Alexander thought better of the reply that rushed to his lips. For right now at least he would just as soon let the ghosts from his own past lie still. If his son was determined to be just as big a fool as his father, he would let him. But he would do his best to bring Russia out of the dark ages in the meantime. Curse the English fools for driving him into this war! And curse his fool of a son for coming in here, caustically deriding him for the hundredth time about his personal life, and then feigning well-wishes which were in reality designed to rub salt in the wound of his failed Balkan diplomacy in the south!
The tsar said nothing, only looked away.
“In any event, Father,” said the tsarevitch, rising, “I wanted to offer my congratulations for your courage in launching this war. History will mark it as one of the great turning points of your reign.”
Alexander mumbled some halfhearted words of thanks, then watched his son turn and leave the room.
The most bitter realization of all, thought the tsar when he was again alone, was the awareness that his son no doubt would be a stronger and more popular tsar than he was. As distasteful as he found his son’s politics, he knew many of Russia’s leaders would rather serve the tsarevitch than his father. He would be tsar one day, and then what would become of this nation and its clamor for reform, its revolutionaries, its unrest in the universities? If his son tried to return Russia to an Ivan-like rule, even a reign like that of his own father Nicholas, the whole country was likely to blow apart. And yet even with Alexander’s own liberal policies of conciliation and reform, how much better was it?
It was a hopeless morass. No wonder he went to bed every night so frustrated and torn that he could hardly sleep! Criticism in the newspapers, discontent in the cities, strife among his advisers, his own son speaking out against him, and now this war to contend with!
What he needed were friends—faithful friends who would stick with him through anything, who would listen, who would support and implement his policies, and who were loyal to the House of Romanov, whatever came. Friends who cared about him, not political advisers and schemers like Ignatiev and the others. The thought of Count Ignatiev brought a bitter smile to his lips. He would be more smilingly condescending even than his son, he who had done more than any other man to get Russia into this war. There had been times Alexander had almost feared a palace coup at the hands of those like Ignatiev. Now they needn’t bother. They had achieved their ends without it!
He wandered from the room and aimlessly entered the wide corridor. It was an hour before his scheduled meeting with the War Council. In the distance he heard the sounds of laughter. He recognized the voice of his wife. She must have guests. Casually the tsar ambled forward, then peered into the room filled with gaiety.
The laughter stopped instantly at the tsar’s appearance.
“Go on, go on,” he said. “I was just wandering by and heard your happy sounds. No need to stop on my account.”
“You remember the Princess Natalia, do you not, my dear?” said his wife, approaching him.
“Of course,” replied Alexander, walking forward and kissing Natalia’s hand lightly as she curtsied before him.
“She is going to serve your daughter-in-law as lady in waiting,” the tsaritsa went on, “and we were making some preparations.”
The tsar’s brow clouded slightly. The mere mention of his son’s wife was enough to unnerve him in his present mood. She disapproved of his affair with Catherine most vehemently, and made her views known throughout all of St. Petersburg. If she had been anybody else, he would have had her flogged.
“So, how is your husband?” asked the tsar to Natalia.
“Very well, Your Highness.”
“I haven’t seen him in much too long. What is he about these days?”
“He’s somewhere in a meeting with Count Baklanov and Count Ignatiev,” replied Natalia.
“Here . . . now?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. He came a short time ago.” Natalia found direct communication with the tsar extremely taxing, and already she was about to wilt from this brief exchange.
“An odd assortment,” mused the tsar to himself. “No doubt about the war. Funny I didn’t hear of it. Well, well, it is nice to see you, Princess Fedorcenko,” he added, turning and walking back toward the door by which he had entered. “It would be good to visit again with your husband. I shall try to find him.”
Natalia curtsied again and remained with head bowed until Alexander was out of the room. The Empress Maria Alexandrovna remained bold and erect, however. She might be his wife, but she would not bow before the man who had made such a long public humiliation of her.
51
That spring of 1877 was not the first time Anna had been to the Winter Palace, but it would prove to be the most memorable.
Her world had broadened in ways unimaginable during the past few months. Her education in Princess Katrina’s classroom at the hand of the Scotsman Fingal opened a new life before her. But the opportunities for participating in Russian society went far beyond the Fedorcenko home. After New Year’s Day the social season had been in full swing, and Katrina had included Anna in nearly everything she had done. Anxious to follow the redecorating of her room with a social schedule befitting the lady she wanted to be, Katrina had let no opportunity pass to attend concerts, the ballet, literary soirees, balls, and whatever other festivities and events presented themselves. Anna was a mere observer on the fringes, one servant among many on hand to assist her mistress, but she thrilled, nevertheless, at being in such close proximity to the top of the Russian social scale.
By virtue of her long association with the tsaritsa, Natalia Fedorcenko had been invited to be one of the ladies-in-waiting to Marie Fedorovna, the wife of the tsarevich. The Grand Duchess Marie had taken a particular liking to the Princess Katrina as well, and often invited the daughter to accompany the mother on visits to the palace. Where Katrina went, Anna followed.
