But here is one other particular notebook. It is also a collection of utterances, true from a somewhat unlikely philosopher who ruled over the mind and soul of the brilliantly educated Alix H.: the half-literate Russian peasant Grigory Rasputin.
The English Alix, the daughter of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, Louis IV, was born in Darmstadt in May 1872.
Hills grown up in forest descended into the misty valley of the Rhine, places beloved of Goethe. Here lay Darmstadt, the tiny capital of a tiny German state, the grand duchy of Hesse. At the season of Alix’s birth the town would have been drowning in flowers, and in the palace museum hung a tender Madonna of Hans Holbein.
Alix’s father, Louis IV, sovereign of Hesse, was married to Alice, daughter of the English Queen Victoria. The Exalted English Alice was renowned for her fanatical (albeit wholly platonic) passion for the famous German philosopher and theologian David Strauss. Her worship of Strauss was a deification reminiscent of her daughter’s future deification of Rasputin. Both the nerves and the dreadful headaches—everything that led Alice to an early grave—remind us very much of the portrait of her daughter Alix. The mother passed down more than just her name.
To this familial exaltation was added the dark memory of the ages. In the blood of Alix H. flowed the blood of Queen Mary Stuart.
Alix’s mother died at age thirty-five, leaving a large family, of whom Alix was the youngest. Her oldest sister, Victoria, married Prince Louis of Battenberg, who would become commander-in-chief of the British Navy; her second sister, Ella, would marry Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. Finally Irène, the third sister, became the wife of Prince Henry, her first cousin and the brother of German Emperor Wilhelm II. Thus, by forging familial bonds, these Hesse princesses would unite the Russian, English, and German royal houses.
After her mother’s death, Alix’s grandmother took the child under her wing. Her grandmother, the English Queen Victoria, observed the constitution scrupulously. Power belonged to Parliament, sage counsel to the queen.
Alix H. was one of the liberal queen’s favorite granddaughters.
A pale blond little beauty. For her radiant nature her mother called her “Sunny.” For her mischief and recalcitrance, the German court had called her spitzbube (“scamp,” “troublemaker”). Was the orphan, taken away from her sisters, brother, and father, really so very lighthearted and gay? Or is that how her grandmother Victoria chose to see her? And did Alix, with the cunning of a child, make a point of playing up to her grandmother’s expectations?
She was a troublemaker, however.
Queen Victoria did not favor the German princes, especially Emperor Wilhelm. And Alix, who spoke and thought in English, must have smiled at the old queen’s caustic jokes. But she must have missed them as well—her father, her brother Ernie, and the blooming Hesse landscape. And her family. That large family that fell apart when she was six years old.
When she married she would attempt to re-create the same kind of large family.
The lonely girl made the circuit of the royal courts of her numerous relatives.
In 1884 twelve-year-old Alix was brought to Russia.
Her sister Ella was marrying Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. Her cousin, the future German Emperor Wilhelm II (“Uncle Willy”) followed beautiful blond Alix’s debut at the Russian court closely. The wedding of Sergei Alexandrovich—the brother of the Russian tsar to a German princess—could have a reprise. The heir to the Russian throne was already sixteen, and the Hesse line occupied a special place in the history of the Romanov family. Emperor Paul’s first wife, who died in childbirth, had come from that line. And Empress Maria Alexandrovna, Nicholas’s grandmother, was also a princess of Hesse-Darmstadt.
This was how they came to meet for the first time: Alix and Nicky. It was an idyll: he fell in love with her at first sight. And there was a day when they found themselves in Peterhof, at Alexandria, the small imperial dacha.
Much later, a year after their marriage, Nicholas and Alix would come back to Alexandria, and Nicholas would write in his diary, “Rained the entire day, after coffee we went upstairs … we saw the window we had both cut our names into in 1884.” (She liked to draw on glass with the precious stone on her ring. One can see her signature on the grand windows of the Winter Palace.)
Subsequently they would come to love old Alexandria, which preserved a precious memory.
