November 1916

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  The very idea of opening and reading the letter repelled him.

  He would have to tell Alix about this visit in his daily letter, but hated the thought and wished he could avoid it.

  Bedtime came—but sleep did not. He had always slept soundly, but it looked like this was going to be a wakeful night: he was too worked up, too agitated to sleep.

  He knew that Mama agreed with Nikolai Mikhailovich—indeed that she had authorized him to speak as he had. His sister Olga too (although she had said nothing when she asked his consent to her divorce and remarriage). As well as his sister Ksenia and her husband, Sergo, once such a close friend. He could think of other members of the royal family who would join this hostile semicircle.

  “An era of assassination attempts!” This from the lips of a Grand Duke!

  Many letters denouncing Rasputin reached GHQ, but all of them anonymous, which did not enhance the credibility of their authors. The imperial family itself was not spared in the insinuations, but no noble person could believe such slanders, which must rebound on those who spread them. True, Dzhunkovsky had once reported that Rasputin had been seen drinking heavily in a restaurant, but if that was made a reason for punishment, how many members of the upper class would remain unscathed?

  Rasputin, of course, might have his faults, like any other human being. But he laid claim to no official post, nor to a stipend (such as the Grand Dukes all received). It was a private matter for the imperial couple. She had a right to her private attachments, even if they were weaknesses, and who was any the worse for them? Why did everyone attach so much importance to them? It was as if a volcanic eruption of hatred for Grigori had set high society and the educated public ablaze. Their own furious malice was the only possible explanation. Such violent hatred could have no other. The Emperor could not in reply lower himself by making excuses, could not tell anyone how important this man was to the Empress’s morale. Nikolai himself was not sure whether Grigori was responsible for healing the Heir’s sickness on various occasions, but Alix believed in him passionately, and her belief sustained her. In any case, the Heir’s sickness was never named. Its nature was a jealously guarded secret. So that this could not be advanced as a reason for Rasputin’s position.

  In fact, after his conversation with Grigori the Emperor was firmly of the opinion that this peasant had a sounder view of things than very many public servants, courtiers—or Grand Dukes. He was a guileless and upright representative of the real people and one who knew what the people needed. Listening to him was very instructive and refreshing. How often he had urged the Emperor to beware of futile losses, not to beat his head against a wall, something which many bemedaled generals failed to understand. Grigori had, for instance, recommended halting the Brusilov offensive just at the right time—after which there had been heavy losses at Kovel and no further advance. (Russia’s generals were sometimes so thoughtless, irrational, idiotic even, ignorant of the rudiments of military science, that the Emperor was almost reduced to utter despair. But what could he do with them? They were all that he had.)

  Then again—Grigori spoke so eloquently, so beautifully even, about religious matters.

  But very shortly the Emperor would not be able to avoid another interview with a Grand Duke, this time with Nikolasha (Nikolai Nikolaevich). He was determined to visit GHQ—and the commander in chief of the Caucasian Army Group could hardly be forbidden to do so after a fifteen-month absence. (Alix was very much against his visit, told her husband to receive him coldly, to be firm with him, and not to be trapped into making promises.) It had in fact been longer than fifteen months since they had met. When the Emperor took over from Nikolasha at GHQ, instead of meeting him he had written a letter to say that he forgave the Grand Duke for all his mistakes, for all the losses, the setbacks and disasters at the front, and that the Emperor’s love and trust remained unchanged. In reality, as they crossed the barrier of flame which was the summer of 1915, the feelings of both men were exposed to great strain and great heat. The scars which both bore were still clearly visible.

  Although the Emperor’s decision to take command of the army was his own, the realization of an ambition long secretly cherished, his will might have failed him in the uncertainties of that August and faced with universal opposition. Even now it was embarrassing to remember the disproportionate part Grigori had played in supporting him. (Alix was forever reminding him that it was Grigori who had then saved Russia.) Nikolasha also remembered all this only too well, and as one of those who hated Grigori most violently, was very likely to hark back to it when they met.

