To one who has always held the honor and faith of the Russian people
very dear, who has never doubted that after the last hideous phase of
revolution and anarchism has passed, the Russian nation will emerge
stronger and better than ever before, the writing of these next chapters
is a duty inexpressibly painful. I must tell the truth, otherwise it
would have been better for me never to have written at all. Yet to
picture in anything like its true colors the decadence of Petrograd
society from 1914 onward is a task from which any loyal Russian must
shrink. Without a knowledge of these conditions, however, students of
the Russian Revolution will never be able to understand why the fabric
of government slipped so easily from the feeble hands of the Provisional
Government to the ruthless and bloody grasp of the Bolshevists.
During the entire winter of 1915, when the War was being waged on all
fronts with such disaster to the Allies, when millions of men, Russians,
Frenchmen, Belgians, Englishmen, were giving up their lives in the cause
of freedom, the aristocracy of the Russian capital was indulging in a
reckless orgy of dancing, sports, dining, yes, and wining also in spite
of the Emperor’s edict against alcohol, spending enormous sums for gowns
and jewels, and in every way ignoring the terrible fact that the world
was on fire and that civilization was battling for its very life. In
the palace the most frugal régime had been adopted. Meals were simple
almost to parsimony, no money was spent except for absolute necessities,
and the Empress and her daughters spent practically every waking hour
working and praying for the soldiers. But society, when it was not
otherwise amusing itself, was indulging in a new and madly exciting game
of intrigue against the throne. To spread slanders about the Empress, to
inflame the simple minds of workmen against the state was the most
popular diversion of the aristocracy. A typical instance of this mania
was related to me by my sister, who one morning was surprised by an
unexpected visit from her sister-in-law, daughter of a very great lady
of the aristocracy. Bursting into the room, this woman exclaimed
delightedly: “What do you think we are doing now? Spreading stories
through all the factories that the Empress is keeping the Emperor
constantly drunk. Everybody believes it.” I mention this story as
typical because the woman involved afterwards became very prominent in
the Grand Ducal cabal that forced the abdication, and she was also one
of two women present in the Yusupoff Palace on the night of Rasputine’s
assassination.
Every possible circumstance, no matter how inconsequential, was eagerly
seized as capital by these plotters. A former lady in waiting, Marie
Vassilchikoff, long retired from Court and living on her Austrian
estates, came to Petrograd, I know not how, and asked for an audience
with the Empress. Since Russia was at war with Austria this audience
could not be granted, nor did the Empress even remotely desire it. Yet
as the story was circulated Marie Vassilchikoff was represented as
having been sent for by the Empress to negotiate a separate peace with
Austria, and that this treachery was frustrated only by the vigorous
intervention of the Grand Duchess Serge.
These stories were spread not only by Court and society people, but were
made into a regular propaganda in the army, especially among the higher
command. The propaganda was chiefly in the hands of members of the Union
of Zemstvos, its most successful agent being the infamous Goutchkoff,
who now, it is gratifying to know, has earned the contempt of every
Russian political group, even including the Bolshevists. Thus in a whirl
of heartless gaiety and an organized campaign against the Sovereigns and
against the Empire passed the winter of 1915, the dark prelude of darker
years to come.
In the spring of that year, my health being still very precarious, their
Majesties sent me in charge of a sanitary train filled with invalid
soldiers and officers to the soft climate of the Crimea. With me went a
sister of mercy and the sanitary-corps man Jouk, of whom I have spoken.
On the same train journeyed also three members of the secret police,
ostensibly to protect, but really, as I well understood, to spy upon me.
Their presence the Empress, who came in the pouring rain to see the
train off from the station, was powerless to forbid, as she herself was
constantly under the surveillance of the dread Okhrana. Our train
traveled slowly, taking five days from Petrograd to the Black Sea. But
this we did not mind as we were very comfortable, the weather became
beautiful, and our frequent stops at Moscow and towns farther south were
full of interest. Our destination was Evpatoria on the eastern shore of
the Black Sea, and here all of us were cordially received, M. Duvan, the
head man of the city, giving me for a residence his own flower-hung
villa overlooking the sea. Here I spent two peaceful months, finding the
mud baths wonderfully restoring, and meeting some unusually interesting
people. I am sure that few people outside of Russia have ever heard of
the Karaim, a racial group among the most ancient in the world and of
whom, even then, a bare ten thousand existed. They were not Jews,
although they worshipped in synagogues, because they acknowledged Christ
as God, or at least a special prophet of God. They were, and are, if
they still exist, a strange mixture of pious Jews and early Christians,
left-overs from the days of the decaying Roman Empire when Judaism and
Christianity were trying to unite in one faith. The head of the Karaim
in Evpatoria was a fine black-bearded patriarch named Gaham, and with
him I formed an almost immediate friendship. Dressed in the long black
robe of his office, he used to sit with me for hours reading and
reciting the legends of his people, many reaching back into the dim
twilight of civilization. I liked the patriarch, not only for his
simplicity and his kindness to me, but for his evident love and loyalty
to the Imperial Family, a loyalty shared by all the people of the
Karaim.
