the newlyweds went to Sweden, where an official ceremonial reception awaited them with the state flags of Russia and Sweden waving in Stockholm. In the beginning, the marriage looked successful. The couple set up their home in the Swedish countryside in the province of Södermanland. They spent the summer there, returning in October to Stockholm. Maria added Swedish to the other five languages she spoke, and became popular in her new country. The Swedes felt she worked harder than her husband did. She was well liked by her father-in-law Gustaf V, who appreciated her "effervescence, charm, and unconventionality." Maria Pavlovna, known in Sweden as the Duchess of Södermanland, was pregnant by the fall, but she quickly realized that she had little in common with her husband. Their relationship was cold. She had little interest in him and he in her. The couple's only child was born on 8 May 1909. He was Prince Lennart, Duke of Småland, later Count of Wisborg (1909–2004) In the autumn of 1910, Maria Pavlovna moved with her husband and their son to Oak Hill, a house she had built for herself outside Stockholm. Maria went hunting, attended horse races, practiced winter sports and even played field hockey on her sister-in-law, Crown Princess Margaret's team. She enrolled at the art school and took painting and singing lessons. Maria occasionally played with her son, who remembered sitting on her lap when they slid down a flight of steps on a large silver tray. She also wrote an illustrated alphabet book for Lennart that was published in 1912. However, life at the Swedish court had as many restrictions on Maria Pavlovna as she had had in Russia. Her husband Wilhelm, as a naval officer, had little time to spend with her. She found him "cold, shy, and neglectful", and when she tried to approach him he walked away from her in tears. At the end of October 1911 the young couple was sent, on a five-month trip to Southeast Asia as representatives to the coronation of the King of Siam. Maria had an opportunity to meet other men. King Vajiravudh and the Duke of Montpensier began to court her and she enjoyed the flirtation. Relations between the couple cooled even more. She told her husband she wanted a divorce. He was devastated by her decision, begging her to give their marriage another chance, "but since he blamed most