They gave me time to dress warmly, and I had a moment in which to reply briefly to a note from the Emperor and Empress, in which they enclosed small pictures of Christ and the Virgin, signed with their Majesties’ initials, N. and A. When at last I was ready to go it suddenly surged over me that this might be the end of my long association with these dearly loved friends, my Sovereigns, whose intimate lives I had shared for twelve years. Ready to fall on my knees before him if necessary I made a final appeal to Colonel Korovitchinko, the new commandant of the palace, begging him to let me see them for one moment, just long enough to say good-bye. Colonel Korovitchinko, who afterwards died a cruel death at the hands of the Bolsheviki, at first refused, but moved by my tears he relented a little. The Emperor, he said, was outside and could not be summoned, but he would exert his authority far enough to send me under guard to say good-bye to the Empress. Under escort of two officers I was taken to the apartment of Mlle. Schneider, and very soon the pale Empress was wheeled into the room by her devoted attendant Volkov. We had time for only one long embrace and the hurried exchange of two rings. Then Tatiana, who came with her mother, embraced me, weeping, and as she too begged for a last memory gift I gave her the only thing I had to give, my wedding ring. Then the soldiers tore us apart but I saw that the man who gave the order did it with tears in his eyes. The last I remember was the white hand of the Empress pointing upward and her voice: “There we are always together.” Volkov, weeping, cried out courageously: “Anna Alexandrovna, God will surely help.”
They carried me downstairs to the motor, for I could neither walk nor stand, even with the help of my crutches. At the door stood several soldiers and Court servants, visibly distressed, but by this time I felt nothing, heard nothing. I was turned to stone. When I was lifted into the car I was startled to see there another woman, like myself swathed in wraps and veils. It was Lili Dehn, whose arrest had not before this day even been threatened. Dazed as I was, it was some comfort to hear her whisper that we were to travel to Petrograd together. I recovered myself a little, enough at least to recognize the frightened face of the servant who closed the door of the car. Killed a few months later, this good man had been for a long time a sailor on the Imperial yacht. “Take care of their Majesties,” I managed to say to him. Then the motor car shot forward, and I left the palace at Tsarskoe Selo forever. Both Lili and I pressed our faces to the glass in a last effort to see those beloved we were leaving behind, and through the mist and rain we could just discern a group of white-clad figures crowded close to the nursery windows to see us go. In a moment of time the picture was blotted out and we saw only the wet landscape, the storm-bent trees, the rapidly creeping twilight. In another few moments we were at the station, the dear, familiar station of Tsarskoe, where so many, many times I had waited to greet or to say a short farewell to the Emperor and Empress. Ready for us was one of the small Imperial trains, now the special train of Kerensky. Our guards hurried us into a carriage, and the train immediately began to move. At the same time our carriage was invaded by Kerensky and a group of soldiers. Without even a pretense of decent politeness the new Minister of Justice began to shout at us: “Give your family names,” and because we did not speak quickly enough the little man became insulted. “You will learn that when I ask a question you must answer promptly.” We gave our names and Kerensky, turning triumphantly to the soldiers, ejaculated: “Well! Are you convinced now?” Apparently some of the men had expressed doubts as to whether they had bagged the right criminals. Sick and half fainting, I sank back into the cushions and closed my eyes on their departing figures. Lili bent over me with her salts bottle and soon I was able to sit up with some show of courage. It was the first time I had left the house since my illness and I was still very weak.
