Sorry to respond just now about your post, KarinK! Like before, I thank you so much for reposting the above anecdote here ^o^ I think I read somewhere before that Petrov really has something wrong with his hearing. I'll get back here when I find the source : )
Anastasia's lack of interest in her studies is recompensed by her comical gifts. This time, that gift is already considered an intelligence: so Anastasia is also intelligent but in a different sphere! However, I still feel terribly sorry for Petrov!
Foolish me for being consistently disorganized; just yesterday I found out in one of my photo folders that there is an MS Word document titled "trans" which I made last 2011. I opened it and saw two mini articles about Maria and Anastasia! As what I would expect of myself, I haven't copied the source but I recall seeing it in the internet. I'll also look for it! Here's the only new thing there written about her:
"Ofrosimova wrote: When the Grand Duchesses arrived, in particular the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, there soon began a terrible fuss and endless lines of pranks. The Grand Duchess was a desperate jester and a loyal friend to others, especially to the tsesarevich. The two elder ones have completed their course for being "Sisters of Mercy" while she and the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna worked at sewing clothes for the wounded men and their families, helped prepare bandages and lint, and lamented for being too young to be true Sisters of Mercy like their sisters Olga and Tatiana. [...] So, the little princess was not able to be very naught those days. She was given lighter work than that of her two elder sisters. One day, I sat beside the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna. Her pretty face is full of life and cheerfulness. Her quick eyes, which always sparkle with irrepressible joy and enthusiasm, tirelessly and acutely watched everything they see and made her naughtiness clear. Her sharp, sometimes merciless, tongue tells everything she sees. She can enliven any place she sets foot in by her uncontrollable, cheerful laughter. In her mischief, she would even dance with the wounded men and once said that she didn't like to sit down just to sew! While the pale, thin hands of Tatiana can quickly knit mittens, the graceful head of Olga bending low to the sewing machine, and Maria Nikolaevna was looking for a new task to do, she would not think of something like 'We need to sit and work'. Instead, her quick wit would think of creating pranks."
