I could not speak of this at once either to her or to Esmé. I put on my English topcoat and wandered out towards the park. Here, on the hill, I thought the problem over. I could see how it had all come about, of course. With the War on, places at the Polytechnic were hard to come by. Many Ukrainians wished to study in Petersburg. Obviously there were too many applicants. Presumably this Dimitri Mitrofanovitch Kryscheff had given up his place so that I could go. Possibly he had died. He might have joined the army. There were a dozen possibilities. If I wished to learn I should have to learn under a pseudonym. It would make no difference to the quality of that learning. Perhaps later I could admit my real name and get my diplomas properly inscribed.
I have hated hypocrisy and deception all my life, yet all my life I have been victim to it. That is the terrible irony. Here I was having to live a lie not because I had done anything wrong, but because my Uncle Semya had been willing to go to any lengths to ensure me a good education. I had learned that the world is made up of lies.
I informed my mother. She was not surprised. She had had some hint, she told me, in Uncle Semya’s recent letters. Kryscheff was a good, respectable name. It had a ring to it.
I think that she was distressed, however. It could have been part of her general distress. In some ways it was bad for her that I had remained so long at home. Even Esmé was of the opinion that although my mother’s spirits and health had improved her nerves had deteriorated.
On my last evening, Esmé and I went for a walk. I told her that I was to pose as Dimitri Mitrofanovitch and that she must keep the secret of my real name. That secret was my parting present to her. She smiled and said she would treasure it. She was not especially puzzled by this sudden change of identity, either.
We held hands, like brother and sister, and Esmé reassured me that she would look after Mother, that I must dedicate myself to becoming a great engineer. If I became famous as Kryscheff, what did it matter? My mother would still be proud and I would still be able to look after her.
By the next morning I had managed to fit myself into the role and was D. M. Kryscheff boarding the Wagon-Lit which was to carry me in the comfort to which I had become accustomed to the capital.
Uncle Semyon had sent the ticket together with a sheet of instructions as to where I should go and how I should behave in Petersburg. He was anxious I should act like a gentleman in every aspect of my life. He was prepared to spare no expense to this end. I was deeply touched by his kindness. My mother was overjoyed. She had been too ill to see me to the station and for this, I must admit, I was somewhat grateful. It would have been humiliating to have been seen with a sickly, weeping mother coughing out her last goodbyes. Instead Esmé and Captain Brown came. They helped me with my luggage, saw that the porter took it to the appropriate compartment.
I was over-excited. I had never slept in a special Wagon-Lit coach. As I entered the coupé I saw that the top bunk was already occupied. I was to share with another gentleman. This was usual, unless one were very rich, and I had known there would be very few spare places on the train. Almost the whole of it was occupied by high-ranking military men and their families. Never had I heard so much drawling, well-bred Russian spoken - or so much French, for that matter. The girls spoke French in preference. I think they even liked to pretend they were French. Their accents gave them away. I could tell this, even though French is not the language I speak most fluently. It is the language of love; the language which these same girls would be speaking in a few years time as they tried to attract Bolshevik protectors on the streets of Petrograd and Moscow.
