Shortly after our return to Peterhof I went abroad with my family,
stopping first at Karlsruhe, Baden, to visit my grandmother, and
afterwards going on to Paris. The Empress had given me letters to her
brother, the Grand Duke of Hesse, and to her eldest sister, Princess
Victoria of Battenberg, both of whom I saw before leaving Germany. The
seat of the Grand Duke of Hesse was Wolfsgarten near Darmstadt, a
beautiful place surrounded by extensive gardens laid out according to
the Grand Duke’s own plans. After my first luncheon at the palace,
during which the Grand Duke asked me many questions about the Empress
and her life at the Court of Russia, I walked in the gardens with Mme.
Grancy, hofmistress of the Court of Hesse, a gracious and charming
woman. She showed me the toys and other pathetic relics of the little
Princess Elizabeth, only child of the Grand Duke’s first marriage, who
had died in Russia after an acute illness of a few hours. I also saw the
white marble monument which the people of Hesse had raised to the memory
of the child.
To the second luncheon I attended at the old Schloss came the Princess
Victoria of Battenberg with her lovely daughter Louise. Etiquette at
Hesse was of the severest order and I observed with some astonishment
that the Princess Victoria curtsied deeply to her sister-in-law,
Princess Eleanor, who though much younger than herself, was the wife of
the reigning Grand Duke. The old Princess was a very clever woman and a
brilliant conversationalist, although, to tell the truth, as she spoke
very rapidly I lost a great deal of what she said. I remember her
questioning me rather closely about the political situation in Russia,
and although I was not very enlightening on the subject she was good
enough to invite me and my sister to lunch with her at Jugenheim in the
neighborhood of Darmstadt. Both the brother and the sister of the
Empress entrusted me with letters to her, and I took them with me to
Paris, not knowing that it would be a long time before I should be able
to deliver them.
For in the midst of these pleasant days, all unknown to me, the tide of
trouble and unrest was rising high in Russia. Beginning with a railroad
strike in Finland, a succession of labor troubles and revolutionary
demonstrations extending over a large territory brought about a serious
crisis which for a time tied up most of the railroads and prevented our
return to Russia. Of the cause of the trouble, and above all, of its
ultimate consequences, I must say that I remained in complete ignorance.
That the situation was grave of course I realized, and my heart went out
to the Emperor on whom the responsibility of restoring order largely
rested. But that this railroad strike, for that is all it seemed to
amount to, was the beginning of a revolution never crossed my mind. I
longed to get back to the Empress who I knew would be sharing the
anxiety of the Emperor, but as a matter of fact I did not get back until
after the manifesto of October, 1905, had been signed and delivered to
a startled world.
This October manifesto, relinquishing the principle of autocracy,
creating for the first time a Duma of the Empire, was the result of many
councils, some of them dramatic, not to say violent. Count Witte and
Grand Duke Nicholas were determined that the Emperor should sign the
manifesto, a thing which he was reluctant to do, not because he clung to
his privileges as autocrat of all the Russias, though I know that this
is the motive still attributed to him by almost all the world. The Tsar
hesitated to create a house of popular representation because he knew
how ill prepared the Russian people were for self-government. He knew
the dense ignorance of the masses, the fanatical and ill-grounded
socialism of the intelligentsia, the doctrinaire theories of the
Constitutional Democrats. I can say with positive knowledge that
Nicholas II fervently desired the progress of his country towards a high
civilization, but in 1905 he felt very serious doubts of the wisdom of
radical changes in the Russian system of government. At last, however,
overborne by his ministers, he signed the manifesto. It is said that the
Grand Duke Nicholas, in one of the last councils, lost all control of
himself and drawing a revolver threatened to shoot himself on the spot
unless the manifesto was signed. Whether this actually occurred or not I
do not know, but from what was told me later by the Empress the scenes
with the Grand Dukes and the ministers were painful in the extreme. When
in one of the final councils the actual form of the national assembly
was decided upon the Emperor, with a hand trembling with emotion,
signed his name to the fateful document, all in the room rose and bowed
to him in token of their continued fidelity.