A telegram from the Empress told me that she was then leaving for the
Stavka, from which she and the Emperor and the whole Imperial Family
would proceed to the Crimea for an important military and naval review.
Obeying her instructions I motored from Evpatoria to Sevastopol, through
an enchanting landscape of hills and plains, the latter being literally
carpeted with scarlet poppies. Arriving at Sevastopol, I had some
difficulty in passing the guard, but the Empress’s telegram, marked
“Imperial,” I had brought with me, and this proved the open sesame to
the Emperor’s special train. I lunched with the Empress and the Grand
Duchesses, meeting the Emperor and Alexei when they came from the
reviews at six o’clock. I spent that night in town, and the next day
returned to Evpatoria, their Majesties promising to visit me within a
few days. On May 16 they arrived and received a most enthusiastic
welcome, not only from the townspeople but from the Tartars, who came in
from the hills by thousands, from the people of the Karaim, and others
as strange and as picturesque. The huge square before the cathedral was
strewn with fragrant roses over which the Imperial Family walked to
service. The next few hours were spent in a round of visits to churches,
hospitals, and sanatoriums, and it was to a late luncheon at my villa
that they finally arrived. After luncheon we walked and sat on the
beach, but the gathering crowd became so large and so curious that the
poor Emperor, who had looked forward to a sea bath and a swim, had to
relinquish both. Alexei enjoyed the day, boy fashion, without regard to
the crowds, playing on the beach and building a big sand fortress, which
the schoolboys of the town next day surrounded by a high wall of stones
to protect it from the ravages of the tide. We had tea in the garden,
the Empress greatly enjoying the Oriental sweets sent her by the
Tartars. In the evening I dined on the Imperial train and traveled with
it a short distance on its way back to Petrograd.
In June I returned to Tsarskoe and resumed work in my beloved hospital
training school. The weather was unusually hot but the Empress continued
her constant duties in the hospitals and operating rooms. Often I
accompanied her on her rounds, and it came to me as a painful shock that
the surgeons and some of the wounded officers no longer regarded her, as
before, with respect and veneration. Too often an officer would assume
in her presence a careless and indifferent manner which even a
professional nurse would have resented. The Empress never did. She must
have noticed evidences of disrespect but no word of complaint ever
passed her lips. When I ventured to suggest to her that it might be well
to go less frequently to her hospital, she rewarded me with a look of
reproach. Whatever other people did, whatever their attitude towards the
War, Royalty knew its duty and would perform it faithfully to the end.
Both the Emperor and the Empress during all this rising tide of
disaffection persisted in underestimating its importance. The Emperor
especially treated the whole movement with the contempt which no doubt
it merited but which as a national menace it was far too dangerous to
ignore. I realized it keenly, but knowing how impossible it was to make
their Majesties understand that everything that was said against me,
against Rasputine, against the Ministers, was actually directed against
themselves, I was obliged to keep my lips closed. My parents realized as
well as I did what was going on. They had good reason, in fact, for my
mother had received two most insulting letters, one from Princess
Galatzine, sister of Mme. Rodzianko, whose husband was President of the
Duma, and another from Mme. Timasheff, a woman of the highest
aristocracy, letters which indicated a certain collusion between the
writers. In them my mother was brutally informed that neither of the
women desired any further acquaintanceship or association with her as
she too undoubtedly belonged to the German-spy party. My parents at the
time were living quietly in the little seaside town of Terioke, near
Petrograd, and were studiously avoiding the vulgar orgies and intrigues
of society.
In the midst of all these heart-breaking events I sought distraction in
the enlargement and perfecting of my occupational hospital which was
rapidly becoming overcrowded with invalids. I bought an additional piece
of land and arranged for four portable houses to be brought from
Finland. Two of these arrived duly, and I spent hours of absorbing
interest watching them being put together on the newly acquired land.
