The most famous room in the palace—for a time the most famous room in Russia—was the Empress’s mauve boudoir. Everything in it was mauve: curtains, carpet, pillows; even the furniture was mauve-and-white Hepplewhite. Masses of fresh white and purple lilacs, vases of roses and orchids and bowls of violets perfumed the air. Tables and shelves were cluttered with books, papers and porcelain and enamel knicknacks.* In this room, Alexandra surrounded herself with mementoes of her family and her religion. The walls were covered with icons. Over her chaise-longue hung a picture of the Virgin Mary. A portrait of her mother, Princess Alice, looked down from another wall. On a table in a place of honor stood a large photograph of Queen Victoria. The only portrait in the room other than religious and family pictures was a portrait of Marie Antoinette.
In this cluttered, cozy room, surrounded by her treasured objects, Alexandra felt secure. Here, in the morning, she talked to her daughters, helping them choose their dresses and plan their schedules. It was to this room that Nicholas hurried to sit with his wife, sip tea, read the papers and discuss their children and their empire. They talked to each other in English, although Nicholas and all the children spoke Russian to each other. To Alexandra, Nicholas was always “Nicky.” To him, she was “Alix” or “Sunshine” or “Sunny.” Sometimes through the rooms of this private wing, a clear, musical whistle like the warbling song of a bird would sound. This was Nicholas’s way of summoning his wife. Early in her marriage, Alexandra, hearing the call, would blush red and drop whatever she was doing to hurry to him. Later, as his children grew up, Nicholas used it to call them, and the birdlike whistle became a familiar and regular sound in the Alexander Palace.
Next to the mauve boudoir was the Empress’s dressing room, an array of closets for her gowns, shelves for her hats and trays for her jewels. Alexandra had six wardrobe maids, but her modesty severely limited their duties. No one ever saw the Empress Alexandra undressed or in her bath. She bathed herself, and when she was ready to have her hair arranged, she appeared in a Japanese kimono. Often it was Grand Duchess Tatiana who came to comb her mother’s hair and pile the long red-gold strands on top of her head. After the Empress was almost dressed, her maids were summoned to fasten buttons and clasp on jewelry. “Only rubies today,” the Empress would say, or “Pearls and sapphires with this gown.” She preferred pearls to all other jewels, and several ropes of pearls usually cascaded from her neck to her waist.
For daytime, Alexandra wore loose, flowing clothes trimmed at the throat and waist with lace. She considered the famous “hobble skirts” of the Edwardian era a nuisance. “Do you really like this skirt?” she asked Lili Dehn, whose husband was an officer on the Imperial yacht. “Well, Madame, c’est la mode,” replied the lady. “It’s no use whatever as a skirt,” said the Empress. “Now, Lili, prove to me that it is comfortable—run, Lili, run, and let me see how fast you can cover ground in it.”
The Empress’s gowns were designed by St. Petersburg’s reigning fashion dictator of the day, a Mme. Brissac, who made a fortune as a couturière and lived in a mansion in the capital. Her clients, including the Empress, all complained about her prices. To the Empress, Mme. Brissac confided, “I beg Your Majesty not to mention it to anyone, but I always cut my prices for Your Majesty.” Subsequently, Alexandra discovered that Mme. Brissac had met similar complaints from her sister-in-law Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna with the whispered plea, “I beg Your Imperial Highness not to mention these things at Tsarskoe Selo, but I always cut my prices for you.”
In the evening, Alexandra wore white or cream silk gowns embroidered in silver and blue and worn with diamonds in her hair and pearls at her throat. She disliked filmy lingerie; her undergarments and her sleeping gowns were made of fine, embroidered linen. Her shoes were low-heeled and pointed, usually bronze or white suede. Outdoors she carried a parasol against the sun, even when wearing a wide-brimmed hat.
