She was already a middle-aged woman, but very refined-looking. There was only one thing about her which rather spoilt her appearance, and that was that her fingers were very much stained with tobacco, and her teeth, too, from smoking cigarettes. In this she merely followed the example of the majority of Russian ladies, amongst whom smoking often becomes a real passion.
I spent my summer therefore amongst the great ones of the earth.
One day we went to a big luncheon-party at the Palace in honour of the birthday of the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria. It seems strange now to think of having celebrated that event.
Grand Duchess Xenia and the Grand Duke, her husband, came to see my aunt. I admired her charming simplicity, she took a snapshot of my aunt with her son and myself and afterwards sent us each a copy accompanied by a charming little note.
The Grand Duchesses were always dressed as simply as possible, tailor-made dresses and small sailor-hats; so much so, that it really seemed to be a uniform.
These sailor-hats appeared to me as being rather rétrograde for the sensible craze for these generally becoming hats had been for some time no longer the fashion in France, and to wear one would have seemed very démodé.
That summer Plehve, the Minister, was the victim of a bomb explosion while crossing the
