In one of the earliest days of 1905 my mother received a telegram from
Princess Galatzine, first lady in waiting, saying that my immediate
presence at Court was required. The Princess Orbeliani, also a lady in
waiting, was seriously ill, and some one was needed to replace her in
attendance on Her Majesty. I left at once for Tsarskoe Selo, then, as
always, the favorite home of the Imperial Family, and on my arrival was
conducted to the apartments in the palace known as the Lyceum. The rooms
were small and dark with windows looking out on a little church. It was
the first time I had ever been away from home, and in any surroundings I
should have been homesick and forlorn, but in these unfriendly
surroundings my spirits were with some excuse depressed.
The time of my coming to Court was unpropitious, the Imperial Family and
all connections being in deep mourning for the Grand Duke Serge who, on
the morning of February 4, had been barbarously assassinated. The Grand
Duke Serge, uncle of Nicholas II, had been Governor of Moscow. He was
undoubtedly a reactionary, and his rule was said to have been harsh.
Certain it is that his administrative methods earned him the intense
enmity of the Social Revolutionaries and he had long lived in danger of
assassination. His wife, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, was devoted to
him in spite of his somewhat difficult temperament, and she never
willingly allowed him to leave the palace of the Kremlin unaccompanied.
Usually she went with him herself, but on this fatal February morning
he, being in a dark mood, left the palace without her knowledge.
Suddenly a great explosion shook all the windows, and the poor Grand
Duchess, springing from her chair, cried out in an agonized voice: “It
is Serge!”
Rushing out into the court she saw a horrible sight, the body of her
husband scattered in a hundred bleeding fragments over the snow. The
bomb had literally torn the unfortunate man to pieces, so that in the
dismembered mass of flesh and blood there was nothing recognizable of
what had been, only a few minutes before, a strong and dominating man.
The terrorist who threw the bomb was promptly arrested, tried, and
sentenced to death. It was entirely characteristic of the Grand Duchess
Elizabeth that in the midst of her grief and horror she still found room
in her heart to pity the misguided wretch sitting in his cell waiting
his miserable end. The Grand Duchess insisted on visiting the man in
prison, assuring him of her forgiveness, and praying for him on the
stone floor of his cell. Whether or not he joined in her prayers I do
not know. The Social Revolutionaries prided themselves on being
irreligious and very many of them were Jews.
The Court weighed down by this terrible tragedy was a sad enough place
for a homesick girl like myself. Like all the other ladies in waiting I
wore a black dress with a long veil, and when at length I was received
by the Empress I found her, too, dressed in deep mourning. After this
first formal reception I saw very little of the Empress, all her time
being devoted to her sister, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, and to
Princess Henry of Prussia, who was visiting her. The Empress Dowager
also came, so that the suite was thrown together in what for me was not
altogether a pleasant association. My special duty, as I discovered, was
attendance on the old Princess Orbeliani, whose illness, I am bound to
admit, did not sweeten her disposition. But as she was dying of that
terribly trying malady, creeping paralysis, I am ashamed, even now, to
criticize her. For the other _dames d’honneur_, however, I have no
hesitation to say that they were not on their best behavior. Being
entirely a stranger at Court and unacquainted with insincerities which
afterwards I came to know only too well, I suffered keenly from the
cutting remarks of my colleagues. My French, which I own I spoke rather
badly, came in for a great deal of ridicule. On the whole it was rather
an unhappy period in my young life.
The one bright spot that I remember was a drive with the Empress to
which I was summoned by telephone. It was a warm day in early spring and
the snow around the tree roots along the road was thawing in the pale
sunlight. We drove in an open carriage, a big Cossack, picturesquely
uniformed, riding behind. It was my first public appearance with Royalty
and I was a little confused as to how to behave in the presence of the
low-bowing crowds that lined the way. The Empress, however, soon put me
at my ease, chatting of simple things, talking of her children,
especially of the infant heir, at that time about eight months old. Our
drive was not very long because the Empress had to hurry back to
superintend a dancing lesson of the young Grand Duchesses. I remember
when I returned to the apartment of the invalid Princess Orbeliani, she
commented rather maliciously on the fact that I was not invited to
attend the dancing lesson. But by that time, alas! I knew that had I
been invited her comment might have been more malicious still. Still I
must not speak badly of the poor Princess, for in spite of her illness
and approaching death she was very brave and kinder than most people in
her circumstances would have been.
