Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/92

70 regiment seemed to have been represented and the drawing-rooms were more than ever filled with flowers—a regular avalanche in fact.

The dinner-party in the evening was of the gayest. I sat between Colonel Échappard and the Russian Minister at Dresden and was anything but dull.

In Russia birthday anniversaries are always made a great deal of. The heroine of the occasion is always dressed in white or pearl grey and no one is allowed to wear black. Even if one is in mourning, one must discard its outward signs for the day or else keep away from the fête altogether.

I never shall forget the gaiety of those 1 a.m. teas at Michaelovka, the tables being laden with the choicest fruits, melons, strawberries, peaches in abundance, all that Nature could be persuaded to produce. Those mountains of luscious fruit, set in the most tasteful style amidst the richest of table decorations imaginable, would have made a perfect subject for any great artist of still life to reproduce on canvas. These midnight or early morning teas I thought a delightful custom. In Russia the night is turned into day, which fascinated me.

People actually call on one another between 11 p.m. and midnight, and I often accompanied my aunts on such visits; I wonder what sort of a reception nocturnal visitors in hum-drum Western Europe would receive should anyone venture to ring the front bell at that hour: a house plunged in darkness and at every door