" This cherry-tree is also a favourite, and certainly
a very agreeable ornament, in the present day. At the conclusion
of the dessert coffee is served as in France and England. Men and
women leave the table together, and after dinner no wine is taken.
Later in the evening tea is brought in, with biscuits, cakes, and
preserved fruits.
[Footnote 1: That is to say, not in the winter. In the summer,
pears and cherries abound in Moscow, and every kind of fruit ripens
in the south.]
The reception-rooms in Russian houses are all _en suite_; and instead
of doors you pass from room to room through arches hung with curtains.
The number of the apartments in most of the houses I remember varied
from three to six or seven; but in the clubs and in large mansions
there are more. Grace before or after dinner is never said under
any circumstances; but all the guests make the sign of the cross
before sitting down to table, usually looking at the same time
towards the eastern corner of the room, where the holy image hangs.
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