Lent came on and in the palace church there were held every Wednesday
and Friday special services for the Imperial Family. I asked and was
given permission to assist in these services and I found great solace in
them. At that time also I became warmly attached to a maid of honor of
the Grand Duchess Serge, Princess Scnkovsky, a woman of rare character.
She had recently lost her mother and was in a sad mood. Almost everyone,
in fact, was sad at this time. The Grand Duchess Serge, although she
bore her tragedy with dignity and courage, went about with a white face
and eyes in which horror still lingered. On religious holidays she laid
aside her black robes and appeared all in white like a madonna.
The Princess Irene of Prussia (Princess Henry) was still in mourning for
her little son who had died of the same incurable disease which
afflicted the Tsarevitch. She spoke to me with emotion of the child, to
whom she had been deeply attached.
My duty came to an end in Holy Week, and I went to the private
apartments to make my farewell of the Empress. She received me in the
nursery, the baby Tsarevitch in her arms, and I cannot forget how
beautiful the child appeared or how healthy and normal. He had a wealth
of golden hair, large blue eyes, and an expression of intelligence rare
in so young a child. The Empress was kindness itself. At parting she
kissed me, and gave me as a souvenir of my first service a locket set in
diamonds. Yet for all her gracious kindness how gladly I left that night
for my beloved home.
The following summer, which as usual we spent at Peterhof, I saw much
more of the Empress than in my month of attendance on her. With my
mother and sister I again worked daily in the workrooms established for
the wounded in the Japanese War, and there almost daily the Empress came
to sew with the other women. Once every week she visited the hospitals
at Tsarskoe Selo, and twice that summer, at her request, I accompanied
her to her foundation hospital for training nurses. The Empress in the
military hospitals was at her very best. Passing from bedside to
bedside, speaking as tenderly as a mother to the sick and suffering men,
sitting down to a game of checkers with convalescent officers, it was
difficult to imagine how anyone could ever call her cold or shy. She was
altogether charming and as she passed all eyes followed her with love
and gratitude. To me she was everything that was good and kind, and into
my heart there was born a great emotion of love and loyalty that made me
determine that I would devote my whole life to the service of my
Sovereigns. Soon after I was to know that they, too, desired that I
should be intimately associated with their household. The first
intimation came in the form of an invitation to spend two weeks on the
Royal yacht which was about to leave for a cruise in Finnish waters. We
left on the small yacht _Alexandria_, and at Kronstadt transferred to
the larger yacht _Polar Star_. We were a fairly large company on board,
among others Prince Obolensky, Naval Minister, Admiral Birileff, Count
Tolstoy, Admiral Chagin of the Emperor’s staff, and Mademoiselle
Schneider and myself in attendance on Her Majesty. A little to my
embarrassment I was placed at table next the Emperor with whom I was not
at all acquainted. It is true that I had often seen him at Tsarskoe and
at Peterhof riding, or walking with his kennel of English collies,
eleven magnificent animals in which he took great pride. But this time,
on the _Polar Star_, was the first time I had been brought into personal
contact with him. With the Empress I felt more at home, and this he
knew, for he began almost at once to speak to me of her and of her great
help to him in the pain and anxiety of the Japanese War. “Without her,”
he said with feeling, “I could never have endured the strain.”
The war was again recalled by a visit on board the yacht from Count
Witte, fresh from the Portsmouth Conference. As a reward for his work
done there he received for the first time his title by which the world
now knows him. During dinner he related with great gusto all his
experiences in the United States, his triumph over the Japanese
delegates, his popularity with the Americans, appearing very happy and
satisfied with himself. The Emperor complimented him warmly, but Count
Witte for all his talents was never a favorite with the Sovereigns.
