So around noon I went to see the Princess. They all make me sick, especially since the L. tragedy. "If God does not help--we cannot." A certain Mme. K-v is now hanging around her. A suffragette--that's what she is. She said "some women are now here--we know nothing about ..." alluding of course to me. I hardly could wait until evening.
It was evening when S. finished connecting the kitchen station with the city current. When I came home he and the Russian were trying to harness the pony. The poor little horse was choking from the smoke of his pipe and trying to bite the torturer.
"Say, Lucie," the Englishman said to her, as shivering in my overcoat, she came out to say good-bye to him, "the benzine is in the barn, over there under the hay. Tell your man to be careful and not to smoke around here."
"If it did not explode after your pipe, sir," I replied in my best Shakespearian, "my cigarette won't do any harm. So don't be alarmed."
It took him about half a minute to digest the fact that I could understand his cockney. Lucie became almost hysterical with laughter and ran into the house.
Then he made a serious face and sprang into the sledge and the Russian flicked the horse with the whip. Near the corner, I saw him say something to the Russian and they turned back.
"Say," the Englishman asked, "are you English? Or Canadian, I fancy?"
"Never mind me, Major or Captain, or whoever you are. I'm just I. Don't fancy, and proceed. I'm busy."
I closed the gate and heard another formidable crack of the whip on the pony's fat flanks.
Hundreds of bells started ringing again, and then died away in the distance, drowned out by a locomotive whistle....
And here I was in my room again. In the corner stood Lucie, lovely creature with all her funny actions and thoughts, Heaven knows by what and whom inspired.
"Look what I brought, Alex! Here are canned goods, and chocolate and coffee, and ham, and ..." and she threw package after package on the bed. On one of them I read "Army and Navy Calcutta," but said nothing and looked away. I'm getting sly. She noticed it too, the little devil! She sent me out to see whether or not the gate was closed, and when I came back the label was scratched out.