All the next day we tried to find some one who spoke English or French, but to no avail.  We spent, therefore, a dreary day.  By letting my companion manage the customs officers in patomime we got through the frontier without having to unlock anything, although it is considered the most difficult one in Europe.

The trains in Russia fairly crawl.  Instead of coal they use wood in their engines, which sends back thousands of sparks like the tail of a comet.  It grew dark about two o’clock in the afternoon, and we found ourselves promenading through the bleakest of winter landscapes.  Tiny cottages, emitting a bright red glow from infinitesimal windows, crouched in the snow, and silent fir-trees silhouetted themselves against the moonlit sky.  It only needed the howl of wolves to make it the loneliest picture the mind could conceive.

When we were within an hour of Vilna I heard in the distance my companion’s familiar words, “Pardon me, sir, but do you speak English?” And a deep voice, which I knew without seeing him came from a big man, replied in French, “For the first time in my life I regret that I do not.”

At the sound of French I hurried to the door of our compartment, and there stood a tall Russian officer in his gray uniform and a huge fur-lined pelisse which came to his feet.

When my companion wishes to be amusing she says that as soon as I found that the man spoke French I whirled her around by the arm and sent her spinning into the corner among the valises.  But I don’t remember even touching her.  I only remembered that here was some one to whom I could talk, and in two minutes this handsome Russian had untangled my incoherent explanations, had taken our luggage receipt, and had assured us that he himself would not pause until he had seen our trunks taken from the train at Vilna.  If I should live a thousand years I never shall forget nor cease to be grateful to that superb Russian.  He was so very much like an American gentleman.

We were met at the station by our Polish friends, our precious trunks were put into sledges, we were stowed into the most comfortable of equipages, and in an hour we were installed in one of the most delightful homes it was ever my good fortune to enter.

I never realized before what people can suffer at the hands of a conquering government, and were it not that the young Tzar of Russia has done away, either by public ukase or private advice, with the worst of the wrongs his father permitted to be put upon the Poles, I could not bear to listen to their recitals.

Politics, as a rule, make little impression upon me.  Guide-books are a bore, and histories are unattractive, they are so dry and accurate.  My father’s grief at my lack of essential knowledge is perennial and deep-seated.  But, somehow, facts are the most elusive things I have to contend with.  I can only seem to get a firm grasp on the imaginary.  Of course, I know the historical facts in this case, but it does not sound personally pathetic to read that Russia, Prussia, and Austria divided Poland between them.