  The Emperor’s heart ached. The next grand-ducal visit promised another unpleasant conversation, in which he would be unable either to reply or to express his own feelings.

  Such conversations, interviews, audiences were the main content of the monarch’s hemmed-in and hard-pressed existence. Supposedly all-powerful, he could not choose to whom or about what he would talk.

  He had been left very little room for maneuver. Among other things he could not remove useless generals: there were no replacements, and he must not create chaos. Nor could he flout the opinion of Alekseev and the Army Group commanders in directing military operations. Nor was he free to leave Mogilev when he pleased, particularly when there were setbacks, as at present in Romania. How pleasant it is not to feel tied to one spot! But such freedom was not for the Emperor. In Mogilev itself his routine was fenced in by lunches, dinners, tea parties with his staff and with representatives of the Allies, by audiences with a steady succession of visitors, and by the cramped garden in which he had too little room to exercise his strong, young, and splendidly healthy body. (Dr. Botkin had recently pronounced him even fitter than he had been two years ago.) Compelled to live in the stone cage of Mogilev, the Emperor found real relief and enjoyment only in his daily outings: in three seasons of the year driving out of town to walk to his heart’s content out in open country, and when the Dnieper was in flood indulging in his favorite sport—rowing. Although he was nearly fifty years old, it was not until last spring in Mogilev that Nikolai had witnessed that awesome spectacle—after three days of fog over the floodlands the thawing ice sailing majestically down the Dnieper. A sight to be remembered as long as you lived. And who then could deny himself the pleasure of rowing against the swift current? A thrilling challenge! Nikolai was a first-class oarsman. Two pairs were formed—the others were sailors—and they raced each other throughout the spring months. How supple his limbs felt after rowing! Then for a spin on a fast motorboat. He spent as much time as he could outdoors, to get a tan and not look like those pale-faced staff officers.

  This was an unusually warm day, not a bit like November, windless but also sunless, in fact dark under a leaden sky, but without so much as a sprinkle of rain. Such weather is depressingly gloomy when you are indoors and in town, but out in the country it is soothingly poetic: almost all the leaves had fallen, and faded from yellow to leaden gray, but here and there a few clung to the last invisible threads, awaiting the first assault of wind. Under that sky, under those clouds, the expanse of fields, scarcely visible at a distance, looked like God’s dwelling place, spacious and welcoming. It was silent, deserted. The peasant’s work was all done. The summer birds too had flown away. The soil had been loosened for winter—the ground was warm and soft to the touch. If you came upon a potato left unpicked you could dig it up without a spade, light a fire of dry stalks, and bake it. The fire would be not too big, not too bright, a quiet part of that quiet day. Good to sit around in silence.

  At such moments Nikolai forgot accursed politics altogether. Not the war—he was keenly aware of it, and of those faraway trenches in ground just like this, and of the exploding shells inaudible from where he was. But, oh God, how readily he would have surrendered his throne—if there was anyone to take his place—returned the Supreme Command to Nikolasha, and become an ordinary soldier in one of his glorious regiments, just for the right to sit like this by a campfire, burning his f
ingers on a charred potato, free from mental and emotional torment, engaged in ordinary human conversation, while he waited for orders telling him exactly what to do.

  Nikolai not only got no enjoyment from power and pomp—the more simply life was organized, the more he liked it.

  A light breeze sprang up, fanning the hot embers. They finished the potatoes, strewed earth over the ashes, dusted off their hands, and made for the town.

  As they drove there, the wind freshened. The weather was changing. That brooding calm could not be expected to last.

  His son had not accompanied him out of town. His leg was painful. But today he had his own way of amusing himself: a direct line to Tsarskoye Selo had been experimentally installed and he was trying to talk to his mother. His efforts were not very successful. The Emperor himself hated telephones and never used them if he could help it.

  Aleksei’s leg was no better. He had pulled a tendon, and the slightest injury always resulted in a disturbance of the circulation and an internal swelling. The doctor’s orders were that he should lie down. (Five days earlier he had suffered a dangerous nosebleed but fortunately they had managed to cauterize it.)

