Tiflis is a city half Oriental, half West-European. In the European quarter the same sort of life prevails as in our great cities: European toilets, European manners, French cooks, English governesses, _jours_, _soirées_, conversation in Russian and French. Princess Tamara had her own _palais_, furnished with exquisite taste, and in her salons met the cream of the local society, consisting of dignitaries of the grand-ducal court,—the grand duke himself often used to come there,—of various governors and generals, and the great people of the city. Tamara’s younger sister, as beautiful as she herself, had married a general and also lived in Tiflis. Our social position there was something quite peculiar. We had to be earning something, so that we might live,—hence in the forenoons I went to several houses giving music lessons, for which I was well paid; my husband had a place under a French wall-paper manufacturer and builder, as bookkeeper and especially as designer of new patterns. For this service he received a salary of one hundred and fifty rubles a month, and moreover we had board and lodging in the pretty private house of the manufacturer, Monsieur Bernex of Marseilles. The bell for work rang at five o’clock in the morning. Then My Own, My Own who at home had been so spoiled and in truth shamefully lazy, had to get up. He did it right gayly; then he went to the press-room to oversee the workmen. At eight o’clock he sat down with the owner and the bosses to the early breakfast, consisting of a pail of weak coffee with milk, and black bread—it tasted good to him!—then he had to go to the office and figure and design till one. Meantime I had given a few lessons, and we all ate dinner together at the Bernex table. In the afternoon My Own had to go on business errands, to customers, to the customhouse, to the railway station, all long distances; he did it with pleasure. But after six o’clock in the evening we were free, put on full dress, and almost every evening dined _en ville_, now with the Princess of Georgia, now with her sister, and with all the great families of the city. Our romance was generally known, also our close relations with the Dadiani family; and in society we were not treated as the factory employee and the music teacher, but as a sort of aristocratic emigrants, not only on a footing of equality but with that peculiar courtesy which is usually shown to illustrious foreigners. We could not help laughing about it.