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Thus our grooms are obliged to sleep in the open. So limited is the accommodation in the whole town that the men could not be lodged elsewhere, even for a hundred pieces of gold. When this is mentioned to the Tsar, all he replies is, that in a few years time there will be houses enough. But they won’t be needed then, at least not for our people, who, for the most part, will probably have died.

They would not believe in Europe if they knew what poverty is ours. The money for the maintenance of the Crown Princess is paid so irregularly and scantily that it never suffices. At the same time everything is frightfully dear here; we have to pay for things four times as much as in Germany. We are in debt to all our tradesmen; they will soon stop supplying us. To say nothing of servants, we ourselves are sometimes short of candles, firewood, even food. Nothing can be got out of the Tsar, he is always busy. The Tsarevitch is always drunk. “The world is full of misery,” her Highness said to me to-day, “ever since the age of six I have known no happiness, and no doubt Providence has still greater misfortunes in store for me.” With an absent look, as if she already beheld this future, she repeated: “I shall not escape it,” and with such calm resignation that I found no words to comfort her and could only silently kiss her hand.