Mrs. Wynne, Mr. Bevan, and I left London for Russia on October 16, 1915. We are attached provisionally to the Anglo-Russian hospital, with a stipulation that we are at liberty to proceed to the front with our ambulances as soon as we can get permission to do so. We understand that the Russian wounded are suffering terribly, and getting no doctors, nurses, or field ambulances. We crossed from Newcastle to Christiania in a Norwegian boat, the Bessheim. It was supposed that in this ship there was less chance of being stopped, torpedoed, or otherwise inconvenienced.

We reached Christiania after a wonderfully calm crossing, and went to the Grand Hotel at 1 a.m. No rooms to be had, so we went on to the Victoria—a good old house, not fashionable, but with a nice air about it, and some solid comforts. We left on Wednesday, the 20th, at 7 a.m. This was something of a feat, as we have twenty-four boxes with us. I only claim four, and feel as if I might have brought more, but everyone has a different way of travelling, and luggage is often objected to.

Indeed, I think this matter of travelling is one of the most curious in the world. I cannot understand why it is that to get into a train or a boat causes men and women to leave off restraint and to act in a primitive way. Why should the companionship of the open road be the supreme test of friendship? and why should one feel a certain fear of getting to know people too well on a journey? The last friends I travelled with were very careful indeed, and we used to reckon up accounts and divide the price of a bottle of "vin ordinaire" equally. My friends to-day seem inclined to do themselves very well, and to scatter largesse everywhere.

Stockholm. 21 October.—After a long day in the train we reached Stockholm yesterday evening, and went to the usual "Grand Hotel." This time it is very "grand," and very expensive. Mr. Bevan has a terrible pink boudoir-bedroom, which costs £3 per night, and I have a small room on the fourth floor, which costs 17s. 6d. without a bath. There is rather a nice court in the middle of the house, with flowers and a band and tables for dinner, but the sight of everyone "doing himself well" always makes me feel a little sick. The wines and liqueurs, and the big cigars at two shillings each, and the look of repletion on men's faces as they listen to the band after being fed, somewhat disgust me.

One's instinct is to dislike luxury, but in war-time it seems horrible. We ourselves will probably have to rough it badly soon, so I don't mind, but it's a side of life that seems to me as beastly as anything I know. Fortunately, the luxury of an hotel is minimised by the fact that there are no "necessaries," and one lives in an atmosphere of open trunks and bags, with things pulled out of them, which counterbalances crystal electric fittings and marble floors.

We rested all this morning, lunched out, and in the afternoon went to have tea with the Crown Prince and Princess of Sweden. They were very delightful. The British Minister's wife, Lady Isobel Howard, went with us. The Princess had just finished reading my "Diary of the War," and was very nice about it. The children, who came in to tea, were the prettiest little creatures I have ever seen, with curly hair, and faces like the water-colour pictures of a hundred years ago. The Princess herself is most attractive, and reminds one of the pictures of Queen Victoria as a young woman. Her sensitive face is full of expression, and her colour comes and goes as she speaks of things that move her.

This afternoon we went to tea at the Legation with the Howards. The House is charmingly situated on the Lake, with lovely trees all about it. It isn't quite finished yet, but will be very delightful.

22 October.—It is very strange to find oneself in a country where war is not going on. The absence of guns and Zeppelins, the well-lighted streets, and the peace of it all, are quite striking. But the country is pro-German almost to a man! And it has been a narrow squeak to prevent war. Even now I suppose one wrong move may lead to an outbreak of hostilities, and the recent German victories may yet bring in other countries on her side. Bulgaria has been a glaring instance of siding with the one she considers the winning side (Gott strafe her!), and Greece is still wondering what to do! Thank God, I belong to a race that is full of primitive instincts! Poor old England still barges in whenever there is a fight going on, and gets her head knocked, and goes on fighting just the same, and never knows that she is heroic, but blunders on—simple-hearted, stupid, sublime!

24 October.—I went to the English church this morning with Mr. Lancelot Smith, but there was no service as the chaplain had chicken-pox! So I came home and packed, and then lunched with Mr. Eric Hambro, Mr. Lancelot Smith, and Mr. ——, all rather interesting men at this crisis, when four nations at least are undecided what to do in the matter of the war.