The Empress told me that while these trying scenes were in progress she
sat in her boudoir alone save for her near relative the Grand Duchess
Anastasie, both of whom felt that in the stormy council chamber a child
was being dangerously brought into the world. Yet all the prayers of the
Empress, as well as those of the Emperor, were that the new policy of
popular representation would bring peace to troubled Russia.
The Duma was elected, the Socialists alone of political parties
repudiating it as too “bourgeois.” I was present with all the Empress’s
household, in the Throne Room of the Winter Palace on the opening day of
the Duma when the Tsar welcomed the deputies, and I remember with what a
strong, steady voice, and with what clear enunciation, the opening
speech was read. Of the proceedings of the first Duma I have no very
definite recollections, because they were marked with endless and very
wordy discussions rather than with any attempt at constructive action.
Everyone knows that the Duma was dissolved by Imperial order after a
short life of two months.
Of these momentous political events which rocked Russia and were
featured prominently in every newspaper in the world only faint echoes
reached the inner circle of the Russian Court. This may sound incredible
to readers in republican countries where the press is entirely
uncensored and where public opinion is educated in politics. In the
Russia of 1906 the reading public was a comparatively small one and the
press was poorly representative of the really intelligent people of the
Empire. Few men and fewer women of my class attached any particular
interest to the Duma, the best we hoped for it being that in time it
would become an efficient working agency, like the parliaments of
western European countries, adapted, of course, to Russian needs. The
first Duma we thought of only as a rather foolish debating society.
The Empress and I were engaged, at that time, with singing lessons, our
teacher being Mme. Tretskaia of the Conservatoire. The Empress was
gifted with a lovely contralto voice, which, had she been born in other
circumstances, might easily have given her a professional standing. My
voice being a high soprano we sang many duets. Sometimes my sister
joined us and as she also sang well we formed a trio singing many of the
lovely arrangements for three voices by Schumann and others.
Occasionally came also an English friend of the Empress, a talented
violinist, and among us we arranged concerts which gave us the greatest
pleasure, although we always had to hold them in another building of the
palace called the Farm in order not to disturb the Emperor, who, for
some strange reason, did not like to hear his wife sing.
When summer came and while the Duma was talking out its brief existence
we again took up our sea life, this time on board the large royal yacht
the _Standert_. We cruised for two months, the Emperor frequently going
ashore for tennis and other amusements, but occupied two days of each
week with papers and state documents brought to him by messenger from
Petrograd. The Empress and I were almost constantly together walking on
shore, or sitting on deck reading, or watching the joyful play of the
children, each of whom had a sailor attendant to keep them from falling
overboard or otherwise suffering mishap. The special attendant of the
little Alexei was a big, good-natured sailor named Derevanko, a man
seemingly devoted to the child. It was in fact Derevanko who taught
Alexei to walk, and who during periods of great weakness following
severe attacks of his malady carried the boy most tenderly in his arms.
All of these sailors at the end of a cruise received watches and other
valuable presents from the Emperor, yet most of them, even Derevanko,
when the revolution came, turned on their Sovereigns with meanest
treachery.
On my days of regular service, Wednesdays and Fridays, for I was then a
regularly appointed lady in waiting, I dined with the Imperial Family,
and at that time I formed a close friendship with General Alexander
Orloff, an old companion in the Royal Hussars with the Emperor. After
dinner the Emperor and General Orloff usually played billiards, while
the Empress and I read or sewed under the warm lamplight. Those were
happy evenings, full of bright talk and laughter, and I came to regard
General Orloff as one of my best friends. Already the hateful hand of
jealousy and gossip had been directed against me by people who could not
understand, or who, from motives of palace politics, deliberately
misunderstood the Empress’s preference for my society. Practically
every monarch has some close personal friend, absolutely disassociated
with politics and social intrigue, but I have noticed that these
friendships are always misunderstood and frequently bitterly resented. I
used to take my small troubles to General Orloff, at least they seem
small now after years of real trouble and affliction. But even after
these bitter years of sorrow and affliction the kindly counsels of the
good old general often come back to me, as they did then, like a
friendly hand laid on my hot and resentful heart.
