In the autumn of 1912 the family went to Skernevizi, their Polish
estate, in order to indulge the Emperor’s love for big-game hunting. In
the vast forests surrounding the estate all kinds of game were preserved
and the sport of hunting there was said to be very exciting. During the
war these woods and all the game were destroyed by the Germans, but
until after 1914 Skernevizi was a favorite retreat of the Emperor. I had
returned to my house in Tsarskoe Selo but I was not allowed long to
remain there. A telegram from the Empress conveyed the disquieting news
that Alexei, in jumping into a boat, had injured himself and was now in
a serious condition. The child had been removed from Skernevizi to
Spala, a smaller Polish estate near Warsaw, and to Warsaw I accordingly
traveled. Here I was met by one of the Imperial carriages and was driven
to Spala. Driving for nearly an hour through deep woods and over a
heavy, sandy road I reached my destination, a small wooden house,
something like a country inn, in which the suite was lodged. Two rooms
had been set apart for me and my maid, and here I found Olga and Tatiana
waiting to help me get settled. Their mother, they said, was expecting
me, and without any loss of time I went with them to the palace.
I found the Empress greatly agitated. The boy was temporarily improved
but was still too delicate to be taken back to Tsarskoe Selo. Meanwhile
the family lived in one of the dampest, gloomiest palaces I have ever
seen. It was really a large wooden villa very badly planned as far as
light and sunshine were concerned. The large dining room on the ground
floor was so dark that the electric lights had to be kept on all day.
Upstairs to the right of a long corridor were the rooms of the Emperor
and Empress, her sitting room in bright English chintzes being one of
the few cheerful spots in the house. Here we usually spent our evenings.
The bedrooms and dressing rooms were too dark for comfort, but the
Emperor’s study, also on the right of the corridor, was fairly bright.
As long as the health of little Alexei continued fairly satisfactory the
Emperor and his suite went stag hunting daily in the forests of the
estate. Every evening after dinner the slain stags were brought to the
front of the palace and laid out for inspection on the grass. The
huntsmen with their flaring torches and winding horns standing over the
day’s bag made, I was told, a very picturesque spectacle. The Emperor
and his suite and most of the household used to enjoy going out after
dinner to enjoy this fine sight. I never went myself, having a foolish
love of animals which prevents enjoyment of the royal sport of hunting.
I even failed to appreciate, as the head of the estate, kind Count
Velepolsky, thought I should, the many trophies of the chase with which
the corridors and apartments of the palace were adorned.
What I did enjoy was the beautiful park which surrounded the palace, and
the rapid little river Pilitsa that flowed through it. There was one
leafy path through which I often walked in the mornings with the
Emperor. This was called the Road of Mushrooms because it ended in a
wonderful mushroom bench. The whole place was so remote and peaceful
that I deeply sympathized with their Majesties’ irritation that even
there they could never stir abroad without being haunted by the police
guard.
Although Alexei’s illness was believed to have taken a favorable turn
and he was even beginning to walk a little about the house and gardens,
I found him pale and decidedly out of condition. He occasionally
complained of pain, but the doctors were unable to discover any actual
injury. One day the Empress took the child for a drive and before we had
gone very far we saw that indeed he was very ill. He cried out with pain
in his back and stomach, and the Empress, terribly frightened, gave the
order to return to the palace. That return drive stands out in my mind
as an experience of horror. Every movement of the carriage, every rough
place in the road, caused the child the most exquisite torture, and by
the time we reached home he was almost unconscious with pain. The next
weeks were endless torment to the boy and to all of us who had to listen
to his constant cries of pain. For fully eleven days these dreadful
sounds filled the corridors outside his room, and those of us who were
obliged to approach had often to stop our ears with our hands in order
to go about our duties. During the entire time the Empress never
undressed, never went to bed, rarely even lay down for an hour’s rest.
