International Film Service
Grand Duchess Olga
Had she been prudent enough not to show her sketches to friends it would not have been so bad, but she was, on the contrary, fond of exhibiting them, and did so without the least discrimination, with the result that she gained for herself the reputation of being an unkind and malicious woman, which was far from the case. The Empress tried to develop a love for music in her children, and greatly succeeded with her eldest daughter, the Grand Duchess Olga, who had a really wonderful talent for the piano. She could compose wild, melodious airs, imbued with that Russian and Slav sadness which is latent in all Northern characters. I remember one day last May when, entering unexpectedly the apartment where the young Grand Duchesses were sitting, I was entranced by the playing of Olga, who seemed to put into her music all the agony and anxiety of her soul. Things were dark then. The possibility of seeing exchanged the prison of Czarskoi Selo for another was already looming on the horizon, and the young and blooming girl who was to be sent to the horrors and solitude of a terrible exile was giving vent to her feelings in the weird accents which she gave to the music with which she tried to ease her troubled feelings.
In spite of her taste for music, the Empress rarely went to the Opera. She hated showing herself in the big box where etiquette compelled her to sit, and she disliked the one that was common to all the members of the Imperial family. So that even during the early years of her marriage, when she used to spend a few weeks each winter in St. Petersburg, she rarely showed herself in any theatre, not even at the French play, which it had been almost a matter of obligation, from times immemorial, for the sovereigns to visit every Saturday.
She had made it a point to study the Russian language, but had never really learned to speak it, and had never divested herself of a very strong German accent that had a harsh sound, which added to its general unpleasantness. The Empress had not a pleasant nor a harmonious voice, and as she was aware of the fact she tried to overcome this disadvantage by talking in very low tones, so low indeed that sometimes it was difficult to hear her. She would then get impatient and break off the conversation, to the dismay of her interlocutors. During the last years she had grown slightly deaf, which added to the difficulty.
Her inability to talk Russian naturally displeased people, but I have always wondered why she was so sharply taken to account for it, considering the fact that her mother-in-law had never learnt it either, which had not prevented her from becoming popular. It was again a case of “give a dog a bad name and hang him.”
The Empress kept up a vast correspondence with her relatives all over Europe. In England, where she had been brought up, she had also friends with whom she liked to exchange her impressions and thoughts, and to her brother she wrote daily. She had a very distinct handwriting, plain and legible, and her signature was exceptionally large. Except in official documents she always used the name “Alix,” instead of Alexandra, and the Emperor in the privacy of their family life called her “Alice.” She generally occupied herself with her correspondence in the afternoon after her daily walk with the Emperor, and as soon as her cup of tea was brought to her at five o’clock she stopped writing, even if she was in the midst of a letter. In that respect she was quite extraordinary. Things had to be done at a certain hour, and if not, had to be put off until the next day. She would not for anything in the world have sacrificed five minutes of the time appointed for something else to finish what she was doing at the moment.
In Czarskoi Selo she had a lovely room full of flowers where she had her writing table, a wonderful specimen of French art of the time of Louis XV. Next to it stood a smaller table, where she used to throw the sheets she had just finished writing upon, until all her letters were finished, when she would pick them up and put them in their envelopes. This led her sometimes to mix up one letter with another, and brought her into trouble through people getting missives which were not meant for them. While Queen Victoria was alive the Empress wrote to her regularly every week, but she did not much care for so doing, and used to say that it was a duty she would rather not have had imposed upon her. At Christmas and the New Year, she regularly sent her best wishes to the other European sovereigns whom she knew personally.
In this room I have just described, which was hung up with light and bright chintz, reminding one of an English room, and which contained comfortable and at the same time costly furniture, the Empress transacted only her private correspondence. All her official writing was done in a small library opening out of her sitting-room, where stood a large, ugly and practical writing table with innumerable pigeonholes, at which she used to sit when her private secretary presented to her his daily reports. It was at this table she made up her accounts and attended to all her business, and it was also here that she made out the programme for her public work, receptions, visits to charitable institutions, and so forth. She was most orderly and neat in her habits, and could tell at once where she had put such or such a paper. I do not think that she could have tolerated disorder in any shape or form around her, and she used to go through her numerous drawers and wardrobes every month, when she expected to find every single thing in the place where she had ordered it to be put. All her laces, of which she had a wonderful collection, were kept in a separate cupboard, of which I was the only person to have a key. The Empress herself possessed a duplicate one, as she did of all her trunks, wardrobes, and cupboards, and she clung to them like a real German housewife, and sometimes would unexpectedly open one or the other of these receptacles to assure herself that they were kept in order. I remember an amusing instance of this mania. When the Empress married, she received among her wedding presents a beautiful writing table set in crystal and gold with her monogram and the Russian Eagle on the top of the inkstand. For some years she always used it, until at last one day the Emperor noticed that there was some inaccuracy in the coat of arms of the Romanoffs which was ornamenting the blotting book, and he instantly presented his wife with another and far handsomer writing table set, a masterpiece of the skill of Faberge, the great Court jeweller in St. Petersburg, which was made out of platinum and crystal, with big turquoises as ornaments. The pen was of solid gold and had a turquoise as a finish to the handle. Of course the Empress hastened to put away the old set which had displeased her spouse, and we stored it up in one of the cupboards in which were kept the innumerable possessions of the Czarina. One day she opened the said cupboard when no one else was present and was highly displeased to find that some parts of this writing table set were put on a different shelf from the others. This had been done because we had thought that it would suit better the amount of room which we had at our disposal, but the Empress would not enter into considerations of that kind, and gave us a good scolding for keeping her things “in such disorder,” as she expressed it.