XVII
WEDDING JOURNEY
On the Black Sea · Jason mood · Arrival in Asia · The hotel in Poti · Kutais· Count Rosmorduc · Reception at Prince Zeretelli’s · National dances · Journey to Gordi · Prince Niko with escort comes to meet us · Arrival at Gordi · Ceremonious reception
I see us next on board the steamship that was to take us from Odessa across the Black Sea to the port of Poti. It was My Own’s first sea voyage in all his life; he passionately loved the sea, had always longed to take a voyage, and now he reveled in the fulfillment of his wishes.
Our goal was the land whither Jason went in his quest for the Golden Fleece. I think there was much of the Jason mood in us both at that time: a mingling of delight in adventure, confidence of conquest, the intoxication of hope. Before us lay a world of things new and surprising; we were going to set foot on a land consecrated by the most classical legends, and experiences which we could not even well imagine beckoned us onward.
We knew that we were expected and should be received with open arms. I had written from Vienna to the Dedopali, and to Prince Niko, who also was at that time sojourning in the Caucasus, telling our whole romance and announcing our visit. A joyous “Welcome” was wired back to us. We both thought it likely that my old friend Niko would secure for My Own a position as aide to the emperor or something of the sort. And altogether we were so inordinately enraptured at being together, our bold stroke had aroused in us such an intense feeling of happiness, everything thus far had gone so sur des roulettes, that we looked forward to a constant increase in our good fortune. One day we should return home in triumph; but it would be a long time before we should want to return home; for the present, out into the wide, beautiful, rich, wonderful world! we were after the Golden Fleece. Nor did we need it—that was the best part. Whatever treasures the world might grant or deny us, we had in each other measureless riches. And My Own felt all this even more keenly than I. He was only twenty-six years old, and this was his first journey into the Unknown. I had already experienced so much disillusionment, and had already, with my thirty-three years, emerged in a measure from that state of intoxication which is called youth; but I caught the contagion of his youthful enthusiasm, and was as childish as he.
After a calm passage our steamboat landed us on the Asiatic shore. A different continent—it fills the comparatively inexperienced traveler with a peculiar pride, a pride upon which old globe-trotters look down with a smile. My Own set his foot on the un-European soil with the haughtiness of a conqueror.
“So,” said he exultingly, “here we are in Asia!”
Whether Asia or Australia, whether earth or Mars, cried the exultation within me, we are together, and that is the main thing.
A messenger from the princess was on the landing-place to meet us. He handed me a letter from his mistress with a renewed welcome and the request that we should delay our arrival at Gordi—the summer residence—for a week, till our hosts, who as yet were still at Zugdidi, had had time to establish themselves in their mountain abode. We were to trust ourselves to the direction of her messenger, who would conduct us to the town of Kutais, where we might put up at the hotel for the time being. So we turned the arrangements over to this factotum, a Georgian steward, who spoke a little broken French. He wore the national costume: long caftan, cartridge shells across the chest, bashlyk on head, dagger in belt.
There would not be another train for Kutais that day, hence we had to spend the night at Poti. The place had only a very simple inn, to be sure, but que faire?—This phrase, adopted from the Russian chto dyelat, often came to our ears in that country; it imports that resignation, coupled with a shrug of the shoulders, which does not so much enunciate the question what one is to do in order to contend against something as intimate rather that nothing can be done.
The inn was in truth very simple: we spent the night in chairs because the beds proved to be too thickly inhabited, and when we wanted to make our toilets and looked for a washstand there was none to be found. I rang for the chambermaid. One appeared in the form of a barefooted peasant with a scrubby beard and a forest of curly black hair. We could not make him understand what we wanted, and called to our aid our factotum, who had also put up at this palace hotel of Poti. Then it was made known to us that the house possessed only one tin washdish, which was carried from one room to another as it was needed, and with it the towel—in what a condition!
Not especially refreshed by this resting-place, but in unruffled good spirits, we continued our journey the following morning in order to reach our next stop, Kutais, the capital of the province of the same name. There another messenger from the Mingrelian family was also awaiting us—the young prince’s intendant, a portly, tumultuous Armenian, who likewise could speak broken French, and wore the European dress. He conducted us to the best inn of Kutais; this was certainly not a palace hotel either, but might be so regarded in comparison with the hole where we had been the day before, for here each guest had his own washbasin and even his own towel, and the rooms and beds were clean. But everything we saw and heard—and smelt—seemed to us so terribly exotic: the strange types of people, the strange costumes, the strange architecture of the buildings, and—as to the sense of smell—a quite peculiar and not disagreeable odor of sundried buffalo dung. The buffaloes themselves, which are used here to draw loads and as milch cattle, and which we had already seen idling in sundry mudholes on our way to Kutais, were an exotic phenomenon to us.
The heat was frightful. One could hardly endure it in the rooms, and we spent our days and took our meals (consisting of mutton, mutton, mutton) on a wooden balcony which ran around the house over the court.
After two days our Armenian took his departure, and a third messenger came to be our guardian and protector. This time it was a family friend of the Dadianis, an old French nobleman de vieille roche, with the fine manners de l’ancien régime. His name was Comte de Rosmorduc. Born in Bretagne, he had come to the Caucasus some twenty-five years before (for what reason I do not know) and had settled down there for good. He had married a Mingrelian woman, and owned a house which he had himself built at Zugdidi. He was a welcome associate of the princess and her children, and later became a dear friend of ours also.
