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[Page 64]
it matters not if they understand the service or not. At the service the people take no part as we know it, the priest performing his office in the dim distance assisted by a boy & a bell rings at intervals which apparently tells the people when to stand up & sit down & so on. The collections are taken up by men preceeded by gaudily dressed persons in cocked hats, like budding admirals. The opera was our next port of call, a vast building built in 1864. On the summit of the building is the figure of Apollo holding his Golden Lyre, the interior we could not see it being closed. Returning to the Hotel for a brush up I next caught a taxi in order to go to say goodbye to my friends at Passey. Here I had tea & met a Russian who before the revolution was an anarchist & had lost a hand with a bomb, he was now almost a conservative to such an extreme has the revolution gone. I was really sorry to say good-bye as they had treated me so well & on leaving they gave me two books Notre Dame & Tartarin of Tarascon. Dandel. It was very interesting to be in the home of these Russians. Habits & customs they have different to ours altho having lived in England