Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/66

44 and half-ripe pineapples. Lemons, oranges, and pineapples in the mountains of the Urál on the threshold of Siberia! Could anything be more out of harmony with the impressions received from the elementary geographies of childhood? Mr. Nesterófski apologized for the half-ripe state of the pineapples, as if it was really a very humiliating and discreditable thing, and as if travelers from America had every right to expect, in the mountains of Asiatic Russia, navel oranges as big as foot-balls, and dead-ripe pineapples with sweet, spicy juice oozing out of every pore. We assured him, however, that apologies were wholly unnecessary, and that if he had shown us pine cones, instead of pineapples, our brightest anticipations would have been fully realized.

After inspecting the conservatory, the vegetable garden, and the flower garden, we seated ourselves at a little rustic table under the trees near the croquet lawn, and were there served with fragrant coffee and delicious cream. Although it was half-past eight o'clock in the evening, the sun had not yet set, and it was warm enough to sit out of doors without hat or wrap. We talked, smoked, and sipped coffee for half an hour or more, and then Mrs. Nesterófski proposed a game of croquet. The suggestion was received with acclamation, the wickets were set, and at nine o'clock at night we began knocking the balls around in bright sunshine and with birds singing in all parts of the garden. Mrs. Nesterófski and I played against her husband and Mr. Frost; and after a hard struggle beat them, hands down, by five wickets. It was a highly entertaining, if not a strictly scientific, game. Mr. Frost at that time spoke Russian very imperfectly, using French or English words when he could not remember their Russian equivalents; I myself was wholly out of practice; neither of us knew the Russian croquet rules, and our trilingual attempts to advise or consult our partners, at critical stages of the game, excited so much merriment that we were hardly able to make a strike, to say nothing of a carom. More than once I became so weak from laughter at the kaleidoscopic