by JG Hampton
it.”
"But Papa, her Grandmother had told her that proper girls didn't take bribes from strangers or they'd be considered fast." This made my father laugh. Papa said that the chain of pearls was the most costly creation that Monsieur Faberge had ever been consigned to make, but Mama was worth the cost of every perfect pearl.
“Alexei, I hope that all of my chicks will be able to follow their hearts as I was. Never forget that I love your Mama. My Mama and Papa didn’t want me to marry her, but I defied them despite the obstacles and the pretty ballerina placed in my pathway and I’ve learned that things that are meant to be have a way of working out.”
All of papa’s “chicks” look forward to the unveiling of the artisan’s creations every Easter and I can hardly wait to see what Monsieur Faberge has dreamed up. Perhaps the royal eggs will have a picture of just papa and me in our matching military uniforms reviewing the troops or one of us in our peasant shirts or another photograph with a hidden spring which when pressed pops out to reveal OTMA, my occasionally overbearing, annoying sisters, Olga, Tatiana, Marie, and Anastasia. I would like to have an egg containing a small replica of our new yaught, The Standardt, done to scale.
What surprise has he secreted inside the marvelous eggs this year? I try to think what I would surprise my parents with if I were Monsieur Faberge. I think that I would like to be a jeweler creating surprises for people if I were not destined to be the future Czar of all the Russias.
25 February 1914, 10 March 1914 – Monsieur Petrov, my Russian tutor, has me writing about one of my favorite subject, Peter the Great. I love hearing stories about this tall leader, he was almost seven feet tall, and he founded St. Petersburg. He was even taller than my dead Grandpapa, Czar Alexander, who was a gruff bear of a man according to Grandmama dear, but one whose bark was worse than his bite. Peter tried to modernize as well as civilize Russia. He would cut off all of the old men’s beards and imprison them if they slept in their boots.
“Holy schmoly!” What would Mama say if I did that? I tried cutting off Anastasia's braid once and I'll never do that again. Monsieur P. said that he was trying to update Russia because he had visited the European royal courts and wanted to revise antiquated Russia whose traditions and customs lagged far behind those of the European courts he had visited.
Writing a two page essay in Russian on this great man, who is one of my idols, took a great deal of mental effort. Peter the Great drained the swamps of St. Petersburg and built a great city. Perhaps I shall build my own city when I am czar. I shall call it Saint Alexei’s without the burg, because burg is a German word and I only want Russian names for my Russian cities.
26 February 1914, 12 March 1914 -Mama isn’t feeling well and insists on being pushed around in her large rattan wheelchair. Her sciatic nerve is bothering her and so is her enlarged heart. She has been chewing on nitroglycerin tablets recently and coughing up a storm. Papa worries about her constantly and so do I. What would we ever do without her? Auntie Anya thinks she's a hypochondriac, and can do more than she appears to do if she wills it so. But Mama is our strength and the heart of our family. My world and that of my sisters and Papa revolves around her and her mercurial moods.
After my lessons, I went to Mama's mauve boudoir where she allowed me to sketch while she reclined on her chaise longue with her needlework. Anastasia came too; she is becoming quite the artist. Her excellent photography skills make her think like an artist. My sketches are rather rough and my portraits look more like monsters than real people, but Mama says that if I keep practicing, I’ll get better at portraiture.
I love being in Mama’s mauve boudoir where everything is comfy and cozy while the bitter Russian winds blow mercilessly outside rattling the windows. I feel that I am wrapped in a snug cocoon of love, a real one which emanates from Mama’s loving heart.
Inside our one hundred room palace, it’s as if we’re in a country garden covered with mauve roses and on the mantle and on Mama's light colored wooden tables are vases filled with fresh hot house flowers. On the mantle are stunning photos of my four sisters which capture their beauty and personalities and Papa and Mama enjoy looking at them. For once they are like frozen Charlottes and are still.
A portrait of Queen Marie Antoinette hangs above us. The portrait was given to her by the French people for a wedding present and Mama cherishes the portrait of the ill fated French queen who left those she loved behind in Austria to become queen in a strange country just like Mama did. The beautiful queen was called to give up her life for her new country being beheaded by her traitorous French subjects. Would my Russian subjects ever dare do such a thing to my beloved Mama? Shivers ran down my back and goose bumps raise like sentinels on my arms. I put the thought from my mind. My mother's time as well as mine is not up yet, but why do I feel as if phantoms are crossing my grave so to speak?
