THE JAPANESE WAR AND THE BIRTH OF THE CZAREVITSCH
The first really great sorrow and anxiety which fell on my beloved
mistress was the Japanese war. I am not writing here a political book,
and indeed understand nothing about politics, but what I do know is
that no one could have been more affected by the disasters which
destroyed the Russian army and fleet than was the Empress. She used to
spend hours weeping in her room, where she allowed no one, not even her
children, to enter, and it was from that time that dated the terrible
headaches which later on were to prostrate her so utterly. She was
then in a delicate state of health, and the Emperor wanted to spare
her as much as possible the news which was brought of one sad event
after another concerning all that went on in this distant Manchuria,
where Russian soldiers were fighting such a hard battle. The whole
country was exasperated at the lamentable organisation, or rather
want of organisation, which was revealed so unexpectedly, and it was
dating from Mukden and Tsushima that the Revolutionary elements in
the country raised their heads and began to threaten the throne which
they were to destroy twelve years later. The whole of Russia was in
the throes of an insurrectional movement, and perhaps the only persons
who were not aware of its strength and magnitude were the sovereigns
themselves. Nicholas II. had not realised the possibility of the fall
of his dynasty and seriously believed that he could stop the torrent
that was flooding the country. The Empress was ignorant of the details
of the convulsions which were fast destroying the old legends and
traditions which had presided at the government of the Empire for such
a long time. She had a few illusions left still, and one of them was in
regard to the strength and the spirit of devotion of the army. It was
therefore a terrible shock to her to find that this army which she had
believed to be invincible had allowed itself to be beaten by the troops
of the Mikado whom she had regarded as savages. She felt cruelly the
loss of prestige which this disastrous campaign entailed, and she also
felt humiliated in her pride as a Sovereign and as a woman. Added to
this weight of anxieties was another—the dread that the child whose
birth she was expecting would prove another daughter, whose advent into
the world would add to the unpopularity of its mother. Sometimes my
heart used to ache for her, when I saw her dragging herself through the
park of Peterhof, looking so ill that one wondered whether she would be
able to stand the trial which was awaiting her. In her cruel anxiety
she found no one to encourage her or to whisper words of encouragement
in her ear. Her husband was himself absorbed by the saddest of
preoccupations and she did not care to add to them by speaking to him
of her own personal griefs and sorrows. So the time went on, bringing
every day new subjects for alarm, and new causes for discouragement. At
last one morning I was called to the bedside of the Empress, together
with all her other attendants, and with trembling hearts we awaited
the verdict of the doctors as to her safety and the sex of the infant
for whose advent we were watching with such intense interest. It was
noon, and the great clock of the castle of Peterhof had just been heard
striking the twelve strokes announcing it, when a child’s cry broke
the silence of the room where the Empress was lying, and then Doctor
Ott, her physician, turned towards the Czar, standing pale and worried
beside his Consort, with the word: “I congratulate Your Majesty on the
birth of a Czarevitsch.”
Nicholas II. did not reply. He stood as if dazed by the unexpected
news. No one spoke or interrupted his meditation, but all devoted
themselves to the Empress, who was still under the effects of the
chloroform that had been administered to her. When she opened her eyes
she looked so weak that no one dared to tell her the good news, but
she seemed to read it in the face of her husband, because she suddenly
exclaimed: “Oh, it cannot be true; it cannot be true. Is it really a
boy?”
Nicholas II. fell on his knees beside her and burst into tears, the
first and only ones I had ever seen him shed.
[Illustration: _International Film Service_
THE EX-CZAREVITCH]
The birth of an heir to the throne was an event of such magnitude
that it absorbed for some time the whole attention of the public, and
diverted it from all that was taking place in the Far East. For his
parents it came as a consolation after long years of waiting, and
seemed to have been destined to comfort them for the disasters which
were taking place at the front. The Czar could not restrain his joy,
and at every moment he used to speak of “his son,” and to look out
for occasions to pronounce the magic words, “My Boy.” The Empress’s
happiness was less buoyant but just as intense, perhaps even more so,
for this opportune arrival of the little man whom one had already left
off expecting improved considerably her own position, and gave her an
importance which had been denied to her before. She became passionately
attached to this child of promise, and almost painfully and morbidly
devoted to him. Unfortunately he proved a most delicate little mortal,
and for the first years that followed upon his birth the doctors who
attended him hardly hoped they would be able to save his life. He was
born with an organic disease, or rather defect, a weakness of the
blood vessels which ruptured on the slightest provocation, causing
hemorrhages that sometimes could not be stopped for hours. For a long
time his condition was hidden from the public, but at last concealment
became impossible, especially after an attack which occurred about two
years before the great war, which was of so serious a nature that the
child’s life was absolutely despaired of. A few months before this
he had been obliged to undergo an operation for hernia and had hardly
recovered from the effects of it when an accident brought about the
hemhorrhage which for weeks resisted every remedy employed to stop
it. These were anxious times for the parents, and the Empress’s hair
changed colour and showed streaks of grey before her son was at last
pronounced out of danger.
I have spoken at length of this serious illness of the little Alexis
because so many ridiculous tales were put into circulation concerning
it, tales which were as malicious as they were foundationless. The
small heir of Nicholas II. was never the object of any attack of
nihilists, and all the detailed circumstances which some newspapers
related concerning him were all of them pure invention. It is
sufficient to say that when he became ill the Imperial family were not
on their yacht, but were staying at one of the Czar’s shooting boxes at
Spala in Poland. I have often wondered who could have had an interest
in giving publicity to the ridiculous and distressing tale which is to
this day firmly believed by many people outside of Russia.
