“I’ve come to see the baby,” she said. “Let me go to the nursery and fetch him.”
I followed her upstairs, and she took Titi out of his cot and carried him to the drawing-room, where she played with him for an hour, sitting on the carpet to do so.
I think I am right in saying that our affectionate friendship began from the birth of Titi. It was then that the Empress first called me “Lili,” and as “Lili” I caused much mystification during the Revolution, when this signature was supposed to possess some cryptic meaning.
The Imperial Family spent part of that year in Finland, whither my husband accompanied them, and I and the baby went to stay with his parents. I was at Petrograd during the winter, and I saw a great deal of the Imperial Family, and learned to love them all. They led the simplest of lives; the Emperor often amused himself during the evening with a game of dominoes, and I worked with the Empress and her daughters. It was a real “vie de famille,” the life which appealed to them as individuals, but not the life which appeals to the smart world, with which the Empress had so little in common. This was my first Christmas at Petrograd, and I determined to have a little tree in Titi’s honour. I came in from my shopping late in the afternoon of Christmas Eve, and at 6 o’clock a courier arrived with a large box full of all kinds of “surprises.” This was a present from the Empress—she always sent a similar box at Easter, and it always arrived at 6 o’clock. Indeed, so punctual was this present, that my husband often used to hide the box and pretend that it had been forgotten—but I knew better!
We were invited to spend Christmas Day with the Imperial Family. There was a gigantic Christmas tree, the Grand Duchesses and the
HER IMPERIAL MAJESTY WITH TITI TSARSKOE SELO, 1909
(Grand Duchess Tatiana’s snapshot)