Mother gave her hand to Dr. Botkin; he bowed and kissed her fingertips. All noticed that on his face was a strange expression. He was nervous after hearing the prophetic words being sung “Peace to the Soul.” He kissed us children on both cheeks, while tears fell from his eyes and remained between his glasses and the bags beneath his eyes.
Dear Papula, how he suffered beyond measure for his loyalty to us. His face always brightened whenever he saw me. I always engaged him in a conversation. Somehow he felt closer to Alexei and to me than to our sisters. At the end this good man became bold, in spite of his frailty. He was somewhat older than my Father. At that time Father was fifty years old and Mother forty-six. There was a unity and peace among us. Father said, without bitterness, “A great crime is being committed, but I feel we have been true to ourselves and to Russia. The Russian people have been betrayed.” Olga, who could say things so beautifully, added from her tender heart, “The Russian people have been hypnotized and one must not judge them by the present. They are good people.” Dr. Botkin added, “Be true, do not fear, in a minute all will pass.” We were startled at his words, and we wondered afterwards whether he realized the full meaning of what he was saying. He must have known of our destiny.
In spite of the hostile actions of Yurovsky and his accomplices throughout Father Storozhev’s service, we felt we had been enfolded by God and filled with power to ignore the brutality of the guards. When they came into the sitting room while Father was reading aloud, one of us stood up, so that they might see as little as possible.
On Monday, July 15th two maids came to clean the rooms as usual. Obviously they were frightened and seemed anxious to deliver some message to us, but the guards’ presence everywhere prevented any communication. On the same day, Yurovsky brought his associates to the house. These included Voykov, Goloshchekin and Jacob Sverdlov who were comrades of Lenin, Trotsky, and other international conspirators. We saw these four and others in the house all day long; they followed us even into the garden, when we went out for a fifteen minute walk in the afternoon. Once Sverdlov said to Father that when the festivities of the Three Hundred Year rule of the Romanov Dynasty were celebrated in 1913, he was ready to blow up the whole Imperial family with a bomb. Father replied, “What kept you from doing it? I probably would not be here today nor would my family be.”
On Tuesday July the 16th, the young kitchen boy, Leonid, who used to come to play with Alexei for an hour every day, had no sooner arrived than a guard announced that Leonid’s uncle, Ivan Sidniev (our former footman) had come to see the boy. The little fellow jumped to his feet and happily said, “Oh, please forgive me, I shall be back.” We knew right then, it was some sort of trick. When he did not return and Father inquired why, he was told, “Tomorrow he will come.”
On the 16th also, Alexei got up, though his cold was worse, due to the hot water treatments for his swollen hands and feet which were still partially paralyzed. In the afternoon, we took him into the small garden where he was able to walk a little, but had to be carried down the steps. We all went out except Marie, who remained with Mother who had not been out for several days.
While we were in the garden a pigeon flew toward the porch, frantically flapping its wings. Then it flew to the other side of the house, where we were not allowed to walk. Upon our return Mother to our surprise told us that a bird flapped its wings on her bedroom window and she could see only a fluttering shadow of a bird’s wings in the window glass which was painted white. Then she said, “At the coronation we were presented with two birds; and, as you remember, during the Three Hundredth Anniversary a pigeon flew inside the Cathedral when the service was held; and today a bird came into the picture again.”
Some time before the tragedy Dr. Botkin was sent by Yurovsky to ask Mother if she wished her sister Ella to come to see her and that, if so, Yurovsky would arrange her transportation. Mother at once wrote to her sister to say that we were looking forward to her arrival.
Very late that afternoon, Father and the rest of us were asked by Goloshchekin and Yurovsky to write letters to our friends and relatives here and abroad to the effect that we were in the far North, in Sweden, and that we were quite happy in our new surroundings. Olga angrily replied, “If we get there, we will write to our friends from there and not from here.” Dr. Botkin had written such a letter or letters under pressure since he feared for the lives of his children. He said he had written one to Madame Elizabeth Narishkina and one or more to his children hoping they were still in Tobolsk.
Evidently those men wanted the world to believe that we escaped at night and were hiding somewhere in the wilderness and that our friends after receiving such letters would be satisfied that we were safe. In this way they wanted to hide their crime from the people. While Father was reading, suddenly he turned to us and said, “It is exactly twenty-seven years this month (July 1918) since I returned from Japan and that is the icon which was presented to me in the Government of Ufa upon my arrival there.” It was from the Government of Ufa that Father’s train was returned a few weeks earlier to Ekaterinburg. Someone commented that it seemed weird that Father suddenly at this time should remember that unpleasant event which took place in Japan, where he almost lost his life.