A window and a couple. They were looking out at that day in 1884. Standing at a window at the inception of their destiny.
It was after this that Nicholas spoke with his sister Xenia, the only one with whom the not very sociable English-Hessian princess had become friendly. And Xenia gave him her advice.
He asked his mother for a diamond brooch, which he gave to Alix. She accepted it. Nicholas was happy, but he did not know Alix H. Her consciousness had been formed in the puritanical English court. Uncompromising, militantly stern, and proud—these were the necessary attributes of an English princess. Alix decided she had acted improperly. The next day, while dancing with him at a children’s ball in Anichkov Palace, she stabbed the brooch into his hand. Silently, without a word.
Also without a word, Nicholas gave the brooch to his sister Xenia.
Only to take it back ten years later.
This brooch would know a terrible fate.
It would be five years before Alix H., now seventeen, would appear at the Russian court again. Ostensibly she had come to see her sister Ella. In fact, she was being inspected as a prospective bride. All those years he had clung to his memory of the young beauty, and now he had got his way.
“Devoid of charm, wooden, cold eyes, holds herself as if she’d swallowed a yardstick”—this was the court’s obliging sentence. It was made known that the empress-mother did not like the princess. The voice of the empress-mother always rang out when the emperor-father did not want his own heard.
It was all a simple matter of politics. Alexander’s policy was alliance between Russia and France. The princess from the house of Orléans, the daughter of the Comte de Paris—that was the desired party right now. Moreover, Alix’s English upbringing (England, the eternal symbol of liberalism) might revive the hopes of the liberal party, which Alexander and Pobedonostsev had smothered.
No one in the country or the family dared cross the powerful emperor. Especially the soft-spoken Nicky, who hated conflict. Father and son had a serious talk at Peterhof, and Nicky meekly agreed not to insist on marrying Alix, but.… But he adamantly rejected the Orléans princess. He chose a third path: to wait, silently, without complaint or hope. To wait until the Lord joined him to Alix. That was the only possible way: very quiet and meek—but rebellious.
His diary of 1889 opens with a photograph of the young Alix, which he pasted in after she was gone. He had begun to wait.
Her sister Ella (after her conversion to Orthodoxy, Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna) helped him out of his unpleasant situation with the rejected Alix. It was announced that there could be no question of any prospective marriage: Alix had no intention of converting.
Alix returned to England. But what was most surprising was that she did so with a strange relief. She told herself: My sister is right, I cannot convert so simply. Faith occupied too great a place in her life.
On the blond princess’s next visit, a year later, the unhappy Nicholas was not permitted to see her.
Alix H. stayed with her sister Ella at Ilinskoe, Ella’s estate outside Moscow.
“20 August 1890. Lord! Am dying to go to Ilinskoe.… Otherwise, if not now, then I might have to wait an entire year to see her, and that is hard!!!”
Ilinskoe exists to this day, outside Moscow. Alix stayed at the estate a few weeks and watched with astonishment. The ties between Darmstadt, London, and Petersburg were too close not to know the details about each other: Ella’s marriage was fictitious because of her husband’s inclinations, and she was never to have a child. At the same time Sergei Alexandrovich tormented her with his drinking bout
s and groundless jealousy. Alix was astonished to see that her sister nonetheless was happy; her eyes shone. Ella loved her husband because the Lord so ordained. Her love for her unlucky husband was the fulfillment of the Lord’s commandments. The transitory joys of life and the eternal joy of serving God.
The church still stands at Ilinskoe. Then candles burned there, singers’ voices rang out, and the two sisters stood in the sanctuary.
Nicholas continued his meek rebellion. He carried out Papa’s order, but.… He could be forbidden to see her but not to wait for her.
