strike a woman, in the assembly, under pain of execution." If manners were, as this rule indicates, a trifle crude under Catherine, under her husand, Peter the Great, who preceded her, they were a wee mite rougher. In the charming Peter the Czar, by Klabund, Peter's love technique is described:
The Grand Elector of Brandenburg led the Polonaise. The Czar led the Duchess of Mecklenburg, a delicate blonde. When the Polonaise had come to its end in the Hall of Mirrors the Czar and his partner were nowhere to be found.
He had drawn her into a side apartment and had violated her behind a portiere. And he was so powerful that she neither could nor would defend herself.
And then he left her.
She drowns herself in the river outside the palace.
But the Czar had already forgotten her . . . . Then he fell asleep and dreamed of a mouse of the steppes. She had a face like the Duchess of Mecklenburg and squeaked softly.
He bit off her head and flung the tiny carcass upon the fields.
Peter's technique was a bit too crude. Perhaps, if he had read this handbook of love and kissing, he might have loved the duchess with more diplomacy and more general enjoyment.
In Norway, one perplexing and, at times, delightful salute is furnished by one's hostess. The good woman always tucks her guest into bed for the night, and then gives him a resounding kiss upon the lips. As a rule, however, there is no second kiss. The kiss is known