  The moment he arrived the Emperor learned that Alekseev was far from well and went to see him. Alekseev had been warned of his visit and had managed to rise. The Emperor chided him, and ordered him back to bed at once. The old man was reluctant to obey while the Emperor was in the room. He was suffering the lingering effects of an old kidney infection, combined with a high fever, and it was now obvious that he could not carry on working but would have to go away for treatment. The question of his replacement had been under discussion for some days—and he now unexpectedly suggested the commander of the Guards’ Army, General Gurko. There could obviously be no question of taking one of the Army Group commanders from his present post.

  But the Tsar regretted having to part with Alekseev. He had grown used to the general in the last fifteen months. Their daily conferences and the whole business of the Supreme Command had passed without disagreements. The Tsar, too, had grown used to Alekseev’s unmartial appearance—he looked like a lean and hungry high school teacher, Chekhov’s Belikov perhaps—to the cap with its peak jammed down over his spectacles, to his inelegant, untrimmed mustache and his querulous voice. There had never been a flare-up of anger between them, or an acute disagreement. Alekseev always gave convincing reasons for his actions, and he could not be expected to feel affection for the ministers appointed in rapid succession by the Emperor. True, Alekseev had to concern himself continually with the food supply, with transport, with metal production, so that last summer he had lost patience and recommended that the Tsar create the post of Supreme Minister for State Defense. He would be in charge on the home front, as GHQ was in the field, so that GHQ would have only one minister to deal with. This plan made good sense—but if it were adopted what would become of the Council of Ministers? And the four special consultative committees involving members of the public? There was the danger of fresh quarrels with the Duma and what was the point of irritating them unnecessarily? The Emperor vacillated for some time, but in the end shelved it. This had, however, not damaged relations with Alekseev.

  “Come on now, Mikhail Vasilievich, lie down, just as you are, with your boots on, or I won’t stay and talk to you.”

  “I’ll stay sitting down, Your Majesty, it would be harder for me to get up.”

  Alekseev’s armchair was a rather crude, well-worn, uncomfortable piece of furniture, but there was always a knitted cushion on the seat.

  Relations between them might have been damaged in the last few months by Guchkov’s letters to Alekseev. Though reluctant to believe that Alekseev had ever answered them (but perhaps?) the Emperor was hurt by his concealment of these disgusting mendacious letters: instead of showing them he had hidden them in a drawer and protested that they had not reached him. Meanwhile one of Guchkov’s letters was circulating so widely in both capitals that Alix was finally able to get hold of it and send it to her husband. And that was the first he had known about it.

  They had both felt aggrieved, but this had not spoiled their relationship. The Emperor loved this old general. (Not so very old at that—there were only eleven years between them. Yesterday was, as it happened, Alekseev’s birthday. The Emperor had remembered it and had a present ready.)

  The Emperor was vexed to think that Alekseev’s illness and departure would mean that he himself could not possibly go away. So Alix would have to come to him next week.

  They talked a little longer, and Alekseev, who had been reading the day’s newspapers, said that the Duma had behaved badly at its opening session yesterday.

  He mentioned no details, and the Emperor would have hated to ask—as much as he would have hated crossing the room to take those loathsome newspapers in his hands and scan their columns for signs of the Duma’s favor or disfavor. But he was distracted, put out, and had lost the thread of their conversation.

  He left.

  What was that wretched Rodzyanko (a court chamberlain, recipient of many decorations and honors) thinking of? Why couldn’t he keep them in hand?

  Stürmer had indeed urged him not to convene the Duma at all that autumn, to prolong the recess for another year, or to dissolve it and call fresh elections for next autumn.

  But the Emperor had considered any such measure improper and demeaning. He had nonetheless hoped that the deputies would be patriotic enough not to aggravate dissensions and difficulties at the present juncture, but to hold their peace until the war was over.