Anna did not even know the tsar had been away, any more than she knew of his return to St. Petersburg the night before, until the moment she saw him open the door and peek into the room where Katrina and her mother and several other women were gathered with the empress. His presence on this day was even more intimidating than her brief encounter months earlier on the night of the New Year’s ball. By the time her heart had retreated from her throat and returned to her chest, she was rising from her curtsy with the other women in the room, and the tsar had already disappeared.
The women went on with their talk and the fitting of the Grand Duchess’s new gown with which they were involved. In fifteen or twenty minutes, as they made ready to leave, Katrina left the coterie and approached Anna.
“We are all going for tea, Anna,” she said. “The Empress has invited us to her quarters—can you imagine!”
“That’s wonderful, Princess.”
“The other maids will have to wait in one of the drawing rooms. The tsaritsa has more servants than we will need.”
“Yes, Princess.”
“I didn’t mean you, silly,” said Katrina. “You’ll never guess what you’re going to do!”
“I can’t imagine,” replied Anna with wide eyes.
“I asked if you could peek into the Imperial Library while we had tea.”
“You didn’t!”
“They’re all used to my boldness by now, Anna,” laughed Katrina. “The Grand Duchess Marie likes me all the better for it, I think. They’re always watching for what I’m going to say next, and then laughing about it among themselves afterward. And of course Mother doesn’t mind. She thinks it’s cute for me to be so outspoken in front of the tsar’s wife and daughter-in-law. None of them know quite how to reply to me.”
“You aren’t afraid?” asked Anna, aghast.
“I think it’s amusing. Anyway, they gave their permission, and I didn’t wait around for any further questions. I believe they thought I was jesting when I said my maid would like nothing better than to see the library. The v
ery idea of a woman, much less a maid, enjoying reading is an idea that has never occurred to them. They are just like me before I met you, Anna, and before you began to teach me how to listen to Fingal. But see,” she added with a toss of her head toward the door, “there they go now. They’ve probably already forgotten everything I said. Come with me.”
“But . . . but, Princess Katrina,” objected Anna, “what if . . . someone should see me? What will I say?”
“You will tell them you are there on orders from Princess Katrina Fedorcenko, friend and confidant of the Empress Maria Alexandrovna Romanov, by whose permission and leave you grace the august and solemn halls of literary wealth.” She laughed and started toward the door, following her mother and the others, pulling a reluctant yet excited Anna behind her.
“Princess, please,” said Anna, giggling. “I shall be terrified! I will be seen and apprehended, I am sure of it!”
“Nonsense,” laughed Katrina. “If anyone dares lay a finger on you, they shall have to answer to me, and they will find me no gentle foe! Come with me, I tell you.”
She sped through the door with Anna in tow, and turned down the corridor toward the retreating train of dresses.
“How will you find the way?” said Anna.
“I know these halls like my own hand. I’ll deposit you and catch the others before they even miss me!”
She took her hand and pulled Anna after her, then turned a corner and fairly raced down a long, carpeted hallway. In less than three minutes, after several more turns, Katrina stopped before two huge oak-paneled doors.
“Here we are!” she announced triumphantly. “Go on in, Anna.”
Anna gazed at the huge doors. “Alone?” she said, as Katrina turned to leave her.
“Of course. Nobody will be in there. You’ll have the place to yourself!”
She walked off down the hallway a few paces before Anna’s voice stopped her again. “What shall I do, Princess?” she asked.
“Meet me back where we were in thirty minutes.”
“How will I find it?”
“Just go back the way we came,” replied Katrina, and before Anna had time to object further, the princess turned and was gone. Timidly Anna tried the door, found it unlocked, and went inside.
———
Half an hour later she emerged, face aglow, her heart full of pleasure she had never dreamed could be hers. It was enough to have been there, to have seen the spines and wandered through the shelves of priceless treasures found in only the great personal libraries of Europe. She had handled scarcely a dozen volumes, and had been too awestruck to read but a line or two in each. Nevertheless, it was an experience she would never forget.
In the excitement of the moment, Katrina’s final words to her had not even registered in her brain; only now did she remember: Go back the way we came! How could she possibly know how they had come? Was she destined to be lost forever in these corridors for being unable to follow the princess’s instructions?
Anna did recall their approach to the huge doors of the library. She turned to her left, therefore, and at least made good on the first leg of her return journey. She continued around two or three corners, recognizing the way sufficiently to keep moving in the right direction. At last the hallway came to an end and flowed into a wide gallery-like corridor, opening in both directions. Huge framed paintings hung on its walls, extending as far as she could see in both directions.
Anna stopped and glanced first to the right, then to the left. All the portraits looked alike; she hadn’t the slightest inkling from which side she and the princess had come earlier.
In the distance she saw a uniformed guard enter the corridor and start toward her. She was afraid the right direction was toward him, yet all her instincts of fear and survival told her to walk quickly in the opposite direction for fear of being caught where she didn’t belong.
Panic seized her. Again she glanced rapidly in both directions and at last set off quickly away from the guard. But it was too late.