About 6 o'clock we and our boxes got away from Stockholm. Our expenses for the few days we spent there were £60, although we had very few meals in the hotel. We had a long journey to Haparanda, where we stopped for a day. The cold was terrible and we spent the day (my birthday) on a sort of luggage barge on the river. On my last birthday we were bolting from Furnes in front of the Germans, and the birthday before that I was on the top of the Rocky Mountains.

Talking of the Rockies reminds me (did I need reminding) of Elsie Northcote, my dear friend, who married and went to live there. The other night some friends of mine gave me a little "send-off" before I left London—dinner and the Palace Theatre, where I felt like a ghost returned to earth. All the old lot were there as of yore—Viola Tree, Lady Diana Manners, Harry Lindsay, the Raymond Asquiths, etc., etc. I saw them all from quite far away. Lord Stanmore was in the box with us, and he it was who told me of Elsie Northcote's sudden death. It wasn't the right place to hear about it. Too many are gone or are going. My own losses are almost stupefying; and something dead within myself looks with sightless eyes on death; with groping hands I touch it sometimes, and then I know that I am dead also.

There is only one thing that one can never renounce, and that is love. Love is part of one, and can't be given up. Love can't be separated from one, even by death. It comes once and remains always. It is never fulfilled; the fulfilment of love is its crucifixion; but it lives on for ever in a passion-week of pain until pain itself grows dull; and then one wishes one had been born quite a common little soul, when one would probably have been very happy.

28 October.—We arrived at midnight last night at Petrograd. Ian Malcolm was at the hotel, and had remained up to welcome us. To-day we have been unpacking, and settling down into rather comfortable, very expensive rooms. My little box of a place costs twenty-six shillings a night. We lunched with two Russian officers and Mr. Ian Malcolm, and then I went to the British Embassy, where the other two joined me. Sir George Buchanan, our Ambassador, looks overworked and tired. Lady Georgina and I got on well together....

The day wasn't quite satisfactory, but one must remember that a queer spirit is evoked in war-time which is very difficult of analysis. Primarily there is "a right spirit renewed" in every one of us. We want to be one in the great sacrifice which war involves, and we offer and present ourselves, our souls and bodies in great causes, only to find that there is some strange unexplained quality of resistance meeting us everywhere.

Mary once said to me in her quaint way, "Your duty is to give to the Queen's Fund as becomes your position, and to get properly thanked."

This lady-like behaviour, combined with cheque-writing on a large scale, is always popular. It can be repeated and again repeated till cheque-writing becomes automatic. Then from nowhere there springs a curious class of persons whom one has never heard of before, with skins of invulnerable thickness and with wonderful self-confidence. They claim almost occult powers in the matter of "organisation," and they generally require pity for being overworked. For a time their names are in great circulation, and afterwards one doesn't hear very much about them. Florence Nightingale would have had no distinction nowadays. It is doubtful if she would have been allowed to work. Some quite inept person in a high position would have effectually prevented it. Most people are on the offensive against "high-souled work," and prepared to put their foot down heavily on anything so presumptuous as heroism except of the orthodox kind, and even the right kind is often not understood.

There is a story I try to tell, but something gets into my throat, and I tell it in jerks when I can.

It is the story of the men who played football across the open between the enemy's line of trenches and our own when it was raked by fire. When I had finished, a friend of mine, evidently waiting for the end of a pointless story, said, "What did they do that for?" (Oh, ye gods, have pity on men and women who suffer from fatty degeneration of the soul!)

Still, in spite of it all, the Voice comes, and has to be obeyed.

30 October.—We lunched at the Embassy yesterday to meet the Grand Duchess Victoria. She is a striking-looking woman, tall and strong, and she wore a plain dark blue cloth dress and a funny little blue silk cap, and one splendid string of pearls. At the front she does very fine work, and we offered our services to her. I have begun to write a little, but after my crowded life the days feel curiously empty. Lady Heron Maxwell came to call.

We were telling each other spy stories the other night. Some of them were very interesting. The Germans have lately adopted the plan of writing letters in English to English prisoners of war in Germany. These, of course, are quite simple, and pass the Censor in England, but, once on the other side, they go straight to Government officials, and whereas "Dear Bill" may mean nothing to us, it is part of a German code and conveys some important information. Mr. Philpotts at Stockholm discovered this trick.

On the Russian front a soldier was found with his jaw tied up, speechless and bleeding. A doctor tried to persuade him to take cover and get attention; but he shook his head, and signified by actions that he was unable to speak owing to his damaged jaw. The doctor shoved him into a dug-out, and said kindly, "Just let me have a look at you." On stripping the bandages off there was no wound at all, and the German in Russian uniform was given a cigarette and shot through the head.