He now did us the honors of Kutais. He introduced us at the home of General Zeretelli, the foremost house in the city. The Zeretellis were Caucasians and relatives of the Dadianis. They showed themselves very obliging, even arranging for a great reception in our honor on the following evening, to which all the notabilities and aristocratic families of the place were invited. The daughter, Nina, was a famous beauty, but as she was twenty-five she was regarded already as an old maid. Girls in the Caucasus usually marry at fifteen or sixteen. The Countess Rosmorduc, who was then thirty-five, had been married for twenty years. She also was a great beauty; but we did not make her acquaintance until the next year.
The soirée at the house of the Zeretellis left an ineffaceable impression on our minds, because it was the first time that we got a glimpse of the social life of the country. Here we saw ladies in their national costume and witnessed for the first time the performance of the national dance—the Lesginka. We also participated for the first time at a banquet where the fiery Kachetin wine was poured from slender silver flagons into great drinking-horns, and where a toastmaster, chosen to this honorable office, proposed the healths—on this occasion, as first of all, the health of the guests from Austria. The host and hostess did not sit down at table but helped serve. Among those present we found many who spoke French, and where that was not the case Count Rosmorduc, who had learned the language of the country, served as dragoman.
In the salon stood a piano. My husband sat down at it and played some of the waltzes which he had himself composed, and the Caucasian society was full of admiration and danced to this music with perfect grace. But they were most pleasing in the Lesginka. This dance is usually executed by only one couple, while the rest sit in a circle and clap their hands in time to the music. The accompaniment is provided by a small native instrument which endlessly repeats a certain melody three bars long, and by tambourines adorned with little bells, on which skillful hands thump with an increasingly lively rhythm. The dance itself is a pantomime of the immemorial play of love: pursuit, flight, enticement. The men perform artistic pas; the women fairly float along the floor, the long, heavy silken garment concealing the feet so that they look as if they were rolling on invisible casters; the veil which is attached to their headdress flows behind them, and from the arms, stretched out in circling gestures, float the long double sleeves. As a conclusion to the festivity I treated the company to an Italian bravura aria and then to Auber’s Laughing-Song—Carlotta Patti’s show piece; the laughter in the song infected everybody, and the whole ended with a chorus of laughter.
And now the next morning we started for the goal of our journey, for Gordi, situated on a high plateau among the mountains. Count Rosmorduc chartered a troika and escorted us. It was jolly riding behind that spike team; the more the springless vehicle shook us up, the more fun we had out of it. The way was splendid; all the hedges were abloom with cascades of wild roses. At the same time the heat was frightful. All the more delightful the prospect that we were going among the mountains, where, as Count Rosmorduc assured us, cool and almost raw winds blow all the time.
After a journey of several hours across the plain we came to Pompey’s Bridge; this is that place where one must leave the carriage and ride horseback the rest of the way. We were now at the entrance of the defile, and the peaks of the mountains which we were to climb stood out steeply against the azure sky. The stream which roared and foamed under Pompey’s Bridge roared perhaps twice as loud in our ears because it had been described to us as the “Hippus” of the ancients; what classic craft—doubtless even Jason’s Argo when he went to capture the Golden Fleece—must it not have rocked on its billows! This was the place, I remembered from the Dedopali’s letters, where the young princely couple on their home journey had dismounted from the carriage, where the bridge had been spread with a carpet, and a triumphal arch of flowers had marked the boundary line of Mingrelia.
There was no triumphal arch awaiting us at Pompey’s Bridge, but there was a pleasing surprise: Prince Niko, accompanied by a great retinue, had ridden down to the threshold of his dominion to welcome the “Contessina” and her husband. Under a tent a table was spread with refreshments. There we had breakfast first and a toast of welcome was drunk, and then we addressed ourselves to the ascent. Horses were in readiness also for us and Count Rosmorduc; for me a gentle pacer. Prince Niko lifted me to the saddle, and now we had to ride up the seven kilometers of serpentine road, while the cavalcade of the princely escort, in their picturesque costume, were around us performing all sorts of feats of horsemanship in their high saddles, springing up and down the steep sides of the pass, and offering a perfectly wonderful spectacle.
And as we rode upward the temperature grew cooler and cooler, and the prospect over abysses and valleys more and more magnificent. The sun had already disappeared behind the mountains when we arrived at our destination. Gordi is situated on a great plateau, in the background of which, buttressed by a mountain wall, stands the prince’s castle, a wide edifice flanked with towers and adorned with numerous balconies and terraces. On the right and left at intervals were small, neat wooden villas. One of them was occupied by the dowager princess; one by Niko himself, because his castle was another that was not yet completed; one was for us; and the rest served as quarters for the other guests and neighbors.
The Dedopali was standing on the terrace of her villa to welcome us. Around her stood her women, her almoner, her private secretary, and her bodyguard. She took me into her arms and bade me welcome.
“Présentez-moi votre cher mari, ma petite contessina, ou faut-il dire ‘baronessina’ maintenant?”
She kissed my husband on the forehead, in Russian fashion, when he bent over her hand after the introduction.
We were soon conducted over to our little house, where we were to rest and dress for dinner. The small guest villa, built on a level with the ground, consisted of a sitting-room hung with gay cretonne and provided with furniture of the same, a bedchamber, and rooms for the man and maid who had been put wholly at our disposition. The dinner was served at the Dedopali’s villa, on a broad open veranda. After dinner the company—there had been about thirty at the table—went out on the plateau, which lay in full moonlight; and now dances were performed, rockets were set off, choral songs were sung, and not till midnight did we retire.
That was our reception at Gordi.