Arrived in Petrograd, Kerensky paraded us before his officers like barbarian captives of some Roman emperor, but this did not affect us seriously. Our eyes were busy gazing at the changed aspect of Petrograd, soldiers swanking around the streets proud of their slovenly appearance, the badge of their new freedom; mobs of people running aimlessly about, or pausing to listen to street-corner orators; and everywhere on walls and buildings masses of dirty red flags. An old-fashioned coach belong to the Imperial stables had been sent for us and still closely guarded we drove to the Ministry of Justice. There we climbed a long and very steep staircase—how I did it on my crutches I do not yet understand—and were shown into a room on the third floor, empty even of a wooden chair. Silently we stood and waited, and after a time men came in carrying two sofas. On one of these Lili sat down and on the other I lay prone. Again we waited, no one near us save the unkempt soldier who guarded the door. The evening lengthened and finally Kerensky honored us with another brief visit. He did not look at me at all but asked Lili if they had built us a fire. It was an unnecessary question, for he must have felt the icy chill of the room. A few minutes later, however, a servant did build a fire in the tiled stove, and another brought in a tray with eggs and tea. Left alone with the unkempt soldier, the man suddenly amazed us by breaking into a volley of speech in which he cursed most eloquently the new order of things. Nothing good would come of it, nothing, was his opinion. Somewhat reassured because we had a guard who was not at heart a Revolutionist, we lay down, but the night brought to neither of us any anodyne of sleep and rest.
CHAPTER XVI
MORNING dawned cold and gray, and so exhausted was I with sleeplessness and the discomfort of a hard bed without linen or blankets, that Lili was alarmed and when the tea arrived she begged the soldier who brought it to have a doctor sent me. But Kerensky replied that the doctor was engaged with War Minister Goutchkoff and could not be approached at present. Within a short time I was to be removed to a hospital, and as for Mme. Dehn, she might expect good news soon. As a matter of fact Mme. Dehn was released from custody the next day. Feeling confident that she would be let go, I gave her what jewels I had brought with me, asking her to turn them over to my mother. In return Lili gave me a few necessaries, including a pair of stockings for which later I was extremely grateful because the prison stockings were so coarse and heavy that they hurt my injured leg.
About three o’clock in the afternoon Colonel Peretz, who afterwards wrote a book on the Revolution, came into the room with a group of young boys, former cadets of the military academy, now commissioned officers of the new army. “Say good-bye to your friend and come along,” I was ordered, and after a quick embrace I parted with Mme. Dehn, my last link with the past, and followed the men downstairs, where a large motor car was waiting. We all got in, the men’s rifles considerably reducing the carrying capacity of the seats. As we drove off the colonel began a long and insulting monologue to which I tried not to listen. “Ah! You and your Grichka (Gregory),” I heard him saying, “what a monument you both deserve for helping us to bring about the Revolution.” But all that I wanted to learn from him was my destination, and as if in answer to the unspoken question he said: “All night we were discussing the most appropriate lodgings for you, and we decided on the Troubetskoy Bastion in the fortress.” At this point we passed a church and, after the invariable custom, I made the sign of the cross. Colonel Peretz flamed into anger at this. “Don’t dare cross yourself,” he cried with emphasis on the last word. “Rather pray for the souls of the martyrs of the Revolution.” Then as I made no response he exclaimed: “Why don’t you answer when I speak to you?” I replied coldly that I had nothing whatever to say to him, whereupon he began to revile the Emperor and Empress in coarsest terms, ending with the words: “No doubt they are in hysterics over what has happened to them.” Then I did speak. “If you knew with what dignity they are enduring what has happened you would not dare say what you have said.” After which the monologue was for a moment or two halted.
Turning into the Liteiny, a street in which many barracks and ministries are located, the car stopped and Colonel Peretz dispatched one of the cadet officers on an errand into a Government building. On his return the colonel delayed matters long enough to make a bombastic speech on the great services to the Revolution performed by the cadets, and again we drove on. Realizing that we were not proceeding in the direction of the Fortress of Peter and Paul, I allowed my feminine curiosity to get the better of my pride and I asked whither we were bound. “To the Duma first,” was the grim answer. “To the fortress afterwards.” Arrived at the Tauride Palace we alighted at what is known as the Ministers’ Pavilion and immediately went into the building. What a sight! Crowding the rooms and the corridors, men and women of all ages and conditions, prisoners of the Provisional Government! Looking about, I saw many people of my own class, among them Mme. Soukhomlinoff who for all her manner betrayed might have been a guest rather than a prisoner. We exchanged cheerful greetings and she introduced the two women beside her, Mme. Polouboiarenoff and Mme. Riman, wife of a well-known general. Mme. Polouboiarenoff, of whom I had heard as a brilliant writer on a conservative newspaper (murdered for this later by the Bolsheviki), was quite self-possessed, but Mme. Riman’s face was wet with constantly flowing tears. A young girl student, a typical Revolutionist who seemed to be in some kind of authority, passed us in a hurry, pausing to say to Mme. Riman: “What are you crying about? You are going to be set free while these two”—Mme. Soukhomlinoff and myself—“are going to the fortress.” Poor Mme. Riman was crying because her husband was already in prison, but the revolutionary student could not be expected to sympathize with that.