In Flanders we used to see companies of spies led out to be shot—first a party of soldiers, then the spies, after them the burying-party, and then the firing-party—marching stolidly to some place of execution.

How awful shell-fire must be for those who really can't stand it! I heard of a Colonel the other day—a man who rode to hounds, and seemed quite a sound sort of fellow—and when the first shell came over, he leapt from his horse and lay on the ground shrieking with fear, and with every shell that came over he yelled and screamed. He had to be sent home, of course. Some people say this sort of thing is purely physical. That is never my view of the matter.

Miss Cavell's execution has stirred us all to the bottom of our hearts. The mean trickiness of her trial, the refusal to let facts be known, and then the cold-blooded murder of a brave English woman at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning in a prison yard! It is too awful to think about. She was not even technically a spy, but had merely assisted some soldiers to get away because she thought they were going to be shot. A rumour reached the American and Spanish Legations that she had been condemned and was to be shot at once, and they instantly rang up on the telephone to know if this was true. They were informed by the Military Court which had tried and condemned her that the verdict would not be pronounced till three days later. But the two Legations, still not satisfied, protested that they must be allowed to visit the prisoner. This was refused.

The English chaplain was at last permitted to enter the prison, and he saw Miss Cavell, and gave her the Sacrament. She said she was happy to die for her country. They led her out into the prison yard to stand before a firing-party of soldiers, but on her way there she fainted, and an officer took out his revolver and shot her through the head.

Petrograd! the stage of romance, and the subject of dazzling pictures, is one of the most commonplace towns I have ever been in. It has its one big street—the Nevski Prospect—where people walk and shop as they do in Oxford Street, and it has a few cathedrals and churches, which are not very wonderful. The roadways are a mass of slush and are seldom swept; and there are tramways, always crowded and hot, and many rickety little victorias with damp cushions, in which one goes everywhere. Even in the evening we go out in these; and the colds in the head which follow are chronic. The English colony seems to me as provincial as the rest of Petrograd. The town and its people disappoint me greatly. The HÔtel Astoria is a would-be fashionable place, and there is a queer crowd of people listening to the band and eating, as surely only in Russia they can eat. It is all wrong in war-time, and I hate being one of the people here.

N.B.—Write "Miss Wilbraham" as soon as possible, and write it in gusts. Call one chapter "The Diners," and try to convey the awful solemnity of meals—the grave young men with their goblets of brandy, in which they slowly rotate ice, the waiter who hands the bowl where the ice is thrown when the brandy is cool enough, and then the final gulp, with a nose inside the large goblet. Shade of Heliogabalus! If the human tummy must indeed be distended four times in twenty-four hours, need it be done so solemnly, and with such a pig-like love of the trough? If they would even eat what there is with joy one wouldn't mind, but the talk about food, the once-enjoyed food, the favourite food, is really too tiresome. "Where to dine" becomes a sort of test of true worth. Grave young men give the names of four or five favoured places in London. Others, hailed and acknowledged as really good judges, name half-a-dozen more in Paris where they "do you well." The real toff knows that Russia is the place to dine. We earnestly discuss blue-point oysters and caviare, which, if you "know the man," you can get sent fresh on the Vienna Express from Moscow.

I once asked Bernard Shaw to dinner, and he replied on a postcard: "Never! I decline to sit in a hot room and eat dead animals, even with you to amuse me!"

I always seem to be sitting in hot rooms and eating dead animals, and then paying amazing high prices for them.

4 November.—I dined with the ——s the other night. Either the hot rooms, or the fact that I am anÆmic at present, causes me to be so sleepy in the evenings that I dislike dining out. I sway with sleep even when people are talking to me. It was a middle-class little party, such as I often enjoy. One's friends would fain only have one see a few fine blooms, but I love common flowers.

We have been to see "Peter's little house." There was a tiny shrine, crowded with people in wraps and shawls, who crossed themselves ceaselessly, to the danger of their neighbours' faces, for so fervid were their gesticulations that their hands flew in every direction! They shoved with their elbows to get near the wax candles that dripped before the pictures of the black-faced Virgin and Child, who were "allowing" soldiers to be painfully slaughtered by the million.

