by Coryne Hall
On 18 November Mathilde danced one of the fairies in Sleeping Beauty, with several Grand Dukes in the audience. After the performance she brought Tchaikovsky on to the stage behind the lowered curtain, where he was to be honoured with the presentation of a crown for the fiftieth performance of the ballet. Mathilde said she then disappeared backstage to talk to the Tsarevich and was late for the presentation. This incident caused much gossip.
By now people were making jokes about the Tsarevich’s relationship with the ballerina. On 6 December, Nicholas’s name day, the Maryinsky Theatre staged the first performance of Tchaikovsky’s opera Iolanthe in the presence of Alexander III and the entire court. When the baritone sang the aria ‘Who can compare with my Matilda?’ the audience sniggered.
Despite Mathilde’s determination, and the knowing assumptions of St Petersburg society, consummating the affair proved agonisingly difficult. On 25 December she wrote in her diary: ‘First day of the celebrations, but Malechka is sad, and it is understandable, she still has not seen dear Nikki. When? …’8
On 4 January 1893 Mathilde replaced the Italian ballerina Antonietta dell’Era, dancing the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker. Afterwards Nicholas spent ‘two excellent hours’ with ‘marvellous MK’. He noted in his diary, ‘she has become prettier and put on weight’,9 but still the affair was not consummated.
Mathilde was frustrated by Nicholas’s indecisiveness. On 8 January he visited the house ‘and we had a serious talk’10 – in fact an argument. Nicholas sat opposite Mathilde, ‘not like someone in love with me, but somebody indecisive, not understanding the bliss of love’. Although during the summer he had spoken of a more intimate relationship, suddenly he began to say the opposite. ‘Now he says he doesn’t want to be my first. That it would torment him his whole life. That if I was not still a virgin he would not hesitate.’ Mathilde was astounded. ‘But what did I feel listening to him, I am no fool and I understand that Nicky did not speak honestly. He cannot be my first! Ridiculous! Is it possible for a person who is passionately in love to talk like that? Of course not, he is just afraid to be tied to me for the rest of his life, if he was my first.’ Finally, she almost succeeded in convincing him. ‘He said, “it is time …”’ and ‘promised it will happen in a week’s time, as soon as he returns from Berlin’.11
Nicholas was stalling. Princess Alix would also be in Berlin for the marriage of the Kaiser’s sister Margaret on 13/25 January. Although Nicholas and Alix had not met since 1889, they had corresponded and her sister Ella often acted as a go-between. Now Nicholas’s parents had given him permission to ascertain Alix’s feelings and he needed an opportunity to speak to her alone. If there was any hope of marriage a full-blown liaison with Mathilde would complicate matters. Things had reached this impasse when Mathilde scored her greatest triumph of the season.
On 17 January Mathilde Kschessinska became the first Russian ballerina to dance Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, one of Petipa’s great classical ballets, created for Carlotta Brianza in 1890. Partnered by Nicolai Legat, Kschessinska appeared elegant, sparkling with real diamonds, displaying ‘masses of fire, strength, audacity in double turns, aplomb, strong pointes’, reported the St Petersburg Gazette.12 Yet what meant more than anything to Mathilde was the praise of Tchaikovsky, who came to her dressing room to offer his congratulations personally and said he would compose a ballet for her. Alas, Tchaikovsky died from cholera later that year before it could be written.
