Twice a year she went over her whole wardrobe, at the time when she ordered the new dresses which she required for each season. She then looked over the different articles in it with care, and either made a present of the things which she thought she would not want any longer, or sent them to her sister the Grand Duchess Elizabeth in Moscow, where the latter disposed of them among the poor girls of the Moscow nobility about to be married. She would be very careful to have every bit of real lace unpicked from these dresses, and then this lace was consigned to the cupboard set apart for that purpose, and entered in a catalogue, which was entirely written in the Empress’s own hand.
As may be imagined, all this kept my mistress busy; and indeed there was hardly one hour in the day when she was not occupied with one thing or another. Her children’s wardrobes were looked after by her with the same care that she applied to her own things. And at Czarskoi Selo and Livadia she herself used to look over the housekeeping books of the Imperial household, much to the dismay of the head of it, who often complained that the Empress did not in the least understand the intricacies of the management which she sometimes so freely criticised. But though she frankly owned that she did not know how much an egg or a potato cost, yet, as she declared, she liked to be aware of the price of the potatoes which she consumed. It was an innocent mania, and would have been considered as such if there had not existed malicious people ready to make fun of it, and to laugh at the “German Housekeeper,” as they derisively called my poor mistress, who in view of this fact would have done much better not to have meddled in matters in which after all she had no need to enter, and which so many people would have been but too happy not to have to think about.
CHAPTER XIII
THE JAPANESE WAR AND THE BIRTH OF THE CZAREVITSCH
The first really great sorrow and anxiety which fell on my beloved mistress was the Japanese war. I am not writing here a political book, and indeed understand nothing about politics, but what I do know is that no one could have been more affected by the disasters which destroyed the Russian army and fleet than was the Empress. She used to spend hours weeping in her room, where she allowed no one, not even her children, to enter, and it was from that time that dated the terrible headaches which later on were to prostrate her so utterly. She was then in a delicate state of health, and the Emperor wanted to spare her as much as possible the news which was brought of one sad event after another concerning all that went on in this distant Manchuria, where Russian soldiers were fighting such a hard battle. The whole country was exasperated at the lamentable organisation, or rather want of organisation, which was revealed so unexpectedly, and it was dating from Mukden and Tsushima that the Revolutionary elements in the country raised their heads and began to threaten the throne which they were to destroy twelve years later. The whole of Russia was in the throes of an insurrectional movement, and perhaps the only persons who were not aware of its strength and magnitude were the sovereigns themselves. Nicholas II. had not realised the possibility of the fall of his dynasty and seriously believed that he could stop the torrent that was flooding the country. The Empress was ignorant of the details of the convulsions which were fast destroying the old legends and traditions which had presided at the government of the Empire for such a long time. She had a few illusions left still, and one of them was in regard to the strength and the spirit of devotion of the army. It was therefore a terrible shock to her to find that this army which she had believed to be invincible had allowed itself to be beaten by the troops of the Mikado whom she had regarded as savages. She felt cruelly the loss of prestige which this disastrous campaign entailed, and she also felt humiliated in her pride as a Sovereign and as a woman. Added to this weight of anxieties was another—the dread that the child whose birth she was expecting would prove another daughter, whose advent into the world would add to the unpopularity of its mother. Sometimes my heart used to ache for her, when I saw her dragging herself through the park of Peterhof, looking so ill that one wondered whether she would be able to stand the trial which was awaiting her. In her cruel anxiety she found no one to encourage her or to whisper words of encouragement in her ear. Her husband was himself absorbed by the saddest of preoccupations and she did not care to add to them by speaking to him of her own personal griefs and sorrows. So the time went on, bringing every day new subjects for alarm, and new causes for discouragement. At last one morning I was called to the bedside of the Empress, together with all her other attendants, and with trembling hearts we awaited the verdict of the doctors as to her safety and the sex of the infant for whose advent we were watching with such intense interest. It was noon, and the great clock of the castle of Peterhof had just been heard striking the twelve strokes announcing it, when a child’s cry broke the silence of the room where the Empress was lying, and then Doctor Ott, her physician, turned towards the Czar, standing pale and worried beside his Consort, with the word: “I congratulate Your Majesty on the birth of a Czarevitsch.”
Nicholas II. did not reply. He stood as if dazed by the unexpected news. No one spoke or interrupted his meditation, but all devoted themselves to the Empress, who was still under the effects of the chloroform that had been administered to her. When she opened her eyes she looked so weak that no one dared to tell her the good news, but she seemed to read it in the face of her husband, because she suddenly exclaimed: “Oh, it cannot be true; it cannot be true. Is it really a boy?”
Nicholas II. fell on his knees beside her and burst into tears, the first and only ones I had ever seen him shed.