Ye gods, what a faith! What an acrobatic performance to try and reconcile a Father's personal care for His poor little sparrows and His indifference at seeing so many of them stretched bleeding on the ground!

Religion so far has been a success where martyrs are concerned, but we must go on with courage to something that teaches men to live for the best and the highest. This should come from ourselves, and lead up to God. It should not require teaching, or priests, or even prayer. Humanity is big enough for this. It should shake off cords and chains and old Bible stories of carnage and killing, and get to work to find a new, responsible, clean, sensible, practical scheme of life, in which each man will have to get away from silly old idols and step out by himself.

There is nothing very difficult about it, but we are so beset by bogies, and so full of fears and fancies that we are half the time either in a state of funk, or in its antithesis, a state of cheekiness. Schoolmaster-ridden, we are behaving still like silly children, and our highest endeavour is (school-boy-like) to resemble our fellows as nearly as possible. The result is stagnation, crippled forms, wasted energy, people waiting for years by some healing pool and longing for someone to dip them in. All the release that Christ preached to men is being smothered in something worse than Judaism. We love chains, and when they are removed we either turn and put them on again, or else caper like mad things because we have cast them off. Freedom is still as distant as the stars.

5 November.—Yesterday we lunched with the English chaplain, Mr. Lombard. He and I had a great talk walking home on a dark afternoon through the slush after we had been to call on the Maxwells. I think he is one of the "exiles" whom one meets all the world over, one of those who don't transplant well. I am one myself! And Mr. Lombard and I nearly wept when we found ourselves in a street that recalled the Marylebone Road. We pretended we were in sight of Euston Station, and talked of taking a Baker Street bus till our voices grew choky.

How absurd we islanders are! London is a poky place, but we adore it. St. James's Street is about the length of a good big ship, yet we don't feel we have lived till we get back to it! And as for Piccadilly and St. Paul's, well, we see them in our dreams.

Our little unit has not found work yet. I was told before I joined it that it had been accepted by the Russian Red Cross Society.

I have been hearing many things out here, and thinking many things. There is only one way of directing Red Cross work. Everything should be—and must be in future—put under military authority and used by military authority. "Charity" and war should be separate. It is absurd that the Belgians in England should be housed and fed by a Government grant, and our own soldiers are dependent on private charity for the very socks they wear and the cigarettes they smoke. Aeroplanes had to be instituted and prizes offered for them by a newspaper, and ammunition wasn't provided till a newspaper took up the matter. To be mob-ridden is bad enough, but to be press-ridden is worse!

Now, war is a military matter, and should be controlled by military authorities. Mrs. Wynne, Mr. Bevan, and I should not be out here waiting for work. We ought to be sent where we are needed, and so ought all Red Cross people. This would put an end, one hopes, to the horrid business of getting "soft jobs."

7 November.—Whenever I am away from England I rejoice in the passing of each week that brings me nearer to my return. I had hardly realised to-day was the 7th, but I am thankful I am one week nearer the grey little island and all the nice people in it.

Yesterday I went to Lady Georgina Buchanan's soup-kitchen, and helped to feed Polish refugees. They strike me as being very like animals, but not so interesting. In the barracks where they lodge everyone crowds in. There is no division of the sexes, babies are yelling, and families are sleeping on wooden boards. The places are heated but not aired, and the smell is horrid; but they seem to revel in "frowst." All the women are dandling babies or trying to cook things on little oil-stoves. At night-time things are awful, I believe, and the British Ambassador has been asked to protect the girls who are there.

8 November.—This afternoon I went to see Mrs. Bray, and then I had an unexpected pleasure, for I met Johnnie Parsons, who is Naval AttachÉ to Admiral Phillimore, and we had a long chat. When one is in a strange land, or with people who know one but little, these encounters are wonderfully nice.

The other night I dined with the Heron Maxwells, and had a nice evening and a game of bridge. Some Americans, called de Velter, were there. I think most people from the States regret the neutrality of their country.

Everyone brings in different stories of the war. Some say Germany is exhausted and beaten, others say she is flushed with victory, and with enormous reserves of men, food, and ammunition. I try to believe all the good I hear, and when even children or fools tell me the war will soon be over, I want to embrace them—I don't care whether they are talking nonsense or not. Sometimes I seem to see a great hushed cathedral, and ourselves returning thanks for Peace and Victory, and the vision is too much for me. I must either work or be chloroformed till that time comes.