“21 December 1890. This evening with Mama we discussed the family life of today’s young society people. Unintentionally this conversation brushed a most vital chord in my soul, the dream and hope that carries me from one day to the next. Already a year and a half has gone by since discussed this with Papa at Peterhof, and nothing has changed in either the bad or the good sense. My dream is one day to marry Alix H. Have loved her for a long time, but even more deeply and strongly since 1889, when she spent 6 weeks of the winter in Petersburg. Have fought my feeling for a long time, trying to deceive myself with the impossibility of my cherished dream coming true.… The only obstacle or gap between her and me is the matter of religion. Other than that barrier there is no other, am nearly convinced that our feelings are mutual. All is up to God’s will, and am putting my trust in his mercy, calmly and meekly, looking to the future.”
He was sent away to travel and forget the whole business.
“The Mediterranean Sea, the Adriatic, Venice.… Life truly is a holiday! A ball! A ball!”
When Nicholas returned to Petersburg his father realized that nothing had changed—and it was time to act.
Soon in Nicholas’s diary yet another important character would appear: “Little K.”
“I’VE FALLEN MADLY IN LOVE … WITH LITTLE K.”
All the brilliant Guards officers, the imperial suite, and the imperial family belonged to the famous Yacht Club. It was in March 1890 that the name of Little K. was heard there for the first time.
All the club members were balletomanes. For a century the Rossi Street colonnade, where the Petersburg ballet school was located, had been a favorite spot for the dandies of the capital to take the air. It was an old tradition of the Petersburg elite to have a ballerina for a mistress.
Like the Guards, the ballet was closely linked with the court.
Grand Duke X. (various names could be substituted here) fell in love with a ballerina, lived with her openly, bought her a house, and fathered her children. The list of these scandalous tales was long. The director of the imperial theaters had to be a diplomat and strategist, always current on the complicated disposition of relationships between his wards and the members of the imperial family. Arriving at the ballet, the public first turned to notice the “imperial presence”: which member of the imperial family was sitting in the imperial box. This often determined a ballerina’s status.
——
Vera Leonidovna Yureneva:
“She wasn’t beautiful, her legs were too short. But her eyes! Two pools. She was enticing, a little temptress. She had studied with the Italians and was magnificent technically. She once danced thirty-two fouettés and, after a storm of applause, sweetly danced thirty-two more. Someone said about her: ‘She loved ballet in general and life in particular.’ On the contrary: she loved ballet in particular and life in general. All her life she aspired to become a great ballerina, but she never was considered great.… In society at that time it was fashionable to show one’s displeasure: she was doomed to the audience’s disfavor the moment the future tsar fell in love with her. My ballerina girlfriend tried to have her hissed off the stage.… This was duly noted.… And at her own performance my girlfriend received a huge bouquet of flowers and a note: ‘Mathilde Kschessinska thanks you very much.’ She could be splendid. 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.”
It was a ballet family. Her father was the Pole Felix Kschessinski, who had taught all of Petersburg high society to dance the mazurka. He produced ballets and himself had danced with all the famous ballerinas of his day. By the end of the century, his children were already dancing on the imperial stage, Iosif and Yulia (or Kschessinska the First, as they would call her when her younger sister’s star skyrocketed).
Nicholas’s diary:
“23 March 1890. Took a carriage to Elagin Island to see a stable of young horses. Came back in a new troika. Had a bite to eat at 8. Went to a performance at the theatrical institute. There were some short plays and a ballet.
“We had a fine supper with the pupils.”
Behind this awkward sentence lies the beginning of the romance.
Mathilde Kschessinska was born in 1872. She would die in Paris in 1971, just shy of one hundred years. In Paris she would write her memoirs, the touching story of the love of a young ballerina for the heir to the throne. She would write about that evening of March 23, 1890, as well, about an evening in vanished Atlantis.
After the graduation performance and ball, which the emperor and the heir attended, the tables were set. Unexpectedly they stayed for supper. They were seated at a separate table and suddenly the tsar said: “And where is Kschessinska the Second?”
The young ballerina was brought to the tsar’s table; the sovereign paid her several compliments and added that he knew her father. The emperor-father himself seated the young ballerina next to the heir and added jokingly: “Only please don’t flirt too much.” To the young ballerina’s amazement, Nicholas sat by her the entire evening without saying a word. His tender blue eyes watched her helplessly.