Nicholas returned from Berlin in the middle of January without having had a chance to speak to Alix. By 22 January Mathilde still had not seen him. She waited sadly and anxiously for the evening, hoping he would be at the French Theatre. She was not disappointed. As she left the box Mathilde noticed Nicholas staring at her. Unfortunately, although she wanted to hurry home, it was a long time before a carriage was called. Finally Mathilde set off. She was overtaken on the road by Joseph, who called out that Nicholas was on his way. In her diary Mathilde recorded her excitement at the thought of seeing him soon. When she reached the house his coat was already in the hall. With him were Baron Zeddeler and Sandro. ‘I arrived very cheerful as I was already happy that Nicky was looking a lot at me in the theatre and I had a bit of time to reassure myself as to why Nicky had not come to me before.’13
The following evening he again visited the house. At first Julie was there with Zeddeler, but then Nicholas and Mathilde were left alone. Still nothing happened. ‘I will insist it be my way,’ wrote Mathilde, ‘no matter how difficult it could be.’14
Nicholas’s diary is discreet on the subject of his relationship with Mathilde. He was writing for history, knowing that because of his position it would eventually be read by others. Phrases like ‘sat together nicely’, or ‘spent an excellent time’, give no hint of exactly when they became intimate. The only clue is an entry in the diary from which it appears that Mathilde may finally have triumphed in the bedroom on 25 January: ‘This evening flew to my MK and spent the very best evening with her up to now. I am still under her spell – the pen is shaking in my hand!’15 The long-awaited consummation of their affair had apparently taken place. As her brother Joseph later wrote in his unpublished memoirs, ‘she helped to establish his sexual identity by releasing him from unhealthy compromises with the flesh and his increasing fear of women’.16
Now their meetings settled into a routine. Nicholas usually arrived in time for supper and Mathilde stood by the window to watch him ride up. Sometimes he came alone, sometimes with the three Michaelovichi Grand Dukes. Mathilde occasionally invited other friends such as Count Andrei Shouvalov, Vera Legat, Olga Preobrajenska, or Nicholas Figner, a tenor from the Maryinsky Theatre. ‘Set off to Mathilde and Julie Kschessinsky where I had supper as usual,’ Nicholas wrote. Afterwards they talked and played baccarat. Sometimes Nicholas remained behind. ‘Visited MK and remained until morning.’17
‘She wasn’t beautiful, her legs were too short,’ recalled one of the dancers. ‘But her eyes! Two pools. She was enticing, a little temptress … Because of her eyes she was called the “fairy of the Parc des Cerfs”: the French King Louis XV had kept his harem at the Parc des Cerfs.’18 She certainly knew how to entice the Tsarevich.
Nicholas recorded the progress of the affair. Between January and July 1893 he visited Mathilde’s house twenty times and on at least six of these occasions it is possible to establish that he stayed all night. Only once during this period did he attend the ballet without calling on her afterwards. He visited her at the theatre three times and noted twice that he was thinking about her. ‘At 12 o’clock set off to MK, with whom I stayed until 4 o’clock. Chatted a lot, laughed and spent a lot of time with each other.’ A few days later they spent ‘a marvellous 3 hours’ together.19 They led a quiet life, seeing only close friends. He began to spend a large part of the evening with Mathilde whenever the opportunity arose, treating her house as a second home, although they never actually lived together. When Mathilde was performing the Tsarevich came backstage afterwards to praise her dancing. Sometimes he did not attend, so as not to create unnecessary suspicion. ‘Had a bite to eat at 7.30, just at the time Sleeping Beauty was beginning, and my thoughts were there since MK was appearing as the principal character.’20
Mathilde enjoyed profiting from her relationship with Nicholas. The presents increased. There was a diamond brooch, and a necklace of large diamonds (which she often wore on stage), as well as other valuable gifts. She became spoilt, began to put on airs, act ‘royally’ and make demands in the theatre. An instruction from the Imperial Household informed the Director of the Imperial Theatres that Kschessinska was to have veto rights over productions and casting, including first choice of any roles she desired. ‘Kschessinska had a swollen head from the time she became special,’ said General Alexander Bogdanovich.21 Yet when she asked Petipa for Virginia Zucchi’s old role of Esmeralda she was refused. Only those who had suffered in love, he explained, could dance this role successfully. Mathilde would recall his words late
r – and understand.
‘She is … pretty, very lively and frivolous,’ wrote General Bogdanovich, who had an influential St Petersburg salon. ‘The Tsarevich said to this “Mala” that he asked the Tsar not to marry for two years. She is boasting of her relationship with him to everyone.’22
The affair had now reached its peak and was the talk of St Petersburg. Alexei Souvorin recorded on 8 February 1893 that when the Tsarevich visited the Kschessinsky apartment her parents withdrew and pretended not to notice. Souvorin, publisher of the influential New Times in St Petersburg, was mistaken. Mathilde was established in her own house.
