Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/207

Rh being seemed to revel at the restoration of her conjugal rights.

Prince Lucien Murat spent part of the winter at Petrograd. He sometimes took us to see the wrestlers. He had a box there and this entertainment was also a very smart rendezvous. Many officers were there and smart young women. These wrestlers were real colossal masses of human flesh, and most of them bore animal countenances. They began by parading one behind the other in a long file in the arena, then in pairs they wrestled together, he whose back first touched the ground being the vanquished one, and the others in succession. They were of all nationalities. They did not appear to make any real effort, at any rate their movements were calm and slow, but they must have made some, for by degrees one saw their skins begin to shine with heat.

Their costume was of the simplest, a little pair of bathing drawers.

It was forbidden to walk on the quays with a camera, for fear of its containing a bomb. That did not prevent my doing so all the winter without being troubled. Was I then in the good books of the police?

The Russian custom of not addressing others by their family names, but only joining to their Christian names the name of their father, is at first very perplexing for strangers. Thus, supposing your name to be Olga, if your father's for instance is Peter, you will be spoken of as "Olga Petrovna," and so on, really enough