Page:John Feoktist Dudikoff - Beasts in Cassocks (1924).djvu/32

 Snegirev with his wife, Catherine Vassilyevna, and a captain of the Russian navy whose name I don't know.

I vividly recollect it all, as though it were happening now—the guests took their places at the table, set with the choicest viands and even more choice beverages. Bishop Alexander Nemolovsky sat down in the large arm-chair, Madam Snegirev at his right, Father Slunin at his left, the Captain next to him. I was assigned a seat next to Madam Snegirev and told to wait on the Bishop. Near me sat Gorokhov, and near him stood a chair on which at first sat a girl called Pasha. They did not eat much, but drank in excess. They first drank



the Czar's health, then the Czarina's, after that the Dowager Empress' and finally the heir-at-law's. They drank "separately and jointly" the health of each of the Czar's four daughters, and then drank the health of the entire Imperial family. Nor did they neglect the three Metropolitans—those of Petrograd, Moscow and Kiev, respectively; first separately and then jointly; nor did they forget the Procurator of the Holy Synod and his Assistant. Besides, as I learned at the table, since a few fellow Academy students of Bishop