When the Grand Duke was able to be moved his parents returned to
Czarskoi Selo, whence they went for many months to the Crimea, the mild
climate of which was considered to be necessary for his convalescence.
But for more than two years after this attack the boy was not allowed
to walk, and was constantly carried about in the arms of a sailor from
the Imperial yacht whom he had taken into his affection, and who to
this day is with him, having chosen to accompany him to Siberia. This
necessity of having to exhibit, so to say, a sick child, was most
painful to the feelings of the Empress, whose maternal pride was hurt
by the knowledge that the whole of Russia was commenting on it and
pitying the Emperor for having an heir in such a sad state of health.
She was also continually subjected to the railleries of her husband’s
family that reproached her for having, as one of the Grand Duchesses
once expressed it, “contaminated the Romanoffs with the diseases of
her own race.” There was some truth in the accusation, because the
illness from which the boy suffered was hereditary in the Saxe-Coburg
family, and had been brought into the House of Hesse by the Princess
Alice, the mother of the Empress, whose own brother, the Duke of
Albany, had died from the effects of it at Cannes. The worst thing
about it was that one could never know when it was going to break out
afresh. The slightest knock was sufficient to bring on an attack, and
one can imagine how far from easy it was to watch over every movement
of a lively boy full of fun and high spirited, such as Alexis proved
to be. On the other hand this physical infirmity (for it could hardly
be called anything else) had this result that the child got to be
inordinately spoiled. The mother was afraid to contradict him or to
refuse to submit to any of his caprices, because she had been told that
it was dangerous for him even to cry, as any exertion of his lungs or
throat might bring about the rupture of some blood vessel. One may
therefore form an idea of the system of education to which Alexis was
subjected, and perhaps one will feel indulgent in regard to the Empress
when thinking of the perpetual dread and anxiety in which her days and
nights were spent, and forgive her for the weakness which made her
yield to every whim or caprice of the boy who seemed to have been born
to add to her cup of sorrow, and not for the purpose of bringing joy
into her life.
I will now relate an incident which deeply impressed the Czarina at
the time when it occurred. It was a few days before the birth of her
son. We were at Peterhof and she was dressing for dinner. Suddenly we
heard a crash behind us, and were dismayed to see that a heavy looking
glass which hung upon the wall behind Alexandra Feodorovna had fallen
to the floor, where it had been shattered into a thousand fragments.
The Empress cried aloud in her emotion, and for one moment I believed
that she was about to faint, so white did her features become. I
applied myself to reassure her, but she would not be comforted, and
declared that it was an ill omen and that probably she would die in
childbirth. When everything was over, and on the day of the christening
of the Grand Duke Alexis, I ventured to remind his mother of her fright
of a few weeks before, and added that it was a clear proof how wrong it
was to be superstitious, because certainly nothing happier could have
occurred than the event which had just taken place, notwithstanding the
bad omen of the broken looking glass. The Empress smiled sadly, and
replied: “My good Marfa, we do not know yet what is going to befall my
baby, and whether his will be a happy life or not. Perhaps the bad
omen was for him and not for me.”
A curious thing is that exactly ten years later, in July, 1914, just
before the war, we were again at Peterhof, and the Czarina was dressing
for dinner in the same room, when that identical looking glass, which
had been rehung, fell with the same noise and just as unexpectedly,
terrifying her as it had done before. Alas, alas, we could afford then
to laugh at omens, but now that so many tragic things have occurred
I wonder sometimes whether these accidents (for one can hardly call
them anything else) were a kind of warning of the calamities about
to follow. Certainly they could not fail to impress a woman as
superstitious as the Empress grew in time to be.
When I say “grew,” it is not quite exact. She had always believed in
good and bad omens, and she had brought with her from her German home
a quantity of beliefs in all kinds of uncanny things. She would not
have sat down thirteen at dinner for anything, and the sight of three
candles on a table made her frantic. She would not have put on a green
dress for fear it would bring her bad luck, and she was always careful
to look at a new moon from the right side. She never began anything
on a Friday, and she was firmly convinced that one could, if only one
were strong enough as a medium, summon people from another world into
one’s presence. She believed also in miracles, and would worship any
dirty relic which hundreds of unwashed peasants had kissed, without
feeling the least disgust, which was the more strange in that generally
she was almost meticulously careful not to touch anything that had not
been thoroughly cleansed. The influence which Rasputin grew to acquire
over her mind proceeded only from this weakness of hers, which was
continually fomented and encouraged by her sister, the Grand Duchess
Elizabeth, herself a most devout person who combined bigotry with an
utter unscrupulousness as to the means with which she could realise the
many ambitions that she entertained.
If the Emperor had been a man of strong character he might have
prevented his young wife from falling under the influence of the many
people who merely used her as a pawn in their game. But in his way
he was just as superstitious as she, and they both were so absorbed
by their love and anxiety for their only son, that they clung to all
those whom they thought could be of use to him. Thus when they saw
Rasputin, whom they considered to be a saint, prostrate himself on
the ground and implore the Almighty to cure the boy, and when after
this they noticed that the boy was getting stronger, they felt more
and more tempted to think that it was not the doctors (who had told
them that the child could never be permanently cured) who had made him
better, but the will of the Almighty, and that it was to the Almighty
alone they had to look for the conservation of the life of that much
cherished son.