All these days I was constantly being bothered by people who, perhaps
believing that the money I was investing in hospitals was another proof
of my power over the Imperial treasury, tormented me with petitions of
every kind and description, but all of them alike in the selfishness of
their character. With cold hatred in their eyes, but with hypocritical
words on their lips, these people besought my good offices with their
Majesties on behalf of their sons, husbands, and relatives, all of whom
were alleged to be worthy of promotions and of lucrative positions under
the State. One woman of good social position invaded my hospital one day
and treated me to a disgraceful scene because I had assured her that I
was powerless to further her ambition to see her husband appointed head
of a certain Government. Naturally it happened that some petitioners
were poor and needy, and these, to the best of my ability, but without
any political influence whatever, I did endeavor to help. I know now,
after witnessing true sympathy and kindness to prisoners and persecuted,
like myself in later days, that I never did half what I might have done
in the time of my prosperity. If better days come to Russia in my
lifetime God help me to devote all that remains of my years to the poor
and especially to prisoners. Now that I have tasted poverty, now that I
have known the hopelessness of captivity, I know better than I did what
can be done for the lowly and unfortunate.
A number of very disquieting events occurred to us during the summer. On
very hot days it was the custom of the Empress and the children to drive
through the woods and shaded roads to Pavlovsk, a few versts from
Tsarskoe Selo. One stifling afternoon we started out as usual in two
carriages, the Empress and myself leading the way. The horses were
magnificent animals, apparently in the very pink of condition, but
suddenly one of the horses uttered a piercing scream and dropped dead in
his harness. The other horse plunged sidewise in terror and for a few
minutes it was all the coachman could do to avoid an overturn. The
Empress, pale, but as always courageous, got out of the carriage and
helped me, who was still on crutches, to alight. The carriage of the
children drove up, and getting in, we returned without further incident
to the palace. Whatever caused the sudden death of that horse, or what
was the object of that carriage accident--if indeed it was an
accident--we never knew, but it left behind in my mind, and I think also
in the mind of the Empress, a strangely sinister impression. The Empress
nevertheless went steadfastly on with her hospital work, arranging in
the convalescent wards concerts and entertainments for the pleasure of
the wounded. The best singers, the most accomplished musicians, were
secured for these concerts, and the men seemed appreciative of them. Yet
over the head of the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna drifted darker and
darker the shadow of impending doom. The things I dared not say to her
began to reach her from others. In August came from the Crimea the head
man of the Karaim, of whom I have spoken. From the first he made an
agreeable impression on the Empress and the children, especially upon
Alexei, who never tired of listening to his stories. But Gaham had not
made the journey from the Crimea to relate legends and tales. He had
previously been connected with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, serving
in Persia and the East, and his acute mind was still occupied with the
foreign affairs of the Empire on which he kept himself well informed.
Determined, if possible, to force the Empress to understand the gravity
of the situation, he told her a number of extraordinary things which had
come to his knowledge, among them an organized plot against the throne
which was being carried on by near relatives of the Tsar in the
seclusion of an allied foreign embassy in Petrograd. His story,
involving, as it did, the ambassador of a friendly power, the trusted
representative of an own cousin of the Emperor, seemed to the Empress
too preposterous to be credited. Horrified, she ended the conversation,
and a few days later she went, taking me with her, to visit the Emperor
at the Stavka. What he had to comment on her report of an alleged
ambassadorial plot against him I never knew, but I soon became aware
that representatives of other foreign countries were undeniably hostile.
At the Stavka were military commissions of practically every allied
country, among them General Williams and his staff from Great Britain,
General Janin from France, General Rikkel from Belgium, and high
officers from Italy, Serbia, Rumania, Japan, and other countries, all
accompanied by subordinate officers. One afternoon when the gardens were
quite crowded by these men and men of our own army, and while the
Empress was making her customary circle, I chanced to overhear a
conversation among officers of the foreign military missions, in which
the most slanderous words against her Majesty were uttered. “She has
come again, it appears,” said one of these men, “to see her husband and
give him the latest orders of Rasputine.” “The suite hate to hear her
arrival announced,” said another officer. “They know it means changes.”
Worse things were said, but without waiting to listen I managed to make
my way to the Empress, and that night inviting, as I was well aware, her
irritation and disbelief, I related something of what I had overheard. I
went further and reminded her of what we both knew, the increasing
demoralization of the Emperor’s staff. The Grand Dukes and the
commanding officers were, as a matter of course, invited each day to
lunch with the Emperor, but with insolence and audacity hitherto unheard
of, many of the Emperor’s near kinsmen declined these invitations. They
gave the most trivial and transparent excuses for their
absence--headaches, fatigue, previous engagements, alleged duties. The
Empress listened to what I said, silent and distraught. She knew, and I
also knew, that nothing she could say to the Emperor would make the
slightest impression. His eyes and ears were still closed to the
gathering tempest.