Hour after hour she sat beside the bed where the half-conscious child
lay huddled on one side, his left leg drawn up so sharply that for
nearly a year afterwards he could not straighten it out. His face was
absolutely bloodless, drawn and seamed with suffering, while his almost
expressionless eyes rolled back in his head. Once when the Emperor came
into the room, seeing his boy in this agony and hearing his faint
screams of pain, the poor father’s courage completely gave way and he
rushed, weeping bitterly, to his study. Both parents believed the child
dying, and Alexei himself, in one of his rare moments of consciousness,
said to his mother: “When I am dead build me a little monument of stones
in the wood.”
The family’s most trusted physicians, Dr. Rauchfuss and Professor
Fedoroff and his assistant Dr. Derevanko, were in charge of the case and
after the first consultations declared the Tsarevitch’s condition
hopeless. The hemorrhage of the stomach from which he was suffering
seemed liable to turn into an abscess which could at any moment prove
fatal. We had two terrible moments in which this complication
threatened. One day at luncheon a note was brought from the Empress to
the Emperor who, pale but collected, made a sign for the physicians to
leave the table. Alexei, the Empress had written, was suffering so
terribly that she feared the worst was about to happen. This crisis,
however, was averted. On the second occasion, on an evening after dinner
when we were sitting very quietly in the Empress’s boudoir, Princess
Henry of Prussia, who had come to be with her sister in her trouble,
appeared in the doorway very white and agitated and begged the members
of the suite to retire as the child’s condition was desperate. At
eleven o’clock the Emperor and Empress entered the room, despair written
on their faces. Still the Empress declared that she could not believe
that God had abandoned them and she asked me to telegraph Rasputine for
his prayers. His reply came quickly. “The little one will not die,” it
said. “Do not allow the doctors to bother him too much.” As a matter of
fact the turning point came a few days later, the pain subsided, and the
boy lay wasted and utterly spent, but alive.
Curiously enough there was no church on this Polish estate, but during
the illness of the Tsarevitch a chapel was installed in a large green
tent in the garden. A new confessor, Father Alexander, celebrated mass
and after the first celebration he walked in solemn procession from the
altar to the sickroom bearing with him holy communion for the sick boy.
The Emperor and Empress were very much impressed with Father Alexander
and from that time on they retained him in their private chapel at
Tsarskoe Selo. He was a good man but not a brave one, for when the
Revolution came, and the Emperor and the Empress sent for him to come to
them, he confessed himself afraid to go. Poor man! His caution, after
all, did not save him. He was shot by the Bolsheviki a year or two
afterwards, on what pretext I do not know.
The convalescence of Alexei was slow and wearisome. His nurse, Marie
Vechniakoff, had grown so hysterical with fatigue that she had to be
relieved, while the Empress was so exhausted that she could hardly move
from room to room. The young Grand Duchesses were tireless in their
devotion to the poor invalid, as was also M. Gilliard, who read to him
and diverted him hours on end. Gradually the distracted household
assumed a more normal aspect. The Emperor, in Cossack uniform, began
once more to entertain the officers of his Varsovie Lancers, commanded
by a splendid soldier, General Mannerheim, of whom the world has heard
much. As Alexei’s health continued to improve there was even a little
shooting, and a great deal of tennis which the girls, after their long
confinement to the house, greatly enjoyed. All of us began to be happy
again, but one day the Emperor called me into his study and showed me a
telegram from his brother, Grand Duke Michail, in which the latter
announced his morganatic marriage to the Countess Brassoff, of whom the
Emperor strongly disapproved. It was not the marriage itself that so
strongly disturbed the Emperor, but that Michail had solemnly given his
word of honor that it would never take place. “He broke his word--his
word of honor,” the Emperor repeated again and again.
