Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea

24

YES, NOVOROSSIISK seemed very dismal indeed.

We wandered around for a long time, asking about apartments. Everywhere was full; every last room—every last little corner—was jam-packed.

I met a woman I knew from the Shilka—a former lady-in-waiting.

“Relatively speaking,” she said, “we really haven’t done at all badly for ourselves. We’ve found a room and the landlady’s put several more mattresses down on the floor. There’ll be eleven of us altogether, but as far as living space is concerned two are just little children, so really they don’t count at all. Of course they’ll probably cry, these little ones, but all the same it won’t be any worse, actually, than being on the Shilka, and moreover there isn’t the slightest danger of feeling seasick.”

This lady-in-waiting feared seasickness more than anything in the world. But in that respect the Shilka had done us proud—there had been only one episode of pitching and rolling and it had not been severe, even though I myself was one of the passengers. Until my voyage on the Shilka, every ship I had ever set foot on had, almost at once, begun pitching and rolling—no matter what the atmospheric conditions beforehand.

What seas had not tossed me about! The Baltic, the Caspian, the Sea of Azov, the Black and the White Seas, the Mediterranean, the Sea of Marmara, the Adriatic… And not only seas! Even Lake Geneva, when I was doing the half-hour trip from Saint-Gingolph to Montreux, had turned so rough that all the passengers had felt sick.

My power to conjure up storms had never particularly troubled me. I enjoyed storms at sea and suffered little ill effect from them. But in the Middle Ages I would certainly have been burned at the stake.

I remember the sufferings of a landowner from Orlov who had refused to believe in my powers.

I was traveling from Sebastopol to Yalta and this landowner gallantly offered to accompany me. I thanked him warmly but felt it my duty to caution him: “It will be a rough trip.”

The landowner didn’t believe me—the sea was like a mirror and there was not a cloud in the sky.

“Wait and see!” I said darkly, but he just shrugged his shoulders. The weather was divine and, anyway, he was a heroic sailor. He understood, of course, that I would need looking after, but he had no concerns about himself.

“Well, so much the better.”

We boarded the steamer.

Everyone was thrilled that the weather was so divine, but the captain said unexpectedly, “Let’s have breakfast as soon as we can. Once we’re past the lighthouse, it might turn a little choppy.”

I gave the landowner a pointed look.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, “I have no concerns about myself. And as for you—well, don’t worry, I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

During breakfast this landowner of mine talked unstoppably, advising everyone about the right way to sit, the right way to lie, the importance of sucking a lemon, of chewing on the rind along with a little salt, of trying to arch your spine while pressing your head back against your chair, and heaven knows what else.

I felt surprised that a man with so strong a connection to his land should also be so impressively au fait with matters maritime.

The other passengers listened attentively and respectfully. They asked for still more advice. The landowner’s answers were prompt, sensible, and detailed. I did of course, for all my surprise, listen carefully. It would have been wrong for me to ignore the advice of so experienced a man.

What he emphasized most of all was the importance, unless it was very rough indeed, of staying on deck. And so, straight after breakfast, up on deck I went. My landowner followed.

The captain proved right. No sooner had we rounded the lighthouse than the ship adopted the gait of a camel, dipping its nose and then raising first its right side, then its left side, high into the air.

I was chatting merrily away, holding the ship’s rail. I was looking at the horizon and the distant flashes of lightning between the blue-gray clouds. I was enjoying the moist salty air.

But then two or three of my questions went unanswered. I turned around to find nobody there. My landowner had disappeared. What could have happened? The few passengers who had come up with me after breakfast had also disappeared. At this point I realized I was feeling very dizzy indeed.

I needed to lie down.

Walking was rather difficult, but somehow, holding onto the railings with both hands, I negotiated the stairs. I then found that all the places in the ladies’ saloon had been taken. Everyone was lying down.

I found an empty corner and somehow managed to settle myself there, my head on someone’s suitcase.

But where was my landowner? It was specifically to look after me that he had come along. The least he could do was to bring me a lemon or find me a pillow.

I lay there, feeling puzzled, mulling over his advice and instructions.

As well as the large saloon, there were six little cabins that opened onto it. These cabins were, of course, also all occupied, so I decided to stay where I was and try to sleep.

Suddenly the saloon door swung open and in rushed my landowner.

Hatless. Dishevelled. Eyes darting from side to side.

“Are you looking for me?” I called out. “I’m over here!”

But he didn’t hear me. He flung open the door of one of the little cabins and thrust his head inside. There was a wild shriek, then something like the bleat of a crazed goat—and the door slammed shut.

“He’s looking for me!” I thought. I tried to catch his eye.

But he didn’t see me. He rushed to the next cabin and again flung open the door and thrust his head inside. Again there was a crazed bleat and a wild shriek. This time I even made out a word: “Outrageous!”

He leaped back again and the door slammed shut. “He must think I’m in one of those cabins,” I said to myself.

“Nikolay Petrovich! I’m over here!”

But he was already at the third cabin. He thrust his head inside, bleated something incomprehensible—and was met by wild shrieks of feminine outrage.

“What on earth’s gotten into him?” I wondered. “Why does he keep bleating like a goat? Why doesn’t he just knock and ask?”

Then he thrust his head into the fourth cabin, nearer to where I was lying, and was immediately propelled back out again. Looking like death, he stopped, shouted, “For the love of God, where the hell is it?”—and rushed toward the fifth door.

At this point I understood. I hid my face in my scarf and pretended to be asleep.

By now the other women were getting indignant: “This is outrageous! Opening the doors of ladies’ cabins and—!”

“That gentleman’s traveling with you, isn’t he?” asked one woman.

“No, he most certainly isn’t,” I replied, sounding shocked and offended. “I’ve never even set eyes on him before now.”

I doubt she believed me, but she must have understood that I had no choice: I could hardly admit to having such a companion.

After equally brief visits to the fifth and sixth cabins, he shot out into the corridor, to the accompaniment of yet more furious shrieks.

When we reached Yalta, I found him by the gangway.

“At last!” he said in an unnaturally bright voice. “I was waiting for you all day long. It’s been wonderful up on deck! Open horizons, the incomparable might of the sea! The beauty of it all, the elemental power! No, no words are enough. I spent the whole time on deck—it’s been an almost mystical experience for me. But such things, of course, are not for everyone. The captain and I were the only people who managed to stay on our feet. The first mate’s got good sea legs but—though I’m sorry to say this—even he lost his nerve. And the passengers were all flat on their backs. Yes, a truly lovely, bracing trip.”

“I got myself a private cabin,” I said, trying not to look at him.

“Yes, somehow I knew things would be complicated with you,” he muttered, trying not to look at me.