by JG Hampton
survival, Alexei." From Lili's reports I learned that angelic Marie's temperature soared higher than mine had and she was now senseless. My pitiable mother gritted her teeth and rose to the challenge of ministering to another sick daughter.
Mama was the one who needed the help of ministering angels and I prayed for their comforting presence in order to help her through this unending ordeal. Her faith was undaunted and she was strengthened. I realize then that my fragile Mama's nerves and backbone had been replaced with platinum.
As the day wore on, she served us chicken broth, more porridge and toast, aided by Countess Buxhoeveden and Lilli Dehn both whom apparently were immune to the German measles. The earthly angels huffed and puffed pushing each other up the stairs to the second floor because our elevator no longer worked. Faithful old Count Beckendorff, who helped Mama run the house hold knew that she needed another man around and sent for Uncle Paul who was obliged to come to our aid.
Papa was expected to return at any moment, but Mama had lost contact with him which only added to her anxiety. Marie had come down with double pneumonia and Dr. Botkin told Mama to prepare for her death. Of all my sisters, I knew that saintly Marie, was most ready to meet her maker, but I did not want her to die so I prayed for her recovery. Mama began to chain smoke cigarettes just like Papa and her face looked haggard. Would her hair turn white from the ordeal as Auntie Ella's had done when her husband Sergei had been blown up in Moscow? What else was going to go wrong? I shuddered to think, but praised the Lord that I was now on the mend.
Mama stewed about the fallen capital and the palace, but knew that Petrograd was now in God's hands. What will be, will be and soon she was reconciled to the fact of the loss. I pleaded with her to send additional soldiers to force out those who had mutinied, but found that I was grasping at straws since we had few remaining loyal regiments to spare. Couldn't Cousin Kyrill's regiment be ordered to go to Petrograd on a rat hunt?
16 March 1917 - 29 March 1917 - Leaflets were brought from Petrograd announcing that Papa Czar had abdicated. Could they possibly be true or was this propaganda to weaken the moral of our remaining forces? How could Papa have given up so easily fumed my Mama taking away my breakfast tray? I read one of the grimy papers and my life events sped through my mind's eye like Father Grigory's had during the time he'd almost drowned in the river as a young teenager. I felt my head going under water and a black gripping malaise had my head in a vice forcing my life out of me. I struggled to continue breathing.
How could Papa have done such a treacherous thing? Didn't he know that I was going to be healed in less than four years? Where was his faith? Father Grigory had prophesied as much. But then I remembered my staretz's letter about the curse on the nobility if he was murdered by the hand of a Romanov and felt that someone had just walked over my grave. I knew then that I too was cursed as were all the Romanovs. All of us were doomed.
Rising from my bed, I limped around the floor throwing my covers wildly on the floor, I was so angry; the force of Papa's treachery hit me as if I'd been kicked in the head by Papa's white stallion. Grandmama had not been my enemy; my worst enemy was my own weak Papa! How I hated his pathetic puniness, Strapping Grandfather Czar Alexander had been right about his first born; he was a weakling. Why couldn't he be more like Mama? She would have fought to the finish for me and the Romanov throne. Had Grandmama persuaded him to relinquish the throne to my Uncle Michael because of my hemophilia? How I hated this blasted disease. Wasn't I really cursed from birth? Had some wicked witch from Transylvania put an evil spell on me?
Hobbling down the stairs I sought out Count Beckendorff to validate the news of the abdication; one look at him told me that it was all true. I'd never seen the old soldier cry before, but he was crying now. Not only had Papa abdicated the throne for himself, he'd abdicated for me! The information hit me like a bullet to my heart; how I wished I was dead. No, the depiction of what I felt at the time is to meager - a cannonball had just knocked me flat.
Uncle Michael was now the czar. Papa had abdicated, eager to save Russia at Grandmama's suggestion hoping the fighting would cease with a firmer hand at the helm. Perhaps strong Michael could end the war and cause the people to rally around him as they had the first Russian czar. My beloved Papa had yielded to Grandmama's plan for the dynasty and I was the sacrificial lamb! What treachery! Not only had Papa abdicated for himself, he had abdicated for me! Without even asking me!