Life on board the _Polar Star_ was very informal, very lazy and
agreeable. We sailed through the quiet waters of the Baltic, every day
going ashore for walks, the Emperor and his staff sometimes shooting a
little, but more often spending the time climbing rocks, hunting
mushrooms and berries in the woods and meadows, and playing with the
children to whom this country holiday was heavenly pleasure. Living long
hours in the open air and indulging in so much vigorous exercise made me
desperately sleepy so that I found myself drowsy at dinner and almost
dead for sleep by the time the eleven o’clock tea hour came round.
Everyone found my drowsiness a source of never-ending amusement, and
once, after I had actually fallen asleep at tea and had nearly pitched
out of my chair, the Emperor presented me with a silver matchbox with
which he said I might prop my eyes open until bedtime.
There was, of course, a piano in the salon of the yacht, and the Empress
and I found a new bond in our common love of music. We spent hours
playing four-hand pieces, all our dearly loved classics, Bach,
Beethoven, Tschaikovsky, and others. In our quiet hours with our music,
and especially before going to bed, the Empress and I had many intimate
conversations. As if to relieve a heart too much constrained to silence
and solitude the Empress confided in me freely the difficulties of her
life. From the first day of her coming to the Russian Court she felt
herself disliked, and this was all the more a grief and mortification to
her because her marriage with the Emperor was a true love match, and she
ardently desired that their union should increase in the Russian people
the loyalty and devotion they undoubtedly felt in those days for the
House of Romanoff.
All the stories of the reluctance of Alexandra Feodorovna to marry
Nicholas II are absurdly untrue. As a small child she had been taken to
Petrograd to the marriage of her older sister Elizabeth and the Grand
Duke Serge. With the Grand Duchess Xenia, sister of Nicholas, she formed
a warm friendship, and with the young heir himself she was on the best
of terms. One day he presented her with a pretty little brooch which
from very shyness she accepted but afterwards repenting, she returned,
squeezing the gift into his hand in the course of a children’s party.
The young Tsarevitch, much offended, or rather much hurt, passed the
brooch on to his sister Xenia who, not knowing its history, cheerfully
accepted it.
The attraction so early established increased with years and ripened
into romantic love, yet Alexandra Feodorovna hesitated to accept
Nicholas as her betrothed because of the change of religion which was
necessary. Her home life at this time was not particularly happy. Her
mother, Princess Alice of England, had died in her childhood, and now
her father, the reigning Grand Duke of Hesse, died suddenly of a stroke
of paralysis. Her brother Ernest, who inherited the title and who was of
course her guardian, had made an unhappy marriage with Princess
Victoria of Coburg, and the home life of the family was not
particularly pleasant. Later this marriage was dissolved, and in 1908
Grand Duke Ernest was happily united to Princess Eleanor of Sohmslich.
It was at his first marriage that Alexandra Feodorovna again met the
Tsarevitch, and from this time on he became a suitor. After their formal
betrothal the young pair spent some happy weeks with Queen Victoria in
England, where the match met with the approval of all the English
relatives.
[Illustration: THE WINTER PALACE, PETROGRAD]
Emperor Alexander III was at this time lying mortally ill in the Summer
Palace Livadia, in the Crimea, and when his condition became hopeless
Alexandra Feodorovna, as the future Tsarina, was summoned to join the
Imperial Family at his bedside. The dying Tsar rose from his sickbed
and, dressed in full uniform, gave her the greeting due her dignity as a
royal bride. From the rest of the family, unfortunately, she had a less
cordial reception. The Empress and her ladies in waiting, Princess
Oblensky and Countess Voronzoff, were distant and formal, and the rest
of the Court, as might be expected, followed their example. The whole
atmosphere of the palace seemed to the young girl unwholesome and
unsympathetic. Upstairs lay the dying Emperor, while below the suite
lunched and dined and followed ordinary pursuits very much as though
nothing untoward was happening. To Alexandra Feodorovna, accustomed to
the intimacy of a small and much less formal Court, this behavior seemed
unfeeling and unkind.
