Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/208

182 to make one's head ache. In the masculine the termination is altered to "vitch," as for example "Petro Petrovitch."

In Russia all luxuries are very dear, but the first necessaries of life are not more so than elsewhere, and my aunts asserted that flats were cheaper than in Paris, where they become very dear when they are of any size. At Easter it is the custom to give delightful little trinkets in the shape of eggs, decorated with a little coloured stone, often real ones. I brought back many of these. That day the dish consisted of boiled eggs, painted red, blue, etc., and all the household ate them too.

I terminated my winter at my Aunt de Nicolay's, continuing with her my social life and met a good many of her relations who were charming.

Sometimes there came to lunch some austere Protestant missionaries, returned from far-off countries where they might have been eaten, had they been more delectable morsels, but where they had escaped from cannibal jaws. Some of them were good and interesting talkers.

Every Monday evening great commotion in the salons; the furniture was removed and replaced by benches, and a minister began to speak to an audience composed of male and female students and young girls. This was the favourite work of my Uncle Paul and my Aunt Marie. I, for my part, took myself off to my Embassy that evening, and in front of the open folding-doors, past which I had