Another blow which the Emperor received at this time was the suicide of
Admiral Chagin, commandant of the _Standert_ and one of the closest
friends of the family. The Admiral shot himself on account of an unhappy
love affair, and deeply as the Emperor mourned his death he was even
more indignant at the manner of it. Russians, I know, are inclined to
morbidity, and suicide with them is not an uncommon thing. But Nicholas
II always regarded it as an act of dishonor. “Running away from the
field of battle,” was his characterization of such an act, and when he
heard of Chagin’s suicide he gave way to a terrible mood of anger and
grief. Speaking of both Michail and Chagin he said bitterly: “How, in
the midst of the boy’s illness and all our trouble, how could they have
done such things?” The poor Emperor, to whom every failure of those he
loved and trusted came as an utterly unexpected blow, how near was his
hour of complete and final disillusionment of nearly all earthly
loyalties.
We had a few weeks of peaceful enjoyment before leaving Spala that
autumn. The girls, bright and happy once more, rode every morning, the
crisp air and the exercise coloring their cheeks and raising their
spirits high. The Emperor tramped the woods, sometimes with me as his
companion, and on one of these outings we both had a narrow escape from
drowning. The Emperor took me for a row on the river which, as I have
said, had a very rapid current. Intent on keeping the boat well into the
current, the Emperor ran us into a small island, and for a few seconds
escape from an ignominious upset seemed impossible. I was thoroughly
frightened, the Emperor not a little embarrassed, and ardor for water
sports was, for a time, rather lessened in both of us.
On October 21 (Russian Calendar) we celebrated the accession to the
throne with high mass and holy communion, and a few days later the
doctors decided that Alexei was well enough to be moved to Tsarskoe
Selo. The Imperial train was made ready and their Majesties decided that
I was to travel on it with the rest of the suite. This was, as a matter
of fact, contrary to strict etiquette, and the announcement created
among the ladies in waiting much consternation, not to say rancor. There
is no question that being a regularly appointed lady in waiting to
royalty and having nothing to do when a mere friend of the exalted one
happens to be at hand is a bit irritating, so I cannot really blame the
Empress’s ladies for objecting to me as a traveling companion. The
Imperial train, now used, one hears, by the inner circle of the
Communists, was composed of a number of luxurious carriages, more like a
home than a railway train. In the carriage of the Emperor and Empress
the easy chairs and sofas were upholstered in bright chintz and there
were books, family photographs, and all sort of familiar trinkets. The
emperor’s study was in his favorite green leather, and adjoining their
dressing rooms was a large and perfectly equipped bathroom. In this
carriage also were rooms for the personal attendants of their Majesties.
The Grand Duchesses and their maids had a similar carriage, and Alexei’s
carriage, which had compartments for the maids of honor and myself, was
furnished with every imaginable comfort. The last carriage was the
dining wagon with a small anteroom where the inevitable zakouski, the
Russian table of _hors d’œuvres_, was served. At the long dining table
the Emperor sat with his daughters on either hand, while facing him were
Count Fredericks and the ladies in waiting. Throughout the journey of
nearly two days the Empress was served in her own room or beside the bed
where Alexei lay, very weak, but bright and cheerful once more.
This chapter may well close with one of the opening events of 1913, the
Jubilee of the Romanoffs, celebrating the three hundredth anniversary of
their reign. In February the Court moved from Tsarskoe Selo to the
Winter Palace in Petrograd, a place they disliked because of the vast
gloominess of the building and the fact that the only garden was a tiny
space hardly large enough for the children to play or to exercise in. On
reaching Petrograd the family drove directly across the Neva to Christ’s
Chapel, the little church of Peter the Great, where is, or was,
preserved a miraculous picture of the Christ, very old and highly
revered. The public had not been notified that the Imperial Family would
first visit this chapel, but their presence quickly became known and
they drove back to the Winter Palace through excited, but on the whole
undemonstrative, masses of people, a typical Petrograd crowd.
The actual celebration of the Jubilee began with a solemn service in the
Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, which everyone familiar with Petrograd
remembers as one of the most beautiful of Russian churches. The vast
building was packed to its utmost capacity, and that means a much larger
crowd than in ordinary churches, since in Russia the congregation stands
or kneels through the entire service. From my position I had a very good
view of both the Emperor and the Tsarevitch, and I was puzzled to see
them raise their heads and gaze long at the ceiling, but afterwards they
told me that two doves had appeared and had floated for several minutes
over their heads. In the religious exaltation of the hour this appeared
to the Emperor a symbol that the blessing of God, after three
[Illustration: THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS IN OLD SLAVONIC DRESS. 1913
JUBILEE.]
