Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/196

170 unknown quantity, but on the contrary is rather common. The cure consists in eating a sort of omelet—the ingredients of which contain a certain purifying herb.

It was very necessary in Russia never to be separated from one's passport, which was certainly one's most precious possession. They ask you for it wherever you may be spending the night, the dvornik, or porter, comes to fetch it and shows it to the police, and brings it back to you with one more signature on it, for which you have to pay the infinitesimal sum of a few kopecks, or pennies.

During the day a man-servant, more or less covered with gold braid, does the honours of the house when you enter or leave it. He is known as the Suisse. The dvornik, a primitive person whose name is derived from dvor or door, fills the rôle of concierge, and is on duty all night.

One day we left the Hôtel de France in the most brilliant style. We should have felt enchanted had it not been for the disorderly gait of the horses which drew us, and the want of stability of our fat coachman who really seemed to oscillate on his wide, his very wide base all inflated and wadded even there, as it is the custom for them to be during the cold winter months.

My friend, Madame de Saint-Pair, was taking me with her to pay some calls. It was one of those disagreeable days of thaw when the roads are nothing but pools of brackish water, and the