Lili Dehn, recalling her presentation to the Empress in the garden at Tsarskoe Selo in 1907, gives a vivid first impression of the Empress Alexandra: “Advancing through the masses of greenery came a tall and slender figure.… The Empress was dressed entirely in white with a thin white veil draped around her hat. Her complexion was delicately fair … her hair was reddish gold, her eyes … were dark blue and her figure was supple as a willow wand. I remember that her pearls were magnificent and that diamond earrings flashed colored fires whenever she moved her head.… I noticed that she spoke Russian with a strong English accent.”
For the children of the Imperial family, winter was a time of interminable lessons. Beginning at nine in the morning, tutors drilled them in arithmetic, geography, history, Russian, French and English. Before beginning their classwork, they submitted themselves every morning to the examination of Dr. Eugene Botkin, the court physician, who came daily to look at throats and rashes. Botkin was not solely responsible for the children; a specialist, Dr. Ostrogorsky, came from St. Petersburg to render his services. Later, young Dr. Vladimir Derevenko was especially assigned to care for the Tsarevich’s hemophilia. But Botkin always remained the children’s favorite. A tall, stout man who wore blue suits with a gold watch chain across his stomach, he exuded a strong perfume imported from Paris. When they were free, the young Grand Duchesses liked to track him from room to room, following his trail by sniffing his scent.
At eleven every morning, the Tsar and his children stopped work and went outdoors for an hour. Sometimes Nicholas took his gun and shot crows in the park. He had a kennel of eleven magnificent English collies and he enjoyed walking with the dogs frisking and racing about him. In winter, he joined the children and their tutors in building “ice mountains,” big mounds of snow covered with water which froze and made a handsome run for sleds and small toboggans.
Dinner at midday was the ceremonial meal at Tsarskoe Selo. Although the Empress was usually absent, Nicholas dined with his daughters and members of his suite. The meal began, according to the Russian custom, with a priest rising from the table to face an icon and intone his blessing. At the Imperial table this role was filled by Father Vassiliev, the confessor to the Imperial family. Of peasant origin, Vassiliev had never graduated from the Theological Academy, but what he lacked in schooling he made up in fervor. As he shouted his prayers in a cracked voice, Alexandra was convinced that he represented the simple, essential Orthodoxy of the Russian people. As a confessor, Vassiliev was comforting. No matter what sin was confessed to him, he smiled beatifically and said, “Don’t worry. Don’t worry. The Devil does none of these things. He neither smokes nor drinks nor engages in revelry, and yet he is The Devil.” At the Imperial table, among the gold-braided uniforms of the court officials, Vassiliev cut a starkly dramatic figure. Wearing a long, black robe with wide sleeves, a black beard that stretched to his waist, a five-inch silver cross that dangled from his neck, he gave the impression that a great black raven had settled down at the table of the Tsar.
Another presence, not always visible, graced the Imperial table. It was that of Cubat, the palace chef. At Tsarskoe Selo, Cubat labored under a heavy burden. Neither Nicholas nor Alexandra cared for the rich, complicated dishes which the great French chefs had brought from their homeland to spread across the princely tables of Russia. Nicholas especially enjoyed slices of suckling pig with horseradish, taken with a glass of port. Fresh caviar had once given him severe indigestion and he rarely ate this supreme Russian delicacy. Most of all, he relished the simple cooking of the Russian peasant—cabbage soup or borshch or kasha (buckwheat) with boiled fish and fruit. Alexandra cared nothing for food and merely pecked at anything set before her. Nevertheless, Cubat, one of the greatest French chefs of his day, struggled on, happily anticipating the time when the Tsar’s guests would include a renowned gourmet. Sometimes when an especially elegant dish was being served, Cubat would stand hopefully in the doorway, immaculate in his white chef’s apron and hat, waiting to receive the compliments of master and guests.
In the afternoon, while her child
ren continued their lessons, Alexandra often went for a drive. The order “Prepare Her Majesty’s carriage for two o’clock” stimulated a burst of activity at the stables. The carriage, an open, polished black rig of English design, was rolled out; the horses were harnessed into place and two footmen, in tall hats and blue coats, mounted the steps in the rear. Not until all else was ready did the coachman appear. He was a tall, heavy man amplified to greater size by an immense padded coat which he wore covered with medals. Two grooms placed themselves behind him and, at his grunt of command, boosted him into place. Taking the reins, he crossed himself, gave the reins a flick and, with a mounted Cossack officer trotting behind, the carriage moved under an arch toward the palace to wait for the Empress.