I was then, in 1906, a fully grown and mature young woman and, as I
could not help knowing, I was the subject of many conversations in the
family circle because of my indifference to marriage. I had, I suppose,
the normal amount of attention from men, and the usual number of
suitors, but none of the young officers and courtiers with whom I danced
and chatted made any special appeal to my imagination. There was one
young naval officer, Alexander Virouboff, who after December, 1906, came
to our house almost every day, paying me the most marked attentions. One
day at luncheon he spoke with pride of the very good service to which he
had just been appointed, and very soon afterwards I found myself greeted
on all sides as his affianced. In February there was a ball in which I
was formally presented as a bride, and in the after whirl of dinners,
presents, new gowns and jewels, I began to share the excitement, if not
the happiness, of those around me. The Empress approved the match, my
parents approved, and no one except my old friend General Orloff
expressed even a faint doubt of the wisdom of the marriage. But on the
day when he spoke to me frankly, advising me to think seriously before
taking such a serious step, the Empress entered the room and said in a
decided voice that I had given my word and that therefore I should not
be given any discouragement.
I was married on the 30th of April, 1907, in the palace church at
Tsarskoe Selo. The night before I slept ill and in the early morning I
awoke in a mood of sadness and depression. The events of the day passed
more like a dream than a reality. As in a dream I allowed myself to be
dressed in my white satin wedding gown and floating veil, and still in a
dream I knelt before their Majesties who blessed me, holding over my
head a small ikon. Then began the marriage procession through the long
corridors to the church. First walked Count Fredericks, master of
ceremonies of the Court. Then came their Majesties, arm in arm, with my
little boy cousin, Count Karloff, carrying a holy image. Then I, walking
with my father. I must have shown by my excessive pallor the anxiety I
felt, for on the stairs the Empress looked at me with concern and having
caught my eye smiled brightly and glanced upward reassuringly at the
bright sky.
During the ceremony I stood quite still like a manikin, gazing at my
bridegroom as at some stranger. I had one moment of faint amusement when
the officiating priest, who was very near-sighted, mistook the best man
for the bridegroom addressing us affectionately as “my dear children.”
The Empress, as my matron of honor, stood at my left hand with the four
young Grand Duchesses, and two others, the children of Grand Duke Paul.
One of these was the Grand Duke Dmitri, who was destined to grow up to
take part in the assassination of Rasputine. On the day of my marriage
he was just a dear little boy, wide-eyed with the excitement of being
one of a wedding party. After the ceremony there was tea with the
Emperor and the Empress, and as usual when she and I parted there was an
affectionate little note pressed into my hand. How like an angel she
looked to me that day, and how hard it was for me to turn away from her
and to go away with my husband. There was a family dinner that night in
our home in Petrograd, and afterwards we went away for a month into the
country.
It is a hard thing for a woman to tell of a marriage which from the
first proved to be a complete mistake, and I shall say only of my
husband that he was the victim of family abnormalities which in more
than one instance manifested themselves in madness. My husband’s nervous
system had suffered severely in the rigors of the Japanese War, and
there were many occasions when he was not at all responsible for what he
did. Often for days together he kept his bed refusing to speak to
anyone. One night things became so threatening that I could not forbear
telephoning my fears to the Empress, and she, to my joy, responded by
driving instantly to the house in her evening gown and jewels. For an
hour she stayed with me comforting me with promises that the situation
should, in one way or another, be relieved.
In August the Emperor and Empress invited us both to go for a cruise on
the _Standert_, and sailing
[Illustration: THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS IN A QUIET HOUR ON BOARD THE
_STANDERT_. Photograph by Mme. Viroubova.]
