This is rather a curious place, and the climate is quite good; no snow, and a good deal of pleasant sun, but the hills all round are very bare and rugged.
I have had a cough, which I think equals your best efforts in that line. How it does shake one up! I had some queer travelling when it was at its worst: for the first night we were given a shakedown in a little mountain hospital, which was fearfully cold; and the next night I was put into a newly-built little place, made of planks roughly nailed together, and with just a bed and a basin in it.
The cold was wonderful, and since then—as you may imagine—the Macnaughtan cough has been heard in the land!
GRAND DUKE NICHOLAS
Yesterday (Christmas Day) we were invited to breakfast with the Grand Duke Nicholas. A Court function in Russia is the most royal that you can imagine—no half measures about it! The Grand Duke is an adorably handsome man, quite extraordinarily and obviously a Grand Duke. He measures 6 feet 5 inches, and is worshipped by every soldier in the Army.
We went first into a huge anteroom, where a lady-in-waiting received us, and presented us to "Son Altesse Impériale," and then to the Grand Duke and to his brother, the Grand Duke Peter. Some scenes seem to move as in a play. I had a vision of a great polished floor, and many tall men in Cossack dress, with daggers and swords, most of them different grades of Princes and Imperial Highnesses.
A great party of Generals, and ladies, and members of the Household, then went into a big dining-room, where every imaginable hors d'œuvre was laid out on dishes—dozens of different kinds—and we each ate caviare or something. Afterwards, with a great tramp and clank of spurs and swords, everyone moved on to a larger dining-room, where there were a lot of servants, who waited excellently.
In the middle of the déjeuner the Grand Duke Nicholas got up, and everyone else did the same, and they toasted us! The Grand Duke made a speech about our "gallantry," etc., etc., and everyone raised glasses and bowed to one. Nothing in a play could have been more of a real fine sort of scene. And certainly S. Macnaughtan in her wildest dreams hadn't thought of anything so wonderful as being toasted in Russia by the Imperial Staff.
It's quite a thing to be tiresome about when one grows old!
In the evening we tried to be merry, and failed. The Grand Duchess sent us mistletoe and plum-pudding by the hand of M. Boulderoff. He took us shopping, but the bazaars are not interesting.