Not only the stables but also the vast and cumbersome apparatus of police surveillance was alerted when Alexandra asked for her carriage. Squads of detectives were hastily dispatched, and when the Empress drove out the gate an hour later, every tree and bush along her route concealed a crouching policeman. If she stopped to speak to someone along the way, no sooner had she driven on than an agent of the police stepped forward, notebook in hand, to ask, “What is your name and what reason had you for conversation with Her Imperial Majesty?”
Nicholas rarely accompanied his wife on these excursions by carriage. He preferred instead to ride out on horseback accompanied by Count Fredericks or by a friend, the Commander of Her Majesty’s Uhlans, General Alexander Orlov. Usually they went through the countryside in the direction of Krasnoe Selo, passing through villages along the way. Often, during these outings, the Tsar stopped to talk informally to peasants, asking them about themselves, their village problems and the success of the harvest. Sometimes, knowing that the Tsar frequently rode that way, peasants from other districts waited by the road to hand him petitions or make special requests. In almost every case, Nicholas saw to it that these requests were granted.*
At four, the family gathered for tea. Teas at Tsarskoe Selo were always the same. Year after year, the same small, white-draped tables were set with the same glasses in silver holders, the same plates of hot bread, the same English biscuits. Cakes and sweetmeats never appeared. To her friend Anna Vyrubova, Alexandra complained that “other people had much more interesting teas.” Although she was Empress of Russia, wrote Vyrubova, she “seemed unable to change a single detail of the routine of the Russian court. The same plates of hot bread and butter had been on the same tea tables … [since the days of] Catherine the Great.”
As with everything else at Tsarskoe Selo, there was a rigid routine for tea. “Every day at the same moment,” Anna Vyrubova recalled, “the door opened, the Emperor came in, sat down at the tea table, buttered a piece of bread and began to sip his tea. He drank two glasses every day, never more, never less, and as he drank, he glanced over his telegrams and newspapers. The children found teatime exciting. They dressed for it in fresh white frocks and colored sashes, and spent most of the hour playing on the floor with toys. As they grew older, needlework and embroidery were substituted. The Empress did not like to see her daughters sitting with idle hands.”
After tea, Nicholas returned to his study. Between five and eight p.m. he received a stream of callers. Those having business with him were brought by train from St. Petersburg, arriving at Tsarskoe Selo just as dusk was falling. They were escorted through the palace to a waiting room where they could sit and leaf through books and magazines until the Tsar was ready to see them.
“Although my audience was a private one,” wrote the French Ambassador, Paléologue, “I had put on my full dress uniform, as is fitting for a meeting with the Tsar, Autocrat of all the Russias. The Director of Ceremonies, Evreinov, went with me. He also was a symphony of gold braid.… My escort consisted only of Evreinov, a household officer in undress uniform and a footman in his picturesque (Tsaritsa Elizabeth) dress with the hat adorned with long red, black and yellow plumes. I was taken through the audience rooms, then the Empress’s private drawing room, down a long corridor leading to the private apartments of the sovereigns in which I passed a servant in very plain livery who was carrying a tea tray. Further on was the foot of a little private staircase leading to the rooms of the Imperial children. A ladies’ maid flitted away from the landing above. The last room at the end of the corridor was occupied by … [the Tsar’s] personal aide-de-camp. I waited there barely a minute. The gaily and weirdly bedecked Ethiopian who mounted guard outside His Majesty’s study opened the door almost at once.
“The Emperor received me with that gracious and somewhat shy kindness which is all his own. The room in which he received me is small and has only one window. The furniture is plain and comfortable. There are plain leather chairs, a sofa covered with a Persian rug, a bureau and shelves arranged with meticulous care, a table spread with maps and a low book case with photographs, busts and family souvenirs.”
Nicholas received most visitors informally. Standing in front of his desk, he gestured them into an armchair, asked if they would like to smoke and lighted a cigarette. He was a careful listener, and although he often grasped the conclusion before his visitor had reached it, he never interrupted.