This had naturally come to the attention of the Okhrana, the Tsar’s secret police. According to Count Lamsdorff, Nicholas visited Mathilde at night and preferred to return from her house on foot, incognito. For security reasons he was shadowed by the Okhrana. Nicholas complained to General Wahl about what he called surveillance and it was even alleged that he threatened to ‘crush the face’ of any of these observers he noticed.23 Nevertheless, the Okhrana agents continued to report that he crept back to the Anichkov only at dawn.
Lamsdorff also said that the Emperor and Empress had only recently become aware of Nicholas’s true relationship with Mathilde. The Imperial children certainly thought that their parents were unaware of what was going on. The Empress often complained that she seldom saw her eldest son, yet it would surely not have been difficult to learn from the police where Nicholas had been when he returned very late, or even the following morning.
On 11 March Mathilde and Nicholas had supper together as usual. Both were in high spirits. It was, as Nicholas later noted, the first anniversary of the day he had called at her parents’ apartment. A few days later he left for the Crimea. ‘It is very sad to part after only two months’ reunion.’24
Nicholas was captivated by the ballerina (‘spent the night ideally’ is a typical diary entry)25 but he never forgot his duty to his parents and Russia. Although Mathilde often told Nicholas that his character was not strong enough to rule the Russian empire she always denied suggesting that he renounce his rights to the throne to marry her, nor is there any indication that he ever wished to do so. Mathilde was just a diversion. Nevertheless, a story has persisted that Nicholas wanted to marry Mathilde and that he would then inherit the Crown of Poland, instead of the whole Russian Empire. Mathilde is said to have been unable to accept such a sacrifice. Any permanent liaison with the dancer was out of the question – and in the background, as always, lurked the spectre of Princess Alix of Hesse.
In the third week of June the Tsarevich went to London for the marriage of his cousin George, Duke of York and Princess May of Teck on 23 June/6 July. Mathilde believed that Princess Alix, the Duke of York’s cousin, would be staying with her grandmother Queen Victoria and attending the wedding. She was worried. Since his return from the Crimea on 17 May, Nicholas had spent only one evening at her house.
Princess Catherine Radziwill, who was in London for the Season, reported that the Tsarevich’s mistress followed him to England: ‘Unknown to Nicholas, the Polish dancer to whom he was very attached had followed him to London. When he found out he visited her every spare moment. The police found out and the Queen was asked to intervene. Her courage failed her and she asked the Russian Ambassador, Monsieur de Staal, to do it “mildly, very mildly”.’26
Princess Radziwill’s report needs to be regarded with caution, not least because Nicholas’s grandparents, King Christian IX of Denmark and his wife the formidable Queen Louise, were also in London for the wedding. He must have known that any hint of scandal would reach the ears of his parents in St Petersburg. The whole incident seems unlikely. Mathilde made no mention of a visit to London in her published memoirs (which of course proves nothing) but in fact Princess Alix declined to attend the wedding, telling Queen Victoria that the trip would be too expensive.
Mathilde, probably more in wishful thinking, described Nicholas’s feelings for Alix as ‘a vague feeling’, ignoring the evidence to the contrary in Nicholas’s published diaries and letters which she studied before writing her memoirs. She said the Tsarevich often read her the passages in his diary concerning his feelings for her and those for the princess. ‘He was very fascinated with me, he liked the surroundings of our meetings, and absolutely loved me passionately.’27 Yet Mathilde knew that sooner or later he would be pressurised to marry a princess, who would have to convert to the Orthodox religion. In the meantime, she could only hope that the available princesses would refuse to convert so that there could be no marriage.
Although the affair undoubtedly brought happiness to Mathilde, there were also negative aspects. She was disillusioned when he was unable to visit, and sometimes there were anonymous insults. Worse still, Nicholas’s affection was apparently beginning to wane.
In the summer of 1893 Mathilde apologised sadly for being unable to keep a rendezvous. She could not even explain why, as it was inappropriate in a letter. ‘Apart from this there is something else that made me sad – who did you look at for so long in the stalls on the right in the binoculars? … Did you notice that after you looked at me I turned away? I do not know if you understood why I did this?’