Let us switch from Kschessinska’s romantic tale to prosaic narrative. So the tsar himself sat the girl next to his son and even offered some advice: “Just don’t flirt.” He could scarcely have made himself any clearer.
Vera Yureneva: “This was common. When young boys from wealthy families were coming of age, a beautiful and, even more important, pure servant would be brought into the house. This was a dangerous era.”
Indeed, syphilis carried away young men by the thousands. Heavy drinking, homosexuality, and brothels were a part of life in the Guards. But the heir’s health affected the destiny of the entire country. The affair with the Jewess had been an ominous warning, and the father of the family and the country had decided to take action. Kschessinska was a brilliant candidate: a romance with a future ballet star could only enhance the young man’s biography. But still, the main thing was to make him forget the Hesse princess. The visit to the institute had been devised for just that purpose.
Did the young ballerina understand the rules of the game? Or for her was it all, in fact, cast in a romantic light: the heir, the tsarevich! But then the game was being orchestrated by adults. Whatever the scenario, this was a game.
Only in the summer did the little girl with the big eyes manage to resume the romance. In June 1890 Mathilde Kschessinska was accepted into the troupe of the Mariinsky Imperial Theater. Guards training, in which Nicholas was taking part, went on at Krasnoe Selo, where the imperial ballet danced the summer season.
She knew it would happen during the intermission: the grand dukes liked to come backstage, and he would probably come with them, because she knew he wanted to come.
And he did. So they met backstage. He was talking incoherently, and she was still waiting. The next day he was backstage again, and again—nothing. Once during an intermission she was detained, and when she ran out onto the stage, flushed, eyes blazing, so afraid was she of missing her timid admirer, he had already left. When he did see her he burst out with a jealous, helpless “I’m certain you were only flirting!” And, flustered, ran out. Thus he declared himself.
The tsar’s family had the first box on the left, which was practically on the stage. Dancing nearby, the new ballerina Kschessinska the Second devoured the heir, who was sitting in the box alongside his father, with her huge e
yes. What was most surprising was that she evoked no displeasure from the terrible emperor. From that moment the director of the imperial theaters took pains to ensure that any available parts went to this ballerina. In a very short time she would win the place of prima donna in the imperial ballet.
“17 June. Detachment maneuvers. Like Kschessinska the Second quite well.”
“30 June. Krasnoe Selo. The growing affair has heated up powerfully.… Was at the theater, talked with little K. at the window [of the box].”
In Paris she recalled how he stood at the box window and she onstage down front. And again the conversation ended in a delightful nothing. Later he came to say goodbye: he was leaving for a trip around the world.
“Went for the last time to the dear Krasnoe Selo theater to say goodbye to K. Dined with Mama until 1.”
She did not understand him. But it was all so simple: he was saving himself for Alix H.
Little K. read the newspapers daily—she was following his travels. News came that left Petersburg dumbfounded: a Japanese policeman had attacked the heir on the street of a small Japanese town and tried to behead him with a sword. By a miracle, Nicholas had survived.
The capital was full of rumors. Fantastic stories about inadmissible courting by a most adventuresome Nicholas. (Well aware of her timid admirer’s character, Little K. did not believe it possible.) Finally the attacker was declared an insane fanatic.
“27 April 1891. Arrived in Kyoto. My eyes didn’t know where to look first, such were the wonders. Watched archery and horseracing in ancient costumes.… At 9 set out with Georgie [the Greek Prince George, who had accompanied him on his travels] for a teahouse. Georgie danced, provoking gales of laughter from the geishas.”
“Even in my dreams the waters of the Gion [the teahouse quarter in Kyoto] flow under my pillow.… Hundreds of geishas filled Gion’s narrow streets. The teahouses’ residents are brocade dolls in kimonos woven with gold thread. Japanese erotica is more refined and subtle than the crude proffers of love on European streets.… The tea ceremony ends.… All that follows remains a secret.”
The Last Tsar Page 3