From the coronation day the Tsaritsa never regained a place in the affections of the Russian people, and having recognised this fact, and having realised the futility of usurping the place of the Dowager Empress, she simply ceased trying. The Russian people don’t dislike her, they merely do not know her.
When travelling through the interior of Russia, I constantly heard the Tsar spoken of by the peasants. Sometimes reverently, of late more often disdainfully, occasionally in the terms of the old Russian proverb: “God is in heaven and the Tsar is far off.” But I do not recall of ever hearing a peasant speak of the Empress. When I have asked about her the moujiks have invariably shrugged their shoulders in silence. They often have a bright coloured lithograph of her on the walls of their houses, and they all think the picture very beautiful. More than that, they know nor care not at all.
Once in an interior village I heard a group of peasants discussing the Tsar with a trace of old-time superstitious reverence and I asked, “What of the Empress?”
A shaggy old moujik shook his towsled head stolidly as he replied: “She is the Little Father’s woman—but what can we know of her?”
The Tsaritsa entered upon a life of unusual difficulty from the moment she crossed the Russian frontier. She realised even at the time of her wedding, and more than ever at her coronation that she was not liked at court, so she did what any sensitive soul would have done under similar circumstances—she turned from the people who criticised her, who failed to appreciate her trying, turned to those whom she loved, who loved her. How many women in our own country have been through just such experiences! Not called upon to serve as queens or empresses, but summoned to positions they never were fitted or trained to occupy. With the realisation of failure comes a terrible disappointment and sorrow, sometimes heartbreak. Good women then turn to the fruits of love and in their children seek the salvation necessary to counteract the first failure.
The Dowager Empress had never approved of the marriage of Nicholas to Princess Alix. She herself had always been exceedingly popular with the Russian people. In her affliction and bereavement the sympathy and affection of the nation went out to her. At the coronation of her son and his spouse, her warm personality so completely outshone that of her younger successor as Empress of the people, that a circle of the court immediately gathered about her. From that day to the present time the influence of the Dowager Empress and her “court party” has been more potent than that of the Tsaritsa. At times this influence has been directed openly against her rival and always to the embarrassment of the younger woman. For several years they were not even on speaking terms and to-day they rarely meet save on formal occasions when court etiquette demands the presence of them both at some particular function. The attitude of the Dowager Empress has been a source of continual pain to the Tsaritsa and besides actively militating against her, it has been one more strong influence driving her away from the usual interests and activities and more into her family life.
This estrangement between the two first women of the court has also tended more than anything else to isolate Nicholas. It has resulted in periodic ruptures between the Tsar and his mother, and it has strained his relations with his numerous relatives and important personages of the court, who have remained loyal to her.
These are some of the reasons why the life which ought to have been bright and happy has been utterly miserable, and now there are indications that a complete nervous breakdown may crown the burden of her years.
CHAPTER IV
MOTHERHOOD AND QUEENSHIP
Alexandra Feodorovna, as the wife of the Emperor, was expected to be the mother of an heir to the throne of Russia. And even here long years of enduring pain and travail were before her, for four girls were born before a son came to them. When the first child was born, in November, 1895, there was disappointment throughout the Empire. But the Tsar said a splendid thing at that time: “I am glad,” said the Royal father, “that our child is a girl. Had it been a boy he would have belonged to the people, being a girl she belongs to us.”