The Way of Bitterness (1931) is a valuable record of life in Soviet Russia in the early days of Bolshevik rule. It details the story of the rescue of Prince Peter Wolkonsky from Soviet Russia by his wife, who had succeeded in escaping Russia in 1919 but returned on foot to Petrograd to secure the release of her husband from a Moscow prison. It recounts her travels and the conditions she found, and their eventual crossing of the border into Estonia.