Precisely at eight, all official interviews ended so that the Tsar could go to supper. Nicholas always terminated an audience by rising and walking to a window. There was no mistaking this signal, and newcomers were sternly briefed to withdraw, no matter how pleasant or regretful His Majesty might seem. “I’m afraid I’ve wearied you,” said Nicholas, politely breaking off his conversation.
Family suppers were informal, although the Empress invariably appeared at the table in an evening gown and jewels. Afterward, Alexandra went to the nursery to hear the Tsarevich say his prayers. In the evening after supper, Nicholas often sat in the family drawing room reading aloud while his wife and daughters sewed or embroidered. His choice, said Anna Vyrubova, who spent many of these cozy evenings with the Imperial family, might be Tolstoy, Turgenev or his own favorite, Gogol. On the other hand, to please the ladies, it might be a fashionable English novel. Nicholas read equally well in Russian, English and French and he could manage in German and Danish. His voice, said Anna, was “pleasant and [he had] remarkably clear enunciation.” Books were supplied by his private librarian, whose job it was to provide the Tsar each month with twenty of the best books from all countries. This collection was laid out on a table and Nicholas arranged them in order of preference; thereafter the Tsar’s valets saw to it that no one disarranged them until the end of the month.
Sometimes, instead of reading, the family spent evenings pasting snapshots taken by the court photographers or by themselves into green leather albums stamped in gold with the Imperial monograph. Nicholas enjoyed supervising the placement and pasting of the photographs and insisted that the work be done with painstaking neatness. “He could not endure the sight of the least drop of glue on the table,” wrote Vyrubova.
The end of these pleasant, monotonous days arrived at eleven with the serving of evening tea. Before retiring, Nicholas wrote in his diary and soaked himself in his large, white-tiled bathtub. Once in bed, he usually went right to sleep. The exceptions were those occasions when his wife kept him awake, still reading and crunching English biscuits on the other side of the bed.
* Along with religious crosses, icons and images of every description, Alexandra was fascinated by the symbol of the swastika. Its origins buried deep in the past, the swastika has been for thousands of years the symbol of the sun, of continuing re-creation and of infinity. Swastikas have been found on relics unearthed at the site of Troy, woven into Inca textiles and scrawled in the catacombs of Rome. Only to the generation that grew up after Alexandra’s death has the meaning of the swastika been perverted and the symbol transformed into a despised emblem of violence, intolerance and terror.
* There is a story told by General Spiridovich which has all the quality of a fairy tale except that Spiridovich, a sternly practical and conscientious policeman, filled his book with nothing but pre
cise and exhaustive descriptions of fact. The story is this:
Late one night in the room of the Peterhof palace set aside for the receiving of petitions, General Orlov heard a strange sound coming from the anteroom. He found a girl hiding there, sobbing. Throwing herself on the floor before him, she explained that her fiancé had been condemned to death and that he would be executed the next morning. He was a student, she said, who had tuberculosis and who had gotten mixed up in revolutionary activities. Just before his arrest, he had tried to extricate himself from the movement, but had forcibly been prevented from doing so. He would die anyway in a short time from his disease. Clutching Orlov about the knees, her eyes brimming with tears, she begged him to ask the Tsar for a pardon.
Moved by her plea, Orlov decided to act despite the lateness of the hour. He ordered a troika and dashed to the Alexandra Villa, where the Tsar was staying. Bursting through the door, he was stopped by a valet who told him that the Tsar already had retired. Nevertheless, Orlov insisted. A few minutes later, Nicholas appeared in his pajamas and asked quietly, “What is happening?” Orlov told him the story.
“I thank you very much for acting the way you did,” said Nicholas. “One must never hesitate when one has the chance to save the life of a man. Thank God that neither your conscience nor mine will have anything to reproach themselves for.” Quickly, he wrote a telegram to the Minister of Justice: “Defer the execution of S. Await orders.” He handed the paper to a court messenger and added, “Run!”
Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty Page 17