The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1902-12-11
SPENDING THE EVENING"
What This Innocent Phrase Means in
HospitabIe st. Petersburg.

What This Innocent Phrase Means in
HospitabIe ST. Petersburg.
An Englishman who has just re-
turned from some years in st. Peters
burg declares that Russian hospitality
demands more from its recipients than
any other. The demand would seem to
be mainly of liquid nature. Here is
his description of the way you spend
the evening" in a Russian house. You
no sooner make your appearance than
your host drags you to his den and
makes you take a drink You find all
the other men there, taking their pick
of the bottles ranged along the hosts
private sideboard, and helping them
selves to stiff one every few minutes.
If you are wise and diplomatic. you
will dodge as many of the ante-pran-
dial drinks as possible, with view to
your comfort later on. But you have
got to be very skillful about this.
Most Russian hosts have a way of re-
garding it as a sort of reflection upon
their stock Of liqueurs, if not, indeed,
ON their own drinking habits, if their
non Russian guests begin to fight shy.
1t doesn't spoil their hunger as it does
ours. The more a Russian drinks, the
more he wants to eat. That and the
climate are, 1 take it, the salvation of
that nation of heavy drinkers.
you sit down to dinner at six o'clock
and it lasts till nine. The array of
courses is staggering, and there's wine,
it would seem, for every dish, let alone
every course. Men and women drink
champagne like water. and the air is
such that it does them little harm.
Between every two or three courses the
cigarettes are passed round, to the wo-
men as well as the men, and everybody
smokes and chatters. After dinner you
go to the theater,. where boxes have
been engaged. That's part of spending
the evening" You may smoke all you
want to in the boxes, and by ten
o'clock the drinking business begins
again. Your hosts cabinet of liqueurs
"a portable affair designed for theater
use-has preceded him to the box, with
ice tank and syphons complete. The
women as a rule take champagne, but
the men choose the liqueurs. Thus
smoking and drinking pretty incessant-
ly you watch the performance, walking
about the boxes and chattering between
acts, until after midnight, when the
show comes to an end.
Does that end the evening? Not at
all. You return with your host and
hostess to their home, where you find
an elaborate supper served and wait
ing. You do your best to do justice to
it, and toward a. m. an adjournment
is made to the drawing room for an
hour or so of music. The Russian wo-
men play and sing agniticently, but
you are expected to keep on drinking
while listening to them. By this time
you are about ready to go home. But
that would be discourteous. Spending
the evening is by no means over yet.
Card tables are brought out, and every
body plays-French games for the most
part, perhaps a couple of Russian ones,
and once in a while poker-and every
body CANDLES. You drink necessarily
while playing and MUNICH cavaire sand
wiches. At last-it is now about a.
m.-the evening is spent. You may go
home if you wish. If not you signify
your desire to sleep at your hosts
house, and you find your room all pre-
pared. He is honored by your prefer
ence, but when you come to some
hours later you feel that all you ever
did in your college days was child's
play by the side of a quiet evening
with a Russian household. London
ThropicIa