General Alexieff, Chief of Staff, and undoubtedly a valuable officer,
had, I soon learned, been drawn into the plot. The Emperor suspected him
to be in correspondence with the traitor Goutchkoff, but when questioned
General Alexieff denied this vehemently. He was soon, however, to prove
his treachery to the Emperor. There was in attendance on his Majesty at
the Stavka an old officer, General Ivanoff, a St. George Cross man, who
formerly had held command of the Army of the South. This devoted and
loyal old soldier General Alexieff knew he must get rid of, and this,
had he been honest, he might have done by pleading age or decreased
usefulness. Instead, he merely summoned General Ivanoff and informed him
that to the regret of the whole staff he was removed. The Chief of
Staff was not responsible for this, he declared, the order having come
from the Empress and her accomplices, Rasputine and Mme. Virubova. What
General Alexieff said to the Emperor on the subject I do not know, but
when next the two met the Emperor turned his head aside. This sudden
coldness on the part of the Emperor, whom old General Ivanoff loved
dearly, made it impossible for him to seek an audience, and yet the
general was valiantly determined not to leave the Stavka without
presenting his case to the Sovereign. Calling on me that same day, he
repeated to me, while tears rolled down his white beard, the lying words
of General Alexieff against the Empress. Feeling it against reason and
justice that the Emperor should remain in ignorance of this insult to
his wife, I promised to speak to him about it, and this I did, but to
little purpose. The Emperor’s wrath against Alexieff was indeed kindled
but he evidently felt that he could not, at that critical hour, dismiss
an officer whose services were so urgently in demand. Afterwards,
however, his manner towards old General Ivanoff became conspicuously
kind.
We remained for some time after this at the Stavka, days to me of such
sad remembrance that I can scarcely endure the task of recording them.
The Empress and her suite, the Grand Duchesses, and myself lived on
board the Imperial train, motor cars coming each day at one o’clock to
take us to staff headquarters to luncheon. Headquarters were in an
ancient villa of the Governor of the Province, a rather old-fashioned
and uncomfortable place. Even the huge dining room where the Emperor and
Empress, the staff and the officers of the foreign missions met each day
was a dull and gloomy room. When the weather became very warm this
dismal apartment was abandoned, and luncheon was served in a large tent
in a shady part of the grounds overlooking the town and farther away
still the flowing tide of the mighty Dnieper. The only really bright
circumstance of the time was the growing health and strength of the
Tsarevitch. He was developing marvelously through the summer, both in
bodily vigor and in gaiety of spirits. With his tutors, M. Gilliard and
Petroff, he romped and played as though illness were a thing to him
unknown. With, several of the allied officers, notably with the Belgian
General Rikkel, he was also on the best of terms.
Every day after luncheon the maids came from the train with what gowns
and other apparel we needed for the remaining functions of the day.
There was little room in the house in which to change, but we managed to
appropriate a few nooks and corners, and to make ourselves as
presentable as possible in the circumstances. In the Emperor’s scant
hours of leisure he loved to walk with his family in the woods along the
river brink, and sometimes when I saw the Empress sitting on the grass
talking informally with the peasant women who crowded around her, I took
comfort, believing then, as I still believe, that the great mass of the
Russian people were to the end faithful to their Sovereigns. As for the
suite, most of them became increasingly indifferent, bound up in their
foolish personal affairs, diverting themselves with whispered gossip
and laughter, apparently quite indifferent to the calamitous progress of
the War. People to whom religion is still in these cynical days a real
refuge will understand me when I tell them what comfort I found in an
ancient convent in the neighborhood, and in the poor little church which
adjoined it. The one treasure of this church was an old and highly
revered image of Our Lady of Mogiloff and almost every day of that
distressful summer I managed to spend a few minutes on my knees before
her dark and mystic image. One day, feeling in my heart the imminence of
a danger I dared not name even to myself, I took off my diamond earrings
and laid them at the foot of the shrine where I had sought and received
peace of mind. I hope my poor offering was received with grace by the
saint, who of course did not need it, but whose helpless ones always do.
A little later the monks presented me with a small replica of the image,
and strangely enough this was the one ikon I was permitted to take with
me when I was sent to the Fortress of Peter and Paul.