Totally decimated, I spent the rest of the morning envisioning hanging Papa and then drawing and quartering him leaving what was left of him for the vultures on the bridge below where they'd found my Rasputin. Surely, I was l'infant terrible my parents had joked about and I would become another Vlad the Impaler, if I lived long enough. What was to become of me now? I could not control the hate I was feeling in my heart.
Papa had always wanted to be a gentleman farmer and now he could be one if I let him live, but I'd always been raised to become the nineteenth Czar Alexei the Great. Papa had never wanted to be the czar and I now realized he'd been a poor, weak one at best. How I loathed his meekness and hated my infirmity.
Defeated, I returned to my room tripping up the stairs I was forced to face reality as a large bruise appeared beneath my skin. I was bleeding again. Why not just throw myself down the stair and end it all? Because of Felix Yousopouv and other treacherous family members, I was now as cursed as Papa and all Romanovs who had no future, even if I lived to the age of seventeen.
Laying back down on my bed, I cried into my pillow for my heart was breaking even though men are not supposed to cry. Tactfully, Anastasia removed herself from my bed as well as my bedroom. Did she realize that I was a czarovitch without a kingdom and she a Grand Duchess without a future? Our beautiful kingdom of Atlantis was lost.
17 March 1917 - 30 March 1917 - Mama said that it was for the best speaking in French for the old Count's sake when she called all of the remaining palace staff together to inform them about the abdication. I excused her for her lapse in not speaking in my beloved Russian tongue. Although she tried her best, she was never able to speak Russian like a native having learned the language as an adult rather than as a child like my sisters and I. She spoke it well although occasionally she still butchered the verbs and spoke with a strong German accent which always amused my Papa. Mama had accomplished more for Russia than Papa had with her loftier goals and her knitting and embroidery needle. Having risked her life seven or perhaps eight times going into the valley of death trying to give birth to an heir for Russia, yet she'd been repeatedly been misjudged by the Russian aristocracy as well as the peasants.
What had Papa done but fail miserably when he'd been given the ripe plum of the throne and all it meant? As I listened to Mama not really caring if my bleeding ceased or not, I continued to curse and hex my Papa as if I were a Jew assigned to another far off village. Anastasia left me alone for a few hours while I vented my anger by cutting up the German military uniform and the wooden duck decoy Kaiser Wilhelm had sent me at the beginning of the war. By late afternoon, most of my rage had dissipated. Anastasia hugged me and told me how sorry she was for me and for all of Russia.
"Alexei, I know that given the chance, you would have been a great czar." Those words were the balm of Gilead which I needed on my wounds in order to go forward.
"I don't really care whether or not I'm a spinster or a Grand Duchess or not because of my large nose and shortness, some defects, shouldn't be passed on, but I have always looked forward to your being the Czar of all Russia. Perhaps you'll rise again from the ashes like a phoenix. One must believe, Alexei." I hugged my sister to me. In a few words she had renewed my hope and will to live. Dared I believe?
"Anastasia, your nose is not as big as I have suggested in the past. I was a bully to say such cruel things. Had I, the czarovitch, actually apologized to a female? Truly, nothing is a constant as change.
18 March 1917 - 31 March 1917 - Mama skulked around the palace like a lost soul smoking her chain of ci
garettes. She had lost her identity since she was no longer the Czarina of all Russia. Nor were her daughters Grand Ducheses, nor could she longer dream that I would be the czar. All her bubbles had burst.
My Uncle Michael, the sniveling rat, the coward, abdicated from the throne as well stating that the people no longer wanted a monarchy ruled by a Romanov. Obviously, he was trying to save his own neck.
Mama was truly livid when she heard this news saying sarcastically: "So much for Grandmama's grand plan. She too has been stabbed in the back with her own knife. Which of our foreign relatives is going to want to take her under their wing when she flees for her life?
Count B. went out to chop firewood so that we might have some warmth and a fire to cook over in our fireplaces. I begged him to let me go with him, but he prevented me from chopping wood and would only let me sit on a log and watch him since my bruise had swollen to the size of a grapefruit. However, I was pleased to note that my blood slowed of its own accord and soon my swelling would go down as the blood was reabsorbed.
Alexander Guchkov, the new minister of war and General Kornilov, arrived with their contingency, which represented the