ABSTRACT
Nearly 40 years after his Russian excursion, Sala reminisced in his autobiography about his first extended assignment as a foreign correspondent:
I remained in St. Petersburg and its vicinity from mid-April until mid-September; and I can, without exaggeration, say that I have rarely in the whole course of my life passed five such months of unmingled happiness as I did in the metropolis of Tsarish Majesty Alexander Nicolaivitch II. I was still young; I was in first-rate health; I had a sufficiency of cash, and had bidden that which I hoped was to be a lasting farewell to Bohemia and its nightmares. 1