Of that unhappy summer of 1916 I have only one or two more incidents to
relate. One of these was a visit to the Stavka of the Princess Paley,
wife of Grand Duke Paul. Coming from Kiev, where the Empress Dowager and
the Grand Duke Nicholai Michailovitch were in residence, it appeared
ominous to me that they too, all of them, seemed to be inoculated with
the delusion of the German spy and the Rasputine influence. Neither the
Princess nor the Grand Duke were in the least tactful in the expression
of their opinions on the subject. Another visitor to the Stavka was
Rodzianko, who came to demand the instant dismissal of Protopopoff,
Minister of the Interior, once his friend and confidant, but now accused
by the President of the Duma of being a lunatic. The Emperor received
Rodzianko coldly, and did not even invite him to lunch. At tea that
afternoon the Emperor said that the interview had angered him intensely
as he knew quite well that Rodzianko’s representations and motives were
wholly insincere. Almost everything at the Stavka was growing worse and
worse, the Grand Dukes being more insolent than ever and continually
annoying General Voyeikoff by ordering trains and motors for themselves
without any regard to the requirements of the Emperor. It was with
feelings of unspeakable relief that in November, 1916, we left the
Stavka for Tsarskoe Selo. In the Imperial train with us traveled young
Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch who even then was probably involved in a
deadly plot against their Majesties. Yet this young man was able to keep
up a pretense of friendship with the Empress, sitting beside her couch
and entertaining her by the hour with amusing gossip and stories.
Hearing the laughter the Emperor often opened his study door to listen
and to join in the conversation. It was a merry journey home, yet within
a few days after we arrived troubles again began to multiply. Entering
the Empress’s door one day, I found her in a passion of indignation and
grief. As soon as she could speak she told me that the Emperor had sent
her a letter from Nicholai Michailovitch, in which the Empress was
specifically charged with the most mischievous political machinations.
“Unless this is stopped,” the letter concluded, “murders will certainly
begin.”[3]
Nicholai Michailovitch, it appears, had gone to the Stavka from the
group in Kiev, with the express object of delivering this letter. Every
member of the staff knew his errand and expected him to be ignominiously
ejected from the Emperor’s study. Nothing of the kind happened, and the
Grand Duke stayed to luncheon in the most friendly manner. I do not know
what he said to the Emperor, but I do know that the letter was laid on
the Emperor’s desk. Nothing was said or done to avenge this deadly
insult to the wife of Nicholas II whom undoubtedly he loved dearer than
his own life. The only explanation I can think of was the Emperor’s
complete absorption in the War, and in his unshaken conviction that the
plotters’ gossip was entirely harmless. He had the kind of mind which
could concentrate on only one thing at a time, and at this period his
whole heart and soul was with the fighting armies. I well remember
scraps of conversation with him during those days which indicated that
in the back of his mind were many plans for future internal reforms. He
spoke of important social changes which must come after the War, social
and constitutional reforms. “I will do everything necessary afterwards,”
he said in more than one of these conversations. “But I cannot act now.
I cannot do more than one thing at a time.”
The Empress, I think, for all her sensitiveness to the abominable
accusations brought against her, tried to preserve the same waiting
state of mind. Most disagreeable incidents she kept to herself, yet one
day she showed me a letter written directly to her by a Princess
Vassilchikoff, a letter so insulting that the Emperor was aroused to
order the Princess and her husband, a member of the Duma, to their
country estates. This letter was written on small scraps of paper
evidently torn from a cheap writing tablet. “At least,” said the Empress
with faint sarcasm, “she might have used the stationery of a lady when
addressing her Sovereign.”
What had taken possession of Petrograd society? I often asked myself.
Was it a mob delusion, contagious, like certain diseases? Was it a
madness born of the War similar to other strange hysterias which arose
during some of the wars of the Middle Ages? That the delusion was
confined to Petrograd and a few other towns frequented by the
aristocracy was perfectly apparent. In the last days of 1916 the Empress
with Olga, Tatiana, and General Racine paid a brief visit to Novgorod to
inspect military hospitals and to pray in the monastery and church of
Sofisky Sobor, one of the oldest churches in Russia. Her visit was
opposed, quite senselessly, by Petrograd society, which accused her of
going for some bad purpose, God knows what. But at Novgorod the people
poured out in throngs to greet her with peals of bells, music, and
cheers. Before leaving the city the Empress paid a visit to a very old
woman who had spent forty helpless years in bed, still wearing the heavy
chains of penitence which as a pilgrim she had, almost a lifetime
before, assumed. As her Majesty entered the old woman’s cell a feeble
voice uttered these words: “Here comes the martyred Empress, Alexandra
Feodorovna.” What could this aged and bedridden recluse have known or
guessed of events which were to come?