The celebration of Easter at the Isaac’s Cathedral is said to be quite magnificent; but I did not see it, for I was bidden to keep the feast at Princess Kotchoubey’s and I could not refuse, as she had always been so kind to me. The service of a chapel in a private house, however grand it may be, can never come up to the gorgeous spectacle such as that of the great procession which thrice marches round the colossal building. Still the ceremony was very imposing, and the entertainment afterwards, as always where the Princess is hostess, sumptuous in the extreme. In the streets the night which heralds Easter is a mad jubilee. Everybody salutes everybody else with the joyful cry, first uttered by the priest in church, “Christos Voskres” (“Christ has arisen”), and everybody answers “Dieistvelno on Voskres” (“Of a truth He has arisen”). By four o’clock in the morning the proletariat is very drunk and very happy. The noise and the shouting and the merriment might be in honour of a great victory, as indeed it is—the Divine victory over death! By dawn the booths and merry-go-rounds of the Butter Week have sprung up like mushrooms in an August night, and all through Easter Sunday the cry of “Christos Voskres” will be dinning in our ears. As for the poor Emperor, the twenty-four hours were enough to tire him out. Think of having to kiss from seven to eight hundred people directly after midnight; and then to begin again with deputations from each of the regiments of the Guards after breakfast! The Empress had to plead her poor health in order to escape from the fatigue of these receptions. I sometimes thought that it must need the strength of a Samson to bear the weight of duty that is laid upon a Russian Emperor. Alexander the Second carried himself nobly and equably through the weary rites and ceremonies that are the heritage of Tsardom’s woe; but what a strain it must often have been! * * * * * After the long weeks of fasting and the ten wild days of feast and revelry, St. Petersburg began to calm down and the world, high and low, was at peace. * * * * *