Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/169

Rh children kiss her hand after luncheon and dinner. A lady does not require much encouragement to kiss the forehead of a gentleman who happens to be on friendly terms with her.

The Catholic churches at Petrograd are always fearfully overcrowded, but soon I gave up going to them, as once at St Catherine's, on the Newsky Prospect, I was literally carried off my feet by the crowd swaying backwards and forwards; and there were very few benches. So in future I preferred going to the Chapel of the Corps des Pages, a college reserved entirely for the young men of the best families destined for a military career, where there was also a Catholic chapel, in which I had been offered a seat, by my Ambassadress, on the benches reserved for the corps diplomatique, which was very comfortable.

But, before this, I went there once and settled myself in one of the benches belonging to the general public. I knelt devoutly for an instant, but on resuming my seat I realized that I was doing so on some one's knees and not on the hard plank of wood that I expected to find. I turned round to explore the horizon, and what did I find? A stout Polish woman had slipped in behind me while I was at my orisons, and had altogether possessed herself of my seat. I can still see her fat, round face, her heavy, massive figure. One could not dream of using force to dispossess her, and her big victorious eyes gazed at me above their spectacles and