After a few months the Czarina appointed one of her ladies-in-waiting, Princess Obolensky, to take her place during my lessons. She thus marked the end of the kind of trial to which I had been subjected. I must admit the change was a relief. I was far more at my ease in Princess Obolensky’s presence, and besides, she gave me devoted help. Yet of those first months I have preserved a vivid recollection of the great interest which the Czarina, a mother with a high sense of duty, took in the education and training of her children. Instead of the cold and haughty Empress of which I had heard so much, I had been amazed to find myself in the presence of a woman wholly devoted to her maternal obligations.

It was then, too, that I learned to realise by certain signs that the reserve which so many people had taken as an affront and had made her so many enemies was rather the effect of a natural timidity, as it were—a mask covering her sensitiveness.

I will give one detail which illustrates the Czarina’s anxious interest in the upbringing of her children and the importance she attached to their showing respect for their teachers by observing that sense of decorum which is the first element of politeness. While she was present at my lessons, when I entered the room I always found the books and notebooks piled neatly in my pupils’ places at the table, and I was never kept waiting a moment. It was the same afterwards. In due course my first pupils, Olga and Tatiana, were joined by Marie, in 1907, and Anastasie, in 1909, as soon as these two younger daughters had reached their ninth year.[2]

The Czarina’s health, already tried by her anxiety about the menace hanging over the Czarevitch’s head, by degrees prevented her from following her daughters’ education. At the time I did not realise what was the cause of her apparent indifference, and was inclined to censure her for it, but it was not long before events showed me my mistake.

CHAPTER II
ALEXIS NICOLAÏEVITCH—VISITS TO THE CRIMEA
(AUTUMN, 1911, AND SPRING, 1912)
SPALA (AUTUMN, 1912)

THE Imperial family used regularly to spend the winter at Tsarskoïe-Selo, a pretty little country town some thirteen miles south of Petrograd. It stands on a hill at the top of which is the Great Palace, a favourite residence of Catherine II. Not far away is a much more modest building, the Alexander Palace, half hidden in trees of a park studded with little artificial lakes. The Czar Nicholas II. had made it one of his regular residences ever since the tragic events of January, 1905.

The Czar and Czarina occupied the ground floor of one wing and their children the floor above. The central block comprised state apartments and the other wing was occupied by certain members of the suite.

It was there that I saw the Czarevitch, Alexis Nicolaïevitch, then a baby of eighteen months old, for the first time, and under the following circumstances. As usual, I had gone that day to the Alexander Palace, where my duties called me several times a week. I was just finishing my lesson with Olga Nicolaïevna when the Czarina entered the room, carrying the son and heir. She came towards us, and evidently wished to show the one member of the family I did not yet know. I could see she was transfused by the delirious joy of a mother who at last has seen her dearest wish fulfilled. She was proud and happy in the beauty of her child. The Czarevitch was certainly one of the handsomest babies one could imagine, with his lovely fair curls and his great blue-grey eyes under their fringe of long curling lashes. He had the fresh pink colour of a healthy child, and when he smiled there were two little dimples in his chubby cheeks. When I went near him a solemn, frightened look came into his eyes, and it took a good deal to induce him to hold out a tiny hand.