It really is easier to be calm over one’s own than over another’s fate, as I learned when I found myself, with Mme. Soukhomlinoff, once more in a motor car bound for that mysterious prison on the left bank of the Neva, directly opposite the Winter Palace, the Fortress of Peter and Paul. As we left the Tauride the girl student, who after all had some natural feelings, asked me for my father’s telephone number that she might notify my parents where I had been sent. “No need to bother about that,” broke in the chivalrous Colonel Peretz. “The newspapers will have a full report.” “All the better,” I rejoined, “for then many more will pray for me.”
Rolling into the vast enclosure of the fortress, we stopped at the entrance of the Troubetskoy Bastion. A group of soldiers, dirty and wolfish of demeanor, rushed to meet us. “Now I am bringing you two very desperate political prisoners,” shouted the colonel, as the men closed around us. But a stout Cossack, much more human than the rest, assumed authority saying that he was that day acting in place of the governor of the fortress. Preceded by this man, we traversed a long series of narrow, winding stone passages, so dark that I could see only a few feet ahead. Suddenly I was halted, hinges creaked, and I was roughly pushed into a pitch-dark cell the door of which was instantly bolted behind me.
No one who has not been a prisoner can possibly know the sickening sensation which possessed me, standing there in that dark hole, afraid to take a step forward, unable to touch with my groping hands either walls or furniture. My heart leaped and pounded in my breast and I clung desperately to my crutches lest I should fall into that unfathomed darkness. A few minutes of wild terror and then as my eyes grew accustomed to the dark I saw ahead of me a narrow iron cot towards which I moved with infinite caution. In my progress towards the bed my feet sank into pools of stagnant water which covered the floor, and soon I perceived that the walls of the cell were also dripping with moisture. The tiny window, high in the farthest wall, admitted little air, and the whole place was foul with dampness and the odor of years. It reeked with even worse smells as I quickly discovered, for close to the bed was an uncovered toilet connected with archaic plumbing. The bed was hard and lumpy and I do not think that the thin mattress had ever been cleaned or aired. However, that mattress was not to afflict me long. Within a few minutes my cell door was thrown open and several uniformed men entered. At their head was a black-bearded ruffian who told me that he was Koutzmine, representative of the Minister of Justice, and was authorized to arrange the régime of all prisoners. At his orders the soldiers tore from under me the ill-smelling mattress and the hard little pillow, leaving me only a rough bed of planks. Under his orders they tore off my rings and jerked loose a gold chain from which were suspended several precious relics. They hurt me and I cried out in protest, whereupon the soldiers spat at me, struck me with their fists and left, noisily clanging the iron door behind them. Wrapping my cloak around me, I crouched down on the bed shivering from head to foot and filled with such an agony of loathing and disgust and desolation that I thought I should die. Not a particle of food was brought me that day, and nothing broke the monotony of the dragging hours save now and again when the small grating in the door of my cell was pushed aside and a gaping soldier looked in. Then came night, hardly darker than the day, but more silent. Weak with hunger, spent with pain I clutched my aching head with my hands and asked God if He had forgotten me. At that moment of extreme misery I was startled and at the same time strangely comforted by a sudden low but distinct rapping on the other side of the wall. Instinctively I knew that it was Mme. Soukhomlinoff who was trying to speak to me in the only language prisoners have. I rapped back, almost happily, for I felt that with a friend so near I was not entirely deserted.