  He was upset. And worried. He could easily imagine the speeches made there, without having read them. He anxiously wondered how he was to hold out against them. What was he to do with the government? Would he be able to hold out with his present ministers? Or would he have to sacrifice someone to appease the Duma?

  There was a lack of fellow feeling and mutual trust within the government itself. His ministers, selected singly at different times and by different methods, did not all approve of each other. Perhaps old Trepov (Aleksandr), to whom the Emperor had talked on the train journey back from Tsarskoye the other day, could take over as Prime Minister. He was ready to replace Stürmer—but only on condition that Protopopov was also dismissed. And, no doubt, Bobrinsky. (Nikolai had not seen Alix since this conversation, and had not yet ventured to write to her about it. He wanted to think it over by himself first.)

  He had once placed such hopes on Stürmer! He had hoped that his appointment would be like a thunderclap. He had sternly tried to show all the ministers that Stürmer must be respected! The old man had done his best. He was honest and good and not at all stupid. But was there anybody who could please the Duma gang? Anyone who could stand up to them?

  Trepov, perhaps. He was tough enough.

  But he dreaded to think how angrily Alix would protest. She would not sacrifice Protopopov for anything in the world. (And as for Grigori …)

  He would be sorry to let Protopopov go himself, he was remarkably easy to talk to and to work with, he was never brutally importunate in word or deed (as Stolypin had been: every conversation with him had been an excruciating strain). Protopopov knew how to leave room for conjecture, for contingencies, for uncertainty, for the unspoken. An admirably smooth fellow.

  In any case, would such concessions really strengthen the government and the throne? Would they not be another admission of weakness?

  He sadly reviewed in memory the long succession of ministers whom he had sacrificed in his efforts to satisfy the insatiable Duma: dear Nikolai Maklakov, clever Shcheglovitov, honest Rukhlov, cheerful Sukhomlinov. He had even gone so far as to put his War Minister on trial in wartime! Which was as bad as indicting himself! (And had delayed Sukhomlinov’s release on bail until the very last moment.)

  And still he had not done enough to please them. Instead their importunities had become fiercer and more frenzied than before. So why had he made any concessions at all?

  The situation had beg
un to seem to him as hopelessly fraught with problems as it had been in the summer of 1915.

  Absorbed in these gloomy thoughts, and with no one at all at HQ to confide in, the Emperor still got through his daily routine and received people without betraying his feelings. These formal audiences, however, occupied his time and his attention completely, and left him exhausted.

  Meanwhile, the swelling in Baby’s leg was worse, he had difficulty in turning over, and he looked at everyone with those big eyes (his father’s eyes) accustomed to grief. He had grown used to his sad fate too early in life.

  When it was time for Aleksei to go to sleep, Nikolai stood by his bed and said a prayer, which the little boy repeated lying down.

  They slept on adjacent beds in the same little room, with religious pictures and crucifixes on the walls, and all night long the father could hear the little boy’s groans, mingling with the howling of the wind outside.

  Those groans made the father want to sob out loud or to take flight.

  The buffeting wind gave way to a steady downpour, in which there seemed to be snowflakes mingled with the rain.

  [70]

  It was unbelievable how everything had changed overnight. Yesterday’s crazy wind had cooled down, released a downpour, then blanketed Mogilev with snow, then subsided toward morning with the temperature below freezing. The snowfall had been so heavy that pedestrians had left diagonal tracks across Governor’s Square, but the yardmen were still behind with their task. The first swift sledges could be glimpsed here and there, but wheeled carts were still making ruts in the snow, and motorcars hooted impatiently, throwing up a fine spray of snow and skidding on their back wheels.

  The unexpectedness of winter’s incursion heightened its psychological effect. In this whiter, purer, sterner world Vorotyntsev could not remain troubled, perplexed, and happy all at once, as he had been only yesterday. It was in any case time for him to come to his senses after his fecklessness during his journey. He had resolved nothing, achieved nothing. Once back with his regiment he would be himself again—but not before.