[Illustration: THE EMPRESS DISTRIBUTING PRESENTS AT THE END OF A CRUISE
ON THE IMPERIAL YACHT _STANDERT_.]
through the blue Finnish fjords it did seem for a time that I should
find peace. But one day a terrible thing happened, possibly an accident,
but if so a very strange one, as we had on board an uncommonly able
Finnish pilot. We were seated on deck at tea, the band playing, a
perfectly calm sea running, when we felt a terrific shock which shook
the yacht from stem to stern and sent the tea service crashing to the
deck. In great alarm we sprang to our feet only to feel the yacht
listing sharply to larboard. In an instant the decks were alive with
sailors obeying the harsh commands of the captain, and helping the suite
to look to the safety of the women and children. The fleet of torpedo
boats which always surrounded the yacht made speed to the rescue and
within a few minutes the children and their nurses and attendants were
taken off. Not knowing the exact degree of the disaster, the Empress and
I hastened to the cabins where we hurriedly tied up in sheets all the
valuables we could collect. We were the last to leave the poor
_Standert_, which by that time was stationary on the rocks.
We spent the night on a small vessel, the _Asia_, the Empress taking
Alexei with her in one cabin and the Emperor occupying a small cabin on
deck. The little Grand Duchesses were crowded in a cabin by themselves,
their nurses and attendants finding beds where they could. The ship was
far from clean and I remember the Emperor, rather disheveled himself,
bringing basins of water to the Empress and me in which to wash our
faces and hands. We had some kind of a dinner about midnight and none of
us passed an especially restful night. The next day came the yacht
_Alexandria_ on which we spent the next two weeks. A fortnight was
required to get the ill-fated _Standert_ off the rocks on which she had
so mysteriously been driven. From the _Alexandria_ and later to the
_Polar Star_, to which we had been transferred, we watched the unhappy
yacht being carefully removed from her captivity. We had not been very
comfortable on the _Alexandria_ because there was not nearly enough
cabin room for our rather numerous company. The Empress occupied a
cabin, the Tsarevitch and his sailor another one adjoining. The four
little Grand Duchesses did as well as they could in one small cabin,
while the Emperor slept on a couch in the main salon. As for me, I slept
in a bathroom. Most of the suite found quarters on a Finnish ship which
stood by.
After our return to Peterhof my husband became worse rather than better
and his physician advised him to spend some time in a sanatorium for
nervous patients in Switzerland. He left, but on coming back to Russia
was noticeably in worse condition than before. In the hope that active
service would be of benefit to his shattered nerves and disordered brain
he was ordered to sea, but even this expedient proved of little benefit.
After a year of intense suffering and humiliation my unhappy marriage,
with the full approval of their Majesties and of my parents, was
dissolved.
I kept my little house in Tsarskoe Selo, its modest furnishings
beautified by many gifts from the Empress. Among these gifts were some
charming pictures and six exquisitely embroidered antique chairs. A
silver-laden tea table helped to make the salon cozy, and I have many
happy memories of intimate teas to which the Empress sent fruit and the
Emperor the cherry brandy which he especially affected.
The little house, however, was far from being the luxurious palace in
which I have often been pictured as living. As a matter of fact, it was
frightfully cold in winter because the house had no stone foundation but
rested on the frozen earth. Sometimes when the Emperor and Empress came
to tea we sat with our feet on the sofa to keep warm. Once the Emperor
jokingly told me that after a visit to my house he kept himself from
freezing only by going directly to a hot bath.
The summer of 1908 the Emperor and Empress paid an official visit to
England, but on their return they sent for me and again I spent a happy
holiday on the yacht. Not altogether happy, however, for towards the end
of the cruise my poor friend General Orloff, then near his death from
tuberculosis, came to say good-bye to his Sovereigns. Correct in his
uniform and all his orders the fine old soldier bade us all a brave
farewell before leaving for Egypt, where he well knew that his end
awaited him. Peace to his honored ashes. He lies buried at Tsarskoe
Selo, where the Emperor and Empress often visited his grave. Poor
Orloff, he too suffered from the malicious gossip of the Court where his
honest admiration of the Empress was deliberately misinterpreted and
assoiled. I can bear witness, and I do, that his greatest devotion was
to the Emperor, his old comrade in arms, the friend of his youthful
days.