I arrived at St. Petersburg just after Christmas.
When I arrived at St. Petersburg, the situation was regarded as grave, but people still did not believe in war. Sir Charles Scott, our Ambassador, had just left, or was just leaving; and Cecil Spring Rice was in charge at the Embassy. The large Court functions which were held at the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg, just after Christmas, were to take place: the Court concert and the State ball. The concert was held, and Chaliapine sang at it, but the State ball was put off. And never again was a State ball given in St. Petersburg. I had never seen St. Petersburg before. I was staying in the Fontanka, at Countess Shuvaloff’s house, and I was delighted by the crystal atmosphere, and the drives in open carriages; there was a little snow on the ground, but not enough for sledging.
People said there would be no war, and then we woke up one morning and heard the Japanese had attacked the Russian fleet at Port Arthur, and torpedoed the _Retvizan_. Constantine Benckendorff, Count Benckendorff’s eldest son, was on board the _Retvizan_ when this happened; and I was told afterwards, that no orders had been given by the port authorities, that is to say, by Alexeieff, the Viceroy, to put out torpedo-nets, or to take any precautions, although the Viceroy had been warned that day of the probability of an attack. The morning we heard that war had been declared I remember seeing a cabman driving by himself down the quays and nodding his head and repeating to himself: “War! war!” (“_Voinà! voinà!_”). It was like, on a smaller scale, the days of August 1914. The crowds in the street were enthusiastic. Officers were carried in triumph in the streets by the students, the same officers that a year later were hooted and stoned in the same streets.
I only stayed a short time in St. Petersburg, and then I went to Moscow, to the house of Marie Karlovna von Kotz, a lady who took in English pupils, mostly officers in the British Army, to teach them Russian. She lived in an out-of-the-way street, on the second story of a small house, and gave one or two lessons every day. She was a fine teacher, and a brilliant musician; an energetic and extremely competent woman, and an example of the best type of the _intelligentsia_.