“Ah, I see you are lost again, eh, little maid?” said a commanding voice behind her.
Anna’s heart gave way. She stopped and slowly turned around. There, in all his martial magnificence, stood a young Cossack officer. He had known her instantly, but it took Anna a moment or two to recognize him as the same one she had encountered several months earlier on the night she had first seen the tsar.
She curtsied before speaking. “I . . . I think I was supposed to go the other way down the corridor,” she said as she rose.
“And where are you bound, if I may ask?” His rugged features dissolved into a sincere smile as he spoke.
“To a drawing room where the Empress and Grand Duchess are,” replied Anna, “although I don’t know if the room has a name.”
He let out a low whistle accompanied by a knowing look of significance. “You keep rather select company, I must say! Why are you out wandering alone in the palace? It seems whenever I see you, you are alone and lost in the halls of the tsar’s home.” His smile made up for what might otherwise have sounded like words of suspicion. “Where have you been?”
“In the library.”
“To fetch a book for your mistress? I see none in your hand.”
“No. She . . . she gave me permission to visit the library while they had their tea.”
“An odd place to stash a servant.”
“My mistress knows of my fondness for books.”
“Does she now? That deepens my intrigue in this mysterious affair. A mistress and a servant on such terms that the one gives to the other the run of the Imperial Library—indeed, the run of the entire Winter Palace!”
Anna could not tell from his tone whether his curiosity was of an official nature or not. He frowned at her, but the twinkle in his eye indicated that he was thoroughly enjoying the interchange.
“My mistress is very good to me,” Anna went on, feeling a bit timid, yet speaking freely. “We study together too, and that is why she knows me so well.”
“She must indeed be a mistress whom you serve with affection.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I shall see you safely back to her. I think I know the room you mean. And you were correct, it is in the opposite direction. Come along.”
He spun around and started walking along the gallery back the way he had come.
“But you were going down there,” objected Anna as she began to follow him, pointing behind her.
“I was on no urgent mission. Besides, I would not rest easy knowing I had set a naive young maid forever wandering in the palace.” He smiled again, with more amusement in his dark eyes. All the dreadful and brutal things Anna had heard of the fearsome Cossacks dissolved with one look into this young man’s eyes. No doubt his kindness was why he had been chosen to occupy such a position of prestige in the tsar’s palace even though he was probably of no higher birth than Anna herself.
Anna smiled her thanks, and continued to follow.
“What do you think of all these men and women staring down at us from the walls?” he said as they walked, pointing to the right and left.
“I have no idea who a single one of them is,” replied Anna.
“Nor do I,” laughed the Cossack. “I suspect not even the tsar and his family care for a one of them, though every sixth cousin and nephew and wife or husband of the most distant relation of the Romanov family is probably represented here. Every man with a drop of noble blood in his veins somehow considers immortality a right of possession to be sealed with a magnificent likeness of himself. They all seem to have a duty to watch over the goings-on in the royal corridors of power.”
Anna could not help giggling at his words.
“And so here they all are—all three hundred of them—gazing down from every vacant wall in the palace. Looking . . . always looking, but never speaking. All the while the present occupants of the house walk up and down and never heed them. They hardly know better than you or I who any of them are! Ah, the bi
tter frustration it must be for all these poor souls to realize that their importance died with them and no one even remembers them.”
He paused momentarily, as if he might have spoken too freely to one who might carry his words back to unreceptive ears.
“Do not mistake me,” he added. “I have nothing but respect and admiration for the royal family I serve. I am not one of those mutinous underground traitors who would rebel against the hand that feeds him. I love my tsar and am deeply indebted to him for what he has done for me. I would only disagree with him in this, that he will no doubt join the ranks of these silent witnesses to our conversation one day with a grand portrait of his own to keep track of the doings of his son. I would disdain such a spectacle . . . for myself, I mean.”
He stopped walking, turned to Anna, gestured widely about him, and then asked with a serious expression, “What do you see here? What do you see on these faces . . . in their eyes?”
When Anna said nothing he continued. “I will tell you,” he said. “Pomp and presumption and nothing but a hollow sense of importance. Yet where are they all now? Dead and gone. For me, I would live on through my deeds as a soldier, and by the man I am and the things I do, not by having those who follow me hang a portrait of my face.”
“But do you not believe that you will live on?” asked Anna, speaking at length.
“You mean in heaven . . . with God as all the priests say?”
“Yes . . . of course.”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s true; or maybe it is only one more Russian fairy tale. It scarcely matters to me. As I said, a man’s deeds are all that matters.”
“It means more than that to me,” said Anna. “If it is true, then it must mean everything. How can anyone say it doesn’t matter even if it is true? Truth must matter, mustn’t it?”
“You may be right,” returned the guard jovially. “We shall have to discuss it further one day. In what part of the servants quarters do you reside?”
“I do not live here,” smiled Anna.
“I have rescued you twice in this place, but you are not employed here?” said the guard in astonishment.
The Russians Collection Page 32