9 November.—I think there is only one thing I dislike more than sitting in an hotel bedroom and learning a new language, and that is sitting in an hotel bedroom and nursing a cold in my head. Lately I have been learning Russian—and now I am sniffing. My own fault. I would sleep with my window open in this unhealthiest of cities, and smells and marsh produced a feverish cold.

Out in the square the soldiers drill all the time in the snow, lying in it, standing in it, and dressed for the most part in cotton clothing. Wool can't be bought, so a close cotton web is made, with the inside teased out like flannelette, and this is all they have. The necessaries of life are being "cornered" right and left, mostly by the commercial houses and the banks. The other day 163 railway trucks of sugar were discovered in a siding, where the owners had placed it to wait for a rise. Meanwhile, sugar has been almost unprocurable.

Everyone from the front describes the condition of the refugees as being most wretched. They are camping in the snow by the thousand, and are still tramping from Poland.

And here we are in the Astoria Hotel, and there is one pane of glass between us and the weather; one pane of glass between us and the peasants of Poland; one pane of glass dividing us from poverty, and keeping us in the horrid atmosphere of this place, with its evil women and its squeaky band! How I hate money!

I hope soon to join a train going to Dvinsk with food and supplies.

13 November.—I have felt very brainless since I came here. It is the result, I believe, of the Petrograd climate. Nearly everyone feels it. I had a little book in my head which I thought I could "dash off," and that writing it would fill up these waiting days, but I can't write a word.

The war news is not good, but the more territory that Germany takes, the more the British rub their hands and cry victory. Their courage and optimism are wonderful.

To-day I spent with the Maxwells, and met a nurse, newly returned from Galicia, who had interesting tales to tell. One about some Russian airmen touched me. There had been a fierce fight overhead, when suddenly the German aeroplane began to wheel round and round like a leaf, when it was found that the machine was on fire. One of the airmen had been shot and the other burnt to death. The Russians refused to come and look at the remains even of the aeroplane, and said sadly, "All we men of the air are brothers." They gave the dead Germans a military funeral, and then sailed over the enemy's lines to drop a note to say that all honour had been done to the brave dead.

I met Monsieur Jecquier, who was full of the political situation—said Bulgaria would have joined us any day if we had promised to give her Bukowina; and blamed Bark, the Russian Finance Minister, for the terms of England's loan (the loan is for thirty millions, and repayment is promised in a year, which is manifestly impossible, and the situation may be strained). He said also that Motono, the Japanese Ambassador, is far the finest politician here; and he told me that while Russia ought to have been protecting the road to Constantinople she was quarrelling about what its new name was to be, and had decided to call it "Czareska." Now, I suppose, the Germans are already there. Lloyds has been giving £100 at a premium of £5 that King Ferdinand won't be on his throne next June. The premium has gone to £10, which is good news. If Ferdie is assassinated the world will be rid of an evil fellow who has played a mean and degraded part in this war.

We dined at the British Embassy last night. I was taken in to dinner by Mr. George Lloyd, who was full of interesting news. I had a nice chat with Lady Georgina.

20 November.—It has been rather a "hang-on" ever since I wrote last, nothing settled and nothing to do. No one ever seems at their best in Petrograd. It is a cross place and a common place. I never understood Tolstoi till I came here. On all sides one sees the same insane love of money and love of food.

A restaurant here disgusts me as nothing else ever did. From a menu a foot long no one seems able to choose a meal, but something fresh must be ordered. The prices are quite silly, and, oddly enough, people seem to revel in them. They still eat caviare at ten shillings a head; the larger the bill the better they are pleased.

Joseph, the Napoleon of the restaurant, keeps an eye on everyone. He is yellow, and pigeon-breasted, but his voice is like grease, and he speaks caressingly of food, pencils entries in his pocket-book, and stimulates jaded appetites by signalling the "voiture aux hors d'oeuvres" to approach. The rooms are far too hot for anyone to feel hungry, the band plays, and the leader of it grins all the time, and capers about on his little platform like a monkey on an organ.

Always in this life of restaurants and gilt and roubles I am reminded of the fact that the only authentic picture we have of hell is of a man there who all his life had eaten good dinners.