She went on to thank him for the wonderful bouquet of flowers, saying that she found this attention very touching. Nicholas was a true gentleman, always kind and thoughtful towards her. Mathilde did not know how to thank him sufficiently. ‘I am terribly bored if I do not see you, the time drags endlessly!’ she added.28
The Krasnoe Selo season was approaching. It was difficult for Nicholas to leave camp and visit her house so Mathilde decided to rent a villa near Krasnoe Selo. Having found a suitable property by the Duderhof Lake, it was then made clear to her that it would give rise to all sorts of gossip if she lived too near the camp.
Instead she settled at Koerevo, in an unusual triangular villa surrounded by a thick forest far from town. The house was situated down a wide avenue and reached by an imposing flight of steps. In the daytime it was secluded and pleasant, but at night it seemed threatening. Too terrified to sleep alone, Mathilde and Julie shared a bedroom. The cook slept on the uninhabited floor above. On one of the first nights they were awakened by a noise outside the window. Certain that someone was trying to get in, they lay there, too terrified to move, until finally dropping off to sleep. In the morning they discovered that a branch had been vibrating against the window pane. They asked the manservant and his wife, whose room was at the other end of the house, to sleep in the room next door in case of need.
To Mathilde’s distress the Krasnoe Selo season did not have the same appeal as the previous year. Nicholas only visited her villa twice. The first time, 3 July, she was notified and was able to wait for him. The second time he rode over from the camp unannounced, only to find that Mathilde was attending a rehearsal in St Petersburg.
The manoeuvres over, the Tsarevich left for Denmark on 10 August. In November he received a letter from Princess Alix telling him she could not change her religion and marry him. Nevertheless, Mathilde’s heart was filled with foreboding for the future.
Mathilde had profited from the absence of the Italian ballerinas to make her mark on the St Petersburg stage and in the autumn of 1893 she was promoted to Prima Ballerina at a salary of 3,000 roubles.29 Several times the Tsarevich’s diary mentioned watching ‘a marvellous Sleeping Beauty’ danced by Kschessinska. ‘Scandals and clashes with other artists became normal’ for Mathilde30 as her influence grew.
Then, towards the end of 1893, the Italian Pierina Legnani was appointed Prima Ballerina assoluta at the Maryinsky Theatre. At her debut in Cinderella she caused a sensation by turning thirty-two fouettés (throwing one leg to the side and whipping it round while turning) on one spot. This step, taught at the school in Milan, left the Russians stunned.
The Italians were real virtuosos. ‘Their tours, their pirouettes, their fouettés, were all superior to our own,’ recalled Nicolai Legat. ‘Their manners … often lacked grace; the
irs was a school of “tours de force’‘; taste was sacrificed to effect a dexterity.’31 Nevertheless, they proved technically superior to the Russians. Legnani was the first serious competition Mathilde had encountered in her rise to the top, and she was jealous. The race was now on among the Russian ballerinas to learn the Italian ‘tricks’. Most soon mastered the art of keeping the head turned towards the audience during pirouettes (a turn on one leg with the supporting leg kept straight), but performing thirty-two fouettés was a different matter.
Mathilde and the other Russian dancers flocked to Cecchetti’s studio but, try as they might, they were unable to master the secret. Finally, Nicolai Legat was asked to partner Legnani when Pavel Gerdt was ill. They soon became friends and often danced together. As they practised, Legat observed how Legnani held her body and flicked her head around as she turned. He passed the secret to Mathilde. At her first effort she was able to turn a dozen times. Then, working systematically with Legat, she mastered the full thirty-two. Soon afterwards Mathilde Kschessinska became the first Russian ballerina to perform thirty-two fouettés on the stage of the Maryinsky Theatre. The audience went wild in a display of patriotic rejoicing, and the ovation did not subside until Mathilde, with perfect aplomb, coolly gave an encore. She was thrilled. ‘And on the following morning,’ recorded Legat, ‘I received the gift of a gold cigar-case and a note of grateful thanks from a certain very exalted personage.’32 When Legat was promoted to Soloist to His Imperial Majesty in 1896 it was widely attributed to the influence of Mathilde in gratitude for his excellent partnering and for teaching her the thirty-two fouettés.