LYDIA KYASHT’S ROMANCE.

Hokitika Guardian, 18 January 1930, Page 6

LYDIA KYASHT’S ROMANCE.

ANECDOTES OF KINGS AND QUEENS.

Lydia Kyaslit, the famous Russian dancer and leading figure at the Empire in London 20 years ago, has a sheaf of good stories to tell in her book, “Romantic Recollections.” A dancer King Edward VII. delighted to see and the wife of a Russian officer of noble birth, she played no small part in, the social life of her time. Not all her anecdotes are meant for nursery reading, and her editress, Erica Beale, would perhaps have been wise to exercise a rather more vigilant censorship.

On one occasion when she danced before King Edward and Queen Alexandra : Queen Alexandra sent for me. I hastened to obey the royal summons, expecting to receive some congratulations on my dancing. Instead, her Majesty inquired, in tones which couid be hoard the length and breadth of the crowded reception room: “Tell me, Mile. Kyaslit, do you -wear corsets when you dance?” 'The assembly trembled at the question and blushed. When I meekly jhiformed the Queen I never wore corsets she regarded me with astonishment and expressed great surprise at my being able to manage without them.

WHEN ICING EDWARD SLUMBERED.

Edward VII., she says, admired her dancing, but she tells with a touch of malice a tale of his attitude to a rival dancer, Mine. Genec: When the lights were raised at the end of the show, King Edward was discovered to be slumbering peacefully in his armchair. '■ '

Yet though she lived in London for 15 years she boasts that- she did not at the end of it know Regent-street from Piccadilly. Of the happy home life of our present King and Queen she recounts this incident which, she says, occurred during the King’s recent illness.

Queen Mary had been suffering from a cold and had been obliged to keep to her own room. For three days she had been unable to visit the King. As soon as she was sufficiently recovered she hastened to his side to be greeted with the words: “What a long time with the words: “What a long time vou have been away!”

“Only three days, George,” protested Queen Mary, on which the King sighed, and murmured: “Only three days,! It seems more like three vears!”

AN EX-QUEEN AND HER. GARTER

At the Russian Court conditions we:c d-ffc-iut from those here. The gi-’in! dukes mi grand duchesses wore a law unto themselves. She tells this story of the C' aml Duchess Helene, tho pro'-e'-t ex-Queoii of Greece. She had a new page, about 17 years of ago any by no means man of the world, but, oil the contrary, a very innocent lad. One day, to his great discomfiture, the Grand Duchess suddenly ordered him : “My garter is too low! Arrange it for me!”

In Lis confusion lie failed to obey her order and was promptly dismissed for neglecting to carry out his duties in a proper manner -which was an ironical wav of putting it, to say the least of it. Lydia Kyasht gives a revolting picture of Rasputin : lie was the Imriest-looking man I have ever seen, and reminded me of a gigantic baboon. His enormous nose spread from one side of his cheek to t.ie other, while his teeth were absolutely black and could never have come in contact with a tooth brush since they were first cut, GENERAL AS HUMAN TARGET. She escaped with difficulty from the hideous cruelty of the Bolsheviks, She tells how they seized the general commanding the garrison in Kursk. They tore his clothes off him and forced him to dance in hare feet on pieces of jagged glass. When they tired of this form of “sport” they set him up as a human target and took pot shots at him. But they were careful only to wound and not to kill.