I have been busy seeing all manner of people in order to try and get work to do. I hear of suffering, but I am never able to locate it or to do anything for it. No distinct information is forthcoming; and when I go to one high official he gives me his card and sends me to another. Nothing is even decided about Mrs. Wynne's cars, although she is offering a gift worth some thousands of pounds. I go to Lady Georgina's work-party on Mondays and meet the English colony, and on Wednesdays and Saturdays I distribute soup; but it is an unsatisfactory business, and the days go by and one gets nothing done. One isn't even storing up health, because this is rather an unhealthy place, so altogether we are feeling a bit low. I can never again be surprised at Russian "laissez faire," or want of push and energy. It is all the result of the place itself. I feel in a dream, and wish with all my heart I could wake up in my own bed.

21 November.—Sunday, and I have slept late. At home I begin work at 6 a.m. Here, like everyone else, I only wake up at night, and the "best hours of the day," as we call them, are wasted, À la Watts' hymn, in slumber. If it was possible one would organise one's time a bit, but hotel life is the very mischief for that sort of thing. There are no facilities for anything. One must telephone in Russian or spend roubles on messengers if one wants to get into touch with anyone. I took a taxi out to lunch one day. It cost 16 roubles—i.e., 32s.

Dear old Lord Radstock used to say in the spring, "The Lord is calling me to Italy," and a testy parson once remarked, "The Lord always calls you at very convenient times, Radstock." I don't feel as if the Lord had called me here at a very convenient time.

I called on Princess HÉlÈne Scherbatoff yesterday, and found her and her people at home. The mother runs a hospital-train for the wounded in the intervals of hunting wolves. Her son has been dead for some months, and she says she hasn't had time to bury him yet! One assumes he is embalmed! Yet I can't help saying they were charming people to meet, so we must suppose they are somewhat cracked. The daughter is lovely, and they were all in deep mourning for the unburied relative.

24 November.—This long wait is trying us a bit high. There is literally nothing to do. We arrange pathetic little programmes for ourselves. To-day I shall lunch with Mr. Cunard, and see the lace he has bought: yesterday I did some shopping with Captain Smith: one day I sew at Lady Georgina's work-party.

Heavens, what a life! I realise that for years I have not drawn rein, and I am sure I don't require holidays. Moses was a wise man, and he knew that one day in seven is rest enough for most humans. I always "keep the Sabbath," and it is all the rest I want. Even here I might write and get on with something, but there is something paralysing about the place, and my brain won't work. I can't even write a diary! Everyone is depressed and everyone longs to be out of Petrograd. To-day we hear that the Swedes have closed the Haparanda line, and Archangel is frozen, so here we are.

Now I have got to work at the hospital. There are 25,000 amputation cases in Petrograd. The men at my hospital are mostly convalescent, but, of course, their wounds require dressing. This is never done in their beds, as the English plan is, but each man is carried in turn to the "salle des pansements," and is laid on an operating-table and has his fresh dressings put on, and is then carried back to bed again. It is a good plan, I think. The hospital keeps me busy all the morning. Once more I begin to see severed limbs and gashed flesh, and the old question arises, "Why, what evil hath he done?" This war is the crucifixion of the youth of the world.

In a way I am learning something here. For instance, I have always disliked "explanations" and "speaking one's mind," etc., etc., more than I can say. I dare say I have chosen the path of least resistance in these matters. Here one must speak out sometimes, and speak firmly. It isn't all "being pleasant." One girl has been consistently rude to me. To-day, poor soul, I gave her a second sermon on our way back from church; but, indeed she has numerous opportunities in this war, and she is wasting them all on gossip, and prejudices, and petty jealousies. So we had a straight talk, and I hope she didn't hate it. At any rate, she has promised amendment of life. One hears of men that "this war gives them a chance to distinguish themselves." Women ought to distinguish themselves, too.

Always when I see war, and boys with their poor dead faces turned up to the sky, and their hands so small in death, and when I see wounded men, and hear of soldiers going out of the trenches with a laugh and a joke to cut wire entanglements, knowing they will not come back, then I am ashamed of meanness and petty spite. So my poor young woman got a "fair dose of it" this morning, and when she had gulped once or twice I think she felt better.

Yesterday one saw enough to stir one profoundly, and enough to make small things seem small indeed! It was a fine day at last, after weeks of black weather and skies heavy with snow, and although the cold was intense the sun was shining. I got into one of the horrid little droshkys, in which one sits on very damp cushions, and an "izvoztchik" in a heavy coat takes one to the wrong address always!

