Sunday, January 26, 1840

1840

January

Sunday 26

8 40/..

2 10/..

Fine morning; Réaumur -8° out of doors and Réaumur 11 3/4° at my bedhead and on the console now at 9 55/.. and breakfast –

At church at 10 55/.. and waited 1/4 hour Mr. Camidge preached, I suppose, about 1/2 hour from Acts XIII 38 to 41. –

From church, drove to Mrs. Fischer’s – Found Mr. Fischer and 2 daughters at luncheon, Madame se faisait la toilette – There at 1 5/.. and sat about 1/2 hour – Mentioned having changed my line of route, and now meaning to go direct to Odessa –

Home at 1 20/.. – Had Mrs. Howard and then Ann dressed and I had just changed my stockings when princess Tcherkaski called – Très aimable personne – Delicate health, and having suffered much affliction.  Her daughter (ætatis 19) died of fièvre chaude – Returned here for the winter instead of in summer after having been acclimatée in Germany or France, Suisse, etc. and probably the severity of the Russian Climate was too much for the poor girl – Belle and bonne, tout ce que pouvait désere sa mère – Princess Tcherkaski has also 2 brothers, but condemned à la mort civile – Banished to Siberia without hope of return, implicated in the same affair at the accession of the present Emperor as Countess Alexandra Panin’s brother

Princess R- tall and elegant and extremely interesting – Fine dark eyes – Pale – Handsome, and her father prince - - - - - , her mother an English Parkhurst – Hopes to see us to dinner – Wednesday mentioned – but I know not that the thing was actually fixed –

Had had Mrs. Howard for perhaps 1/2 hour – had inquired about Odessa of her landlord – We might arrive there in going soon from here and diligently before the debâcle of the rivers – but should be detained there on this account probably till April – Must go on wheels from Nicolaief – could not possibly get farther than there sur pattins – Must take wheels with us – nothing to be had at Nicolaief – beyond a common kibitka – For board and lodging of Gross, she asked 150/. per month and 25/. per month for the carriage stand – I said she must to do both for 150/.  To go in one day and back from Vosskrecensk, a relay of horses must be sent the night before = 6 horses at 10/. = 60/. –

Dressed – at the old Countess Panin’s to dinner at 4 or perhaps a minute or 2 after, not more – Dinner upstairs in the long galerie in about 1/4 hour – Ourselves and Countess Alexandra Panin and Sophie and Miss Scorgall, and old Countess Panin’s lady and 2 gentlemen – I should think dinner was over at 5 1/2 – Then looked at the prints and atlas belonging to Dubois’s work (3 volumes octavo that I have) on the Caucasus – But took leave on hearing 6 struck, knowing that the old Countess then took her nap –

She retired, but on asking me to stay and look at the prints with Countess Alexandra Panin, we staid with her till 6 3/4 talking over our journey – The to take or not to take Gross, etc. etc. Resolved that he would be useless, and that , all things considered, it would be best to leave him behind –What a blessing – Countess Alexandra Panin repeated her advice to go direct to Tiflis, more especially as we should be road-bound at Odessa till April when the streamers begin to ply between there and the Crimea –

The old Countess very civil – asked us to go and visit us [her] in the country at her large beautiful palace of a place –

A large good hand organ played at the beginning of dinner and before the end – We began by a sort of mock turtle soup with a great quantity of the mock-turtle meat in each one’s plate – then came flans (sort of crumpet) with thin long pieces of fish stuck in (fried in) then and seen on the top, looking like shreds of almond (1 inch or more long) and with these, caviar was handed round and then butter melted as at the Ocouloffs’ – Then roast veal (slices with pretty little rizolles of potato) then another plat of veal like small pear-shaped cutlets round a something out of a round pudding-like mould, that nobody cut into – Then asparagus, large and long and all perfectly white – Then poulet – Coucombres salés, then Italian cream, then pears and apples and biscuits, then apricot marmalade – (All meats cut up and handed everywhere) –

Then coffee at the tea-table near the sofa at the top of the gallery – A servant stood behind each one’s chair – but only 2? I think not more, at any rate, than 3, in livery – After coffee came the incense or perfume-burner (as usual) to take away the smell of our viands –

I thought of going direct chez les Ourousoffs; but Ann had been less amused than I – Did not like to run the risk of staying so long (I not liking to be limited to the minute) and therefore we came home (home at 6 55/..) and I stood talking till 7 10/.. and then set off by myself –

Found the old people by themselves – Princess Radzivill had been making visits in the morning (Countess Alexandra Panin told me she had been chez elle), and was gone to make 2 more this evening.  Just gone before I arrived, but would soon be back – Was very much tired, having been to church this morning, 1st time – She came back about 8 – Agreeable evening – Came away at 9 5/.. – Home at 9 20/.., having told her we would go on Thursday evening, probably to take leave – I said I should probably be at home for a little while in the autumn or before the end of the year and the letter to Dr. Henry Stephen Belcombe being difficult to write, had I not better wait to explain vivâ voce? Yes! This is much the best way on all accounts –

Tea at home and sat talking a little then while with Ann – Had Grotza.  I wrote journal and afterwards stood, both of us, eating up the remainder of the preserved orange we brought from home, and then till now, 12 1/2, wrote the whole of this page –

A little small haily driving snow several times today – Réaumur 12 1/2° on my table and 12 1/4° on the console now at 12 1/2 tonight –

Then sat looking at map of Russia

WYAS Finding Numbers SH:7/ML/E/23/0188 and SH:7/ML/E/23/0189