered face came in, he exclaimed, “Oh, la belle brune, n’a-t-elle pas un teint eclatant?” (Oh, the dark beauty, hasn’t she got a dazzling complexion?) A general laugh arose. Then he came up to me and patting my shoulder roared, “Pauvre petite créature, comme elle a l’air maladif!” (“Poor little thing, how ailing and sickly she looks!”) The newcomers, feeling rather scared at being addressed in such a rough manner, and displeased at being made to appear ridiculous, wanted to get away, but when they saw that this queer reception was one of the peculiarities of the house, they settled themselves comfortably at separate little tables, and laughed in their turn good-humouredly at the reception of new arrivals.
The distribution of prizes at the Exhibition took place a few days before we left Paris. My husband received for our Turkestan section the Great Cross of the Légion d’Honneur. The Russian Commissaire, when packing up different objects, found it difficult to bring back to Tashkend a huge “arba” (a two-wheeled cart) and it was decided to leave it here and present it to some collector of curiosities. But no one wanted such a gift, and the commissaires had recourse to another means of getting rid of this encumbering “arba,” they asked a carter, promising him a good tip, to harness his horse to the cart and take it along as far as the highway leading to Versailles, and then leave it there to its own fate.