The weather has been so thick, the rain and snow so constant, that I had not yet seen Petrograd. Yesterday, out of the mists appeared golden spires, and beyond the Neva, all sullen and heavy with ice, I saw towers and domes which I hadn't seen before. I stamped my feet on the shaky little carriage and begged the izvoztchik to drive a little quicker. We had to be at the Finnish station at 10 a.m., and my horse, with a long tail that embraced the reins every time that the driver urged speed, seemed incapable of doing more than potter over the frozen roads. I picked up Mme. Takmakoff, who was taking me to the station, and we went on together.

At the station there was a long wooden building and, outside, a platform, all frozen and white, where we waited for the train to come in. Mme. Sazonoff, a fine well-bred woman, the wife of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, was there, and "many others," as the press notices say. The train was late. We went inside the long wooden building to shelter from the bitter cold beside the hot-water pipes, and as we waited we heard that the train was coming in. It came slowly and carefully alongside the platform with its crunching snow, almost with the creeping movement of a woman who carries something tenderly. Then it stopped. Its windows were frozen and dark, so that one could see nothing. I heard a voice behind me say, "The blind are coming first," and from the train there came groping one by one young men with their eyes shot out. They felt for the step of the train, and waited bewildered till someone came to lead them; then, with their sightless eyes looking upwards more than ours do, they moved stumbling along. Poor fellows, they'll never see home; but they turned with smiles of delight when the band, in its grey uniforms and fur caps, began to play the National Anthem.

These were the first wounded prisoners from Germany, sent home because they could never fight again—quite useless men, too sorely hurt to stand once more under raining bullets and hurtling shell-fire—so back they came, and like dazed creatures they got out of the train, carrying their little bundles, limping, groping, but home.

After the blind came those who had lost limbs—one-legged men, men still in bandages, men hobbling with sticks or with an arm round a comrade's neck, and then the stretcher cases. There was one man carrying his crutches like a cross. Others lay twisted sideways. Some never moved their heads from their pillows. All seemed to me to have about them a splendid dignity which made the long, battered, suffering company into some great pageant. I have never seen men so lean as they were. I have never seen men's cheek-bones seem to cut through the flesh just where the close-cropped hair on their temples ends. I had never seen such hollow eyes; but they were Russian soldiers, Russian gentlemen, and they were home again!

In the great hall we greeted them with tables laid with food, and spread with wine and little presents beside each place. They know how to do this, the princely Russians, so each man got a welcome to make him proud. The band was there, and the long tables, the hot soup and the cigarettes. All the men had washed at Torneo, and all of them wore clean cotton waistcoats. Their hair was cut, too, but their faces hadn't recovered. One knew they would never be young again. The Germans had done their work. Semi-starvation and wounds had made old men of these poor Russian soldiers. All was done that could be done to welcome them back, but no one could take it in for a time. A sister in black distributed some little Testaments, each with a cross on it, and the soldiers kissed the symbol of suffering passionately.

They filed into their places at the tables, and the stretchers were placed in a row two deep up the whole length of the room. In the middle of it stood an altar, covered with silver tinsel, and two priests in tinsel and gold stood beside it. Upon it was the sacred ikon, and the everlasting Mother and Child smiled down at the men laid in helplessness and weakness at their feet.

A General welcomed the soldiers back; and when they were thanked in the name of the Emperor for what they had done, the tears coursed down their thin cheeks. It was too pitiful and touching to be borne. I remember thinking how quietly and sweetly a sister of mercy went from one group of soldiers to another, silently giving them handkerchiefs to dry their tears. We are all mothers now, and our sons are so helpless, so much in need of us.

Down the middle of the room were low tables for the men who lay down all the time. They saluted the ikon, as all the soldiers did, and some service began which I was unable to follow. I can't tell what the soldiers said, or of what they were thinking. About their comrades they said to Mme. Takmakoff that 25,000 of them had died in two days from neglect. We shall never hear the worst perhaps.

There were three officers at a table. One of them was shot through the throat, and was bandaged. I saw him put all his food on one side, unable to swallow it. Then a high official came and sat down and drank his health. The officer raised his glass gallantly, and put his lips to the wine, but his throat was shot through, he made a face of agony, bowed to the great man opposite, and put down his glass.

Some surgeons in white began to go about, taking names and particulars of the men's condition. Everyone was kind to the returned soldiers, but they had borne too much. Some day they will smile perhaps, but yesterday they were silent men returned from the dead, and not yet certain that their feet touched Russia again.