Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/159

 CHAPTER XII

HE Court left Petrograd for Tsarskoe-Celo in January 1905, not to return again for two years.

The Empress lived in constant dread of some misfortune befalling the Emperor or the Tzarevitch, and had to endure the most cruel tortures in consequence. Not a day passed without there being some plot discovered, and once, even, an infernal machine was found connected by wires to the infant's bed when he was but a few months old!

The Empress, tall and still a beautiful woman, had, however, no longer the delicate beauty which I believe she possessed at the time of her marriage. She was very cold in appearance and manner—perhaps due to shyness as some affirm—and in conversation never seemed to have the courage to start a subject, possibly finding nothing to say.

The notion that this limitation is necessary to a Sovereign-Lady is negatived by the conversational powers of the Queen of Italy, for instance, who expatiates upon the doings of the King, of herself and her children from the time of their rising—very early, as I was informed by Her Majesty, and from which I decided that it is not worth while to be a 2em