Katya & The Prince of Siam

A page from the Russian-English dictionary that Katya wrote herself.

 

However despite her wish to acquire another European language, Katya was unequivocal about European behaviour in Siam, which she described forthrightly as:

 

‘Disgusting, for though they are at service in Siam and receive enormous salaries from the Siamese, they consider them inferior and mock them. In other words they behave disgracefully, and as the wife of a Siamese and a Prince, I feel disgusted by them!

‘The rainy season was over a week ago and we go for a drive every evening after dinner. Tiny phosphorescent insects dot the trees like stars and fly around our car. Old shady alleys look somehow magical where huge trees line the canals covered with lotus flowers. We whirl along as if in a fairy tale and I can quite understand now why Siam is called a fairy land. Elephants walk along the streets, there is plenty of delicious fruit and beautiful exotic flowers – it is really like being in paradise …

‘As the car is open, the many gossips, anxious to see what I look like, can satisfy their curiosity.’

 

But evidently a car-drive in the cool of the evening was not sensational enough and, by the time an account of their outings came back to Katya, the story had lost nothing in the telling:

 

‘They say I drive out alone in a two-wheeled equipage drawn by a white draught-horse with two footmen behind. Needless to say we have neither such an equipage nor such a horse!’

 

Whereas this absurd fabrication had at least a bizarre charm, another piece of gossip to which Katya devoted two pages in a letter to her brother, was typical of the small-mindedness often generated in court or near-court circles.

This incident was due to the Adjutant’s Russian wife Elena Nicholaievna, who might by now have become friendly with her compatriot Katya, had she not become envious and therefore spiteful. For whereas, according to Katya, she had in Singapore ‘played a lady of great importance’, once arrived in Bangkok, their different status became a problem:

 

‘And though she is a nice woman, she is terribly fond of boasting about her home, her relatives, her carriages, her life before she got married, while here she must lead a modest life. I on the other hand, being married to a Prince, live in a luxurious palace, I am a customer of all the best European shops. I have horses and a car while she has nothing of the kind.’

 

While it is true that this patronising attitude on the part of the eighteen year old bride must have been extremely galling, Elena Nicholaievna made further mischief by insinuating to Domol, Chakrabongse and Katya’s adopted son, that ‘Katya was not a hostess in her own house and could not even go for a drive when she wished.’ Domol reported back to Katya. Katya was hurt and told her husband. Chakrabongse told his Adjutant. The Adjutant told his wife, who the next time she came to dine, kissed and embraced Katya and told her that ‘she had been waiting for Katya as for golden rain from heaven!’ She accused Domol of lying. And Katya commented that ‘I am sorry not to be close friends with the only other Russian woman here.’

Matters gradually improved between them but there were still occasions when poor ‘El-Nick’ found the going hard as when she was shown Katya’s Christmas present from her husband, described in some detail in a letter to Ivan: