My grandmother, notwithstanding her patriarchal outlook, could be the “grande dame” when occasion warranted, and my old nurse used to relate how one of her neighbours, a certain Prince, came to ask her in marriage. This gentleman believed in the impressiveness of pomp and circumstance, so he arrived at Beletskovka in a carriage and six horses. He was most courteously received—and refused—by my grandmother, and, when he drove away, his horses, by some preconceived arrangement, cast their shoes in the avenue. These “cast off” shoes were solid silver, a mute testimony to his wealth, and, as he passed through the village, he and his postillions distributed undreamt-of largesse. The Prince was a haughty personage, who lived in a gorgeous mansion boasting fifty rooms. He gave two balls yearly, when an orchestra was specially sent for from Petrograd, a four days’ journey from his estate. But in the Prince’s opinion nobody, save my grandmother and our family, was good enough to associate (even as a dance partner) with him and his, so the balls were rather tame affairs, a few couples only taking the floor, but those who did were—like Cæsar’s wife—entirely above suspicion.
Silver horse-shoes, expensive orchestras, and other unconsidered trifles cost money, and, as the male members of this super-aristocratic family were all in Hussar regiments, financial ruin eventually came as an uninvited and unwelcome guest: it closed the doors of the castle, the orchestra came no more, and the ladies of the house sought refuge in an institution for noble ladies of fallen fortunes!
My great-aunt, the Baroness Nina Pilar, was a romantic figure in my childhood’s memories, as her name conjured up the fascination which surrounds those who breathe and have their being in the air of Courts. She was Lady-in-Waiting to the Empress Marie, wife of Alexander II, and she made her appearance at Court when she was sixteen, under the auspices of Countess Tizenhausen (another great-aunt), Grande Maîtresse de la Cour, who brought up Felix Soumarokoff, the grandfather of Prince Felix Yousopoff. There was a great deal of gossip about the paternity of old Soumarokoff, who had been confided, as a baby, to Countess Tizenhausen by an intimate friend, but nobody was ever any the wiser, and Soumarokoff’s antecedents remained an unsolved mystery.
The Empress Marie loved Aunt Nina, and the Emperor was very kind to her until my innocent relative was the victim of chance, and a costumière. The Emperor had become infatuated with a certain Princess Dolgorouky, and one day, when my aunt was walking on the Quai, looking especially attractive in a new costume, she suddenly heard a voice addressing her in most endearing terms. She turned sharply round, and found to her dismay that the voice was the voice of the Emperor! Explanations followed, and my aunt discovered that Princess Dolgorouky possessed a duplicate of her new costume, and, as their heights and figures were similar, it was a case of mistaken identity.
The Empress was almost always ill, but her Court was distinguished by its elegance and refinement, and my aunt was one of the acknowledged leaders of fashion.
Like most pretty women, Aunt Nina had her love story, but she never married. Her Prince Charming was the Grand Duke Nicholas, to whom she was secretly engaged. But, when the Grand Duke asked the Emperor’s permission to marry his inamorata, the Emperor, who had never forgiven the contretemps on the Quai, refused his consent!
The unhappy lovers met in Switzerland when Aunt Nina was in attendance on the Empress, and there they bade each other farewell, and threw their engagement rings into the lake. The Grand Duke never forgot his broken romance, although he, like most lovers, eventually married someone else! But he was present at my aunt’s funeral, and stood silently and sorrowfully looking at the coffin which held many of the dreams and much of the enchantment of his youth.
Aunt Nina practically sacrificed her life to save that of the Empress, although the latter died years later at Petrograd, when, it is asserted, a luminous Cross appeared over the Winter Palace, typical of her physical and mental sufferings.
It so happened that when the Empress and my aunt were driving in Switzerland, their carriage was run into by a cart, and, in order to prevent one of the shafts from striking the Empress, my aunt stood up to protect her, and was badly bruised in the chest. Some time afterwards cancer developed, but my aunt survived her Imperial mistress, and became Lady-in-Waiting to the Empress Dagmar, and Grande Maîtresse de la Cour to the Grand Duchess Elizabeth. The Grand Duchess was very much attached to her, and at her death she begged my grandmother to take her place. My grandmother, for family reasons, declined the honour, but she often used to visit the Grand Duchess and the Grand Duke Serge, and I remember hearing her describe the pathetic figure presented by the Grand Duchess after her husband’s assassination, when she had relinquished the splendours of life and had become a nun at Moscow.
My childhood was chiefly passed on my grandmother’s estates. We led a somewhat patriarchal life at Revovka; a simple existence which will, I fear, never again return, and it is exceedingly difficult for me, as a Russian, to recognise the peasants of then and now. The average peasant was kindly by nature, entirely ignorant, and excessively difficult to educate. Whenever my grandmother tried to persuade her tenants to send their children to school, the answer was always the same: “Knowing how to read and write doesn’t provide food. Our parents got on very well without education, our sons can do likewise.” Their faith in the aristocratic class was boundless, they entirely depended on their landlords, but the Russian peasant has always, unfortunately for himself, been easily influenced by speeches and printed matter—hence the complete success of the Revolutionary Propaganda, and the belief in many of the false statements circulated in order to damage the Imperial family in the eyes of the people. I cannot defend our own attitude in not attempting to combat this danger; we were aware that it existed, but only one section, known as the Black Band, tried to destroy it by counter propaganda. Its efforts were unsuccessful, it received no support, for the very good reason that nobody believed that the masses would rise. The Russian aristocrat, secure in his class prejudices, and his optimistic faith in himself, was as loth as the French aristocrat of 1789 to realise that his position was, or could ever be, insecure!