[Illustration: THE INVALID EMPRESS ON HER BALCONY AT PETERHOF.]
centuries, continued to rest on the House of Romanoff. There followed a
long series of functions at the palace, with deputations coming from all
over the Empire, the women appearing at receptions and dinners in the
beautiful national dress, which were also worn by the Empress and her
daughters. The Empress, for all her weariness, was regal in her richly
flowing robes and long-veiled, high _kokoshnik_, the Russian national
headdress, set with magnificent jewels. She also wore the wide-ribboned
order of St. Andrew, which was her sole privilege to wear, and at the
most formal of the state dinners she wore the most splendid of all the
crown jewels. The young Grand Duchesses were simply but beautifully
gowned on all occasions, and they wore the order of Catherine the Great,
red ribbons with blazing diamond stars. The crowds were enormous in all
the great state rooms, the Imperial Family standing for hours while the
multitudes filed past with sweeping curtsies and low bows. So long and
fatiguing were these ceremonies that at the end the Empress was
literally too fatigued to force a smile. Poor little Alexei also, after
being carried through the rooms and obliged to acknowledge a thousand
greetings, was taken back to his room in a condition of utter
exhaustion.
There were state performances at the theater and the opera, Glinka’s
“Life for the Tsar” being sung to the usual tumult of applause and
adulation, but for all that I felt that there was in the brilliant
audience little real enthusiasm, little real loyalty. I saw a cloud over
the whole celebration in Petrograd, and this impression, I am almost
sure, was shared by the Empress. She told me that she could never feel
happy in Petrograd. Everything in the Winter Palace reminded her of
earlier years when she and her husband used to go happily to the theater
together and returning would have supper in their dressing gowns before
the fire talking over the events of the day and evening. “I was so happy
then,” she said plaintively, “so well and strong. Now I am a wreck.”
Much as both she and the Emperor desired to shorten their stay in
Petrograd, they were obliged to remain several weeks after the close of
the official celebration because Tatiana, who unwisely had drunk the
infected water of the capital, fell ill of typhoid and could not for
some time be moved. With her lovely brown hair cut short, we finally
went back to Tsarskoe Selo, where she made good progress back to health.
In the spring began the celebration of the Jubilee throughout the
Empire. The visit to the Volga, especially to Kostrama, the home of the
first Romanoff monarch, Michail Feodorovnitch, was a magnificent
success, the people actually wading waist deep in the river in order to
get nearer the Imperial boat. It was the same through all the
surrounding governments, crowds, cheers, acclamations, prayers, and
great choruses singing the national hymn, very evidence of love and
loyalty. I particularly remember when the cortège reached the town of
Pereyaslovl, in the Vladimir Government, because it was from there that
my father’s family originated, and some of his relatives took part in
the day’s celebration. The Empress, to my regret, was not present, being
confined to her bed on the Imperial train, ill and fatigued, yet under
obligation to be ready for special ceremonies in Moscow. It would need
a more eloquent pen than mine adequately to describe those days in
Moscow, the Holy City of Russia. The weather was perfect, and under the
clear sunshine the floating flags and banners, the flower-trimmed
buildings, and the numberless decorations made up a spectacle of
unforgettable beauty. Leaving his car at some distance from the Kremlin,
the Emperor entered the great gate on foot, preceded by chanting priests
with waving censers and holy images. Behind the Emperor and his suite
came the Empress and Alexei in an open car through crowds that pressed
hard against the police lines, while overhead all the bells of Moscow
pealed welcome to the Sovereigns. Every day it was the same,
demonstrations of love and fealty it seemed that no time or circumstance
could ever alter.