[Illustration: MILITARY REVIEW NEAR THE PALACE AT TSASKOE SELO]
The end came suddenly one day when the Emperor, at the moment almost
free from pain or weakness, was sitting in his armchair. The Empress
Marie, quite overcome, fainted in the arms of Alexandra, who in that
hour of extreme sorrow, prayed sincerely that she and her future
mother-in-law might be drawn together in bonds of affection. But this,
alas! was never to be.
The days that followed were gray and desolate for the young bride. The
funeral procession of Alexander III wound slowly and solemnly from the
Crimea to Petrograd, a journey of many days. The young Emperor, absorbed
in his new duties, had little time to devote to the lonely, homesick
girl, and indeed they hardly met before the morning of their marriage, a
few days after the state funeral of the dead Emperor. The marriage took
place in the church of the Winter Palace, and those who witnessed it
have said that the bride, in her rich satin robes, looked very pale and
unhappy. As she herself told me, the wedding seemed only a continuation
of the long funeral ceremonies she had so lately attended.
Thus came Alexandra Feodorovna to Russia, nor did the weeks that
followed her arrival bring her any happiness. To her friend Countess
Rantsau, lady in waiting to Princess Henry of Prussia, she wrote:
I feel myself completely alone, and I am in despair that those who
surround my husband are apparently false and insincere. Here nobody
seems to do his duty for duty’s sake, or for Russia, but only for
his own selfish interests and for his own advancement. I weep and I
worry all day long because I feel that my husband is so young and
so inexperienced. He does not at all realize how they are all
profiting at the expense of the State. What will come of it in the
end? I am alone most of the time. My husband is all day occupied
and he spends his evenings with his mother.
This was true, as Nicholas was very inexperienced and his mother’s
influence and, it must be said, her knowledge of affairs were very
potent. All during the first year the Emperor and the two Empresses
lived together in the Annitchkoff Palace on the Nevski Prospekt.
Alexandra Feodorovna comforted herself with the thought that summer
would bring her a real honeymoon in the Crimea. Meanwhile she and her
young husband went for an occasional sledge ride together, about the
only time granted them for confidences. Fortunately the first baby came
soon and the second was soon expected. That autumn in the Crimea the
Emperor was stricken with typhus and his wife insisted upon nursing him
herself, hardly permitting his personal servant to assist her. Christmas
was celebrated in his sickroom, his recovery having set in some weeks
before. During these days of convalescence they went on solitary walks
together, and the Emperor began to read with his wife, to confide in her
with affection. When they went back to Petrograd it was with every cloud
dispelled, and the Empress a radiantly happy wife. However, the somewhat
cold and distant manner acquired in the first unhappy months of her stay
in Russia remained with her. Russia seemed to her an unfriendly land,
and she was never able to present to it her really sunny and amiable
disposition.
Not all of these confidences did the Empress impart to me on that first
cruise I was privileged to share with her on the _Polar Star_. Little
by little, then and later, I learned the story of her unhappy youth. But
what she told me that summer seemed to relieve her mind, and she was
more cheerful at the ending of the cruise than at the beginning. The
commander of the yacht was good enough to tell me that I had broken down
the wall of ice that seemed to surround Her Majesty, and that now she
could be more easily approached. At the close of the voyage the Emperor
said: “You are to go with us every year after this.”
But dearest of all in my memory were the words of the Empress at
parting: “Dear Annia, God has sent me a friend in you.” And so I
remained ever afterwards, not a courtier, not long a lady in waiting, or
even a maid of honor, or in any capacity an official member of the
Court, but merely a devoted and an intimate friend of Alexandra
Feodorovna, Empress of Russia.