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238 MY TRANSFER TO STOCKHOLM [ch. xiv.
me by the arm, exclaiming: "Then you also have that
impression ? "
"Most certainly. Ever since I have been in St.
Petersburg, I cannot get rid of the feeling. . .
" I know ! I know ! " returned the Count excitedly.
"We are going God alone knows where; God alone
knows to what abyss! It is impossible to go on like
this. . .
At this moment the mistress of the house came up
to Witte, and asked him to go and play bridge at the
table of one of the Grand-Duchesses present. I was
put at another table, so I could not ascertain what
constituted the object of the very sincere apprehensions
of the celebrated statesman : was it war or a revolution?
I personally dreaded war. This was, moreover, my last
meeting with Count Witte, who died in St. Petersburg
a year and a half later.
A few days after, a lovely ball was given by
Countess Betsy Schuvaloff in the splendid setting of
her mansion of the Fontanka, former palace of the
famous Marie Narichkin, nee Czetwertynska, recognised
mistress of Alexander I.; a palace full of works of art
of the eighteenth century, and combining the refined
luxury of the Narichkins and the Schuvaloffs—the
favourites of an epoch when the Russian nobility,
suddenly become European, threw themselves heart
and soul into the enjoying of the art and luxury of a
century of refinement and beauty that were almost
classical. Alas! What has become of this beautiful
mansion? It is said to have been ransacked and
plundered, like so many other palaces in St. Petersburg,
the works of art broken, destroyed, or else sold to
Germany or America. The insane bet made by Peter
the Great seemed to have been won, and even beyond
the dreams of this greatest of barbarian reformers.
Midst snow and ice, in a marshy desert inhabited by
some half-savage Finns, art and science, all the beauties
and products of civilisation held a rendezvous;
celebrated libraries and museums, famous theatres, threw
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