The best thing in the boudoir is of course Mama. I love her and hope she gets better. Do cigarettes make one cough? Mama and Papa are chain smokers, but Mama insists that she never be photographed smoking a cigarette. To do so would be indelicate.
11 March 1914, 25 February 1914 – I found Marie’s diary which she concealed behind a large vase and peeked in it. She thinks she is in love with one of the officers she met on our vacation last year. My sisters are always falling in and out of love. His initials are P.R. and she wants to have a passel of children when she’s married. Yuck! Is that all girls think about? Olga is dreading her meeting with her tentative betrothed and I’m beginning to wonder if it will ever take place. Mama and Papa say that she is worrying needlessly over nothing. Perhaps she’ll fall madly in love with Prince Carol, even if he’s only a minor prince on the chessboard of Europe.
I shall pick out my own princess, like Papa did and shall refuse to marry if I don’t get my own way just like Papa. No one can make me do what I do not want to do. I may look frail, but I have my Mama's backbone.
12 March 1914, 25 March 1914 – In a few weeks we shall be leaving for Livadia. I can hardly wait. I love the adventure of traveling and know that just mentioning the beautiful new palace cheers up Mama. Auntie Olga sent us some hard candies from a confectionary in St. Petersburg that have a flower in the center that grows bigger as one sucks on them and a box of specialty chocolates for Mama. Mama let us each have two pieces and I chose the biggest one in the box, but it was big because it had a large brazil nut in it, Mama calls them nigger toes. I asked our door man Jim if he’d ever heard about nuts called nigger toes when he lived in America and what he thought of their name? He said he didn’t care for the nut, either. He said he’d eaten black licorice candies in America called nigger babies, but thought they should be called by another name. He felt like a cannibal whenever he chewed on the black treats and felt that the name was an insult to his prestigious ancestry. After all he descended from African kings and queens according to his grandmother and the name was an insulting one for the race. How would I like eating candy called white Russies’ or emperor’s tongues? He has a way of helping me see things clearly.
Anastasia pulled out one of her hatpins and stuck them in Mama’s chocolates looking for the cherry creams. There is a pin prick in each of the remaining chocolates. Mama told her to be adventuresome and just pick one and eat it. Usually the C’s on the tops of the chocolates stand for caramels or cherry. Anastasia selected one with a W on the top and thought it was an M for mint, but it turned out to be black walnut which she loathed. so she traded it to Marie for a mint fondant. Sorry, I don’t have anything more exciting to write about than my sister's quirky habits. Sometimes life is boring. How I wish I had a little brother to play armies with instead of four overbearing sisters who talk of dancing and gowns.
25 March 1914, 7 April 1914 – Perhaps when I am czar, I will use the immense Catherine Palace which I can see from my bedroom window. It is huge with over two hundred rooms. I asked Mama why she didn’t choose to live in that elegant palace since she had her choice
of palaces. She replied: “I wanted my home to be just like an English country cottage, like the ones I’d visited in England. I didn’t want my children to feel that they lived in a museum.” Mama’s right about that, whenever I visit the Catherine Palace I feel that I’m in a museum since it is loaded with beautiful works of art; I prefer our smaller palace, but my mind may change when I become Czar. Will they call me Alexei the Great? Of course Anastasia doubts that I'll do great things; In her opinion it would be great if I could walk and chew gum at the same time or lock the door when I enter our new water closet with its flushing toilet. Sisters can be so annoying. I do think that chewing gum is a marvelous concoction. My Grandmother dear forbids me from chewing it, but Anastasia gives me hers whenever she spends her allowance on it. It's hard to imagine that it comes from the chicle plant.
Shura and the maids are packing our trunks for our vacation and I’m quite ready for spring to come. I don’t think I’ll ever thaw out. Next week we’ll board one of the two trains, the real one carrying Papa and the decoy one. We’ll ride in comfort at a speed of about twenty-five miles per hour.