evacuated Army
of Wrangel started to arrive. Over 140,000 people arrived including
the remnants of the army and between 6 and 7 thousand wounded. The
plight of these people was terrible. While the wounded were landed
and taken care of by the American and British Red Cross, most of the
rest were not allowed ashore and were kept on board the ships in the
harbour. One boat had 12,000 people aboard.

The day after we had arrived, I accidentally met in the street Robert
Imbrie, whom I had known when he was American Consul in Petrograd. It
turned out that he also had just arrived and like ourselves was also
on his way to the Crimea, appointed from the State Department. He
asked me what I was going to do and I explained that probably for the
moment we would return to France. He said that he was waiting for
instructions from Washington to know what to do. Next day he
contacted me saying that he was assigned to form a Russian Section at
the American Embassy in Constantinople and offered me a job to work
with him. I gladly accepted and so we stayed in Constantinople for
the next 8 months.

It was a very interesting period. My work was varied. I acted as
interpreter at the American Embassy with the Russians and with the
French. Nelka joined the organization of the French Admiral's wife,
Madame Dumesnil, doing refugee relief work.

It was an interesting and exhilarating time in Constantinople. We saw
and knew a number of very interesting people. We saw unusual
situations and we were both very busy.

Mr. Imbrie, with whom I worked, had as his assignment to undertake
inspection tours. For this he often used the American destroyers
which were anchored in the Bosphorus. Thus, we went to Gallipoli, to
Lemnos, to Salonica, etc.

On a certain day we took off for Varna in Bulgaria and from there to
Batum in the Caucasus.

Nelka remained in Constantinople and had with her a little companion,
a dog Djedda. Djedda influenced a great deal of our future existence,
and as you will see there was quite a story attached to this little
dog.

One day we were visiting the bazaar of Constantinople, a colorful,
typical oriental spot, crowded and noisy, with oriental smells and
sounds. In one of the passages we came across a small, brown dog,
which was running around frightened and miserable. We spoke to her
and, while she was timid, she was friendly and came to us. We decided
to pick her up and that we could give her to the little daughter of