Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/343

Rh retrograding. At the same time, a man of culture, after a period of separation from his usual cultural surroundings and the extravagant joy that follows upon a return to them, very easily and swiftly forgets the contrast with hardships and reverts to his former state of mind and fixed habits of thought, an experience which I very clearly proved in my own case. After my wanderings of a year and a half over the mountains, deserts and prairies of the Mongolian region of Asia I arrived at Peking and installed myself in a room in the Hôtel des Wagons-Lits in the Legation Quarter. At first quite enchanted to be back in the surroundings to which I was accustomed and from which the Russian revolution had so abruptly snatched me, after but a few days I found myself beginning to observe that the Chinese service in the dining-room was not all that it might have been and even at times growing a little irritated over it. I remember hauling myself out of these moods, laughing at my sudden refinements and reproaching myself for my ready accumulation of critical tendencies, saying:

"Be quiet, you ungrateful wretch, and enjoy your excellent beefsteaks, tasty salads and cooling ices. Be thankful that a Chinese 'boy' brings you clean napkins and shining plates and remember the days, not so very long ago, when you had to sit by the fire and chase from your over-populated sheepskin irritating neighbors and when you ate meat that would never pass muster with the most lenient of sanitary inspectors!"

"Yes, that is all quite true," my other self argued, "those were bad times; but, just the same, why should