The pen was of solid gold and had a turquoise as a finish to the handle. Of course the Empress hastened to put away the old set which had displeased her spouse, and we stored it up in one of the cupboards in which were kept the innumerable possessions of the Czarina. One day she opened the said cupboard when no one else was present and was highly displeased to find that some parts of this writing table set were put on a different shelf from the others. This had been done because we had thought that it would suit better the amount of room which we had at our disposal, but the Empress would not enter into considerations of that kind, and gave us a good scolding for keeping her things “in such disorder,” as she expressed it. Twice a year she went over her whole wardrobe, at the time when she ordered the new dresses which she required for each season. She then looked over the different articles in it with care, and either made a present of the things which she thought she would not want any longer, or sent them to her sister the Grand Duchess Elizabeth in Moscow, where the latter disposed of them among the poor girls of the Moscow nobility about to be married. She would be very careful to have every bit of real lace unpicked from these dresses, and then this lace was consigned to the cupboard set apart for that purpose, and entered in a catalogue, which was entirely written in the Empress’s own hand. As may be imagined, all this kept my mistress busy; and indeed there was hardly one hour in the day when she was not occupied with one thing or another. Her children’s wardrobes were looked after by her with the same care that she applied to her own things. And at Czarskoi Selo and Livadia she herself used to look over the housekeeping books of the Imperial household, much to the dismay of the head of it, who often complained that the Empress did not in the least understand the intricacies of the management which she sometimes so freely criticised. But though she frankly owned that she did not know how much an egg or a potato cost, yet, as she declared, she liked to be aware of the price of the potatoes which she consumed. It was an innocent mania, and would have been considered as such if there had not existed malicious people ready to make fun of it, and to laugh at the “German Housekeeper,” as they derisively called my poor mistress, who in view of this fact would have done much better not to have meddled in matters in which after all she had no need to enter, and which so many people would have been but too happy not to have to think about. CHAPTER XIII THE JAPANESE WAR AND THE BIRTH OF THE CZAREVITSCH