In spite of a system of education which is only directed towards the care of his person in the physical sense, the little Grand Duke does not grow a healthy child. Perhaps his delicacy is in part responsible for his peevish temper; perhaps it only proceeds from the mistaken way in which he is being brought up. But most certainly the boy is constantly ailing. His mother watches him day and night, and he is her only care; doctors are seldom absent from his bedside, his father forgets everything if his little son has an ache, but all this does not give the Tsarevitch good health. For some years now the Imperial Family have spent months at a time at the Crimea in the hope that the sojourn in a mild climate will do away with the child’s weakness, and help him to attain better health. But nothing seems to help; indeed, in the autumn of 1912 it became impossible longer to hide from the public the state of health of the Emperor’s only son. Even then, however, the precise cause of his illness was not revealed, and deceptive bulletins were published, and such mystery surrounded the illness of the little boy that it gave rise to all kinds of silly tales which were circulated abroad and in Russia, among people who had no means of coming into contact with the Imperial Family or with Court Society in St. Petersburg.

As I have said already, the truth is sad enough, because it is considered certain that there is very little hope that the Tsarevitch will reach manhood, and this knowledge impels heartfelt sympathy towards his parents, who, after having longed for so many years for the birth of this heir, now have to resign themselves to the probability that his days are numbered.

It is in part that sad knowledge which makes the Empress so extraordinary in her ways, and so inclined to call every possible help, whether mystic or material, which even faintly gives the barest possibility of saving her son. It also explains why she has become so strange, and hates so much to see anyone, or to take part in any festivity, even for the sake of her daughters. Of these the two eldest ones are already grown up and lead sad lives, never being permitted to enjoy themselves as girls of their age generally do. Rumour will have it that the eldest, the Grand Duchess Olga, will soon be married, and one can only hope that for once rumour does not lie.

CHAPTER XXI
THE 300TH ANNIVERSARY OF A DYNASTY

It was a bleak and wet though not cold winter morning to which St. Petersburg awoke on March 6th, 1913. For weeks people had talked about what the anniversary would mean to Russia, and had been eagerly awaiting it. For it was to commemorate the momentous events that had taken place three centuries before, when the deputation of the Boyars of Moscow, headed by its venerable Patriarch, had set forth for the distant town of Kostroma, to offer the crown of the Ruriks to the young son of the two victims of the cruel Boris Godounov, the monk Philaret Romanoff and his wife Martha the nun, who had been thrown by Boris into cloisters whence he had never expected to emerge. How many important events had taken place in the history of Russia since that memorable day! and how closely the Romanoff Dynasty had identified itself with the nation that had called them to its head in those troubled and dark times, when it had seemed that the country was going to fall for ever under the Polish yoke! How many sad and terrible, how many glorious pages also had been added to the book of its history! Truly it was an anniversary to be rendered for ever memorable.

Had Nicholas I., his son Alexander II., or the late Tsar been alive, it is probable that some stupendous work of charity, as well as a wide political amnesty, would have marked that day. The public expected some such thing to happen. It hoped that some lasting monument would be raised by the initiative of the Sovereign, to render it for ever memorable; that mercies should be shown, miseries relieved, tears dried, an impulse given both to public and to private charities; something attempted to raise the moral standard of the people by the creation of new schools and educational establishments. In short, they expectantly hoped that the monarch would look from the height of his Throne to where so many needs waited to be satisfied, where so much was expected to be done, and had to be done if Russia was to emerge from her present state of semi-barbarism to take her place among the nations. Not only in political and social spheres did dire need exist, but also and especially exigent was the education of the lower classes, which at present constitute in Russia such a dangerous element in her social fabric, and who threaten to overturn the present order of things without being able to replace it by anything rational.

Nevertheless, March 6th was destined to overthrow all these hopes. The manifesto published upon that occasion disappointed everybody, even those who benefited by it. People had expected as a certainty that a wide political amnesty would wipe off old scores, allow old grievances to be forgotten, and permit people to begin their lives over again. One had hoped that on the morning of that spring day some who were living far away in the country of eternal snow and ice would wake up to the realisation that their exile was over, that henceforward they would be free to return to their old homes. Another had believed that the words of the nun Martha, when she blessed her only son on his being called to the Throne, and wished him to reign for the peace and joy of his people, would be remembered by her descendant, and that he, too, would wish to bring peace to those who trusted him and his instincts of mercy. But all these hopes, these tremulous anticipations, these flickering visions of mercy and peace, failed of realisation.

Any Sovereign placed in such exceptional circumstances would surely have had the impulse to do something for the nation in order to improve the general conditions of its existence. Such thoughts may have animated Nicholas II., but if they did they died before they were given expression. A large gift of a few millions coming from his private purse would have made him none the poorer, and would have brought again to him the popularity which he had been steadfastly losing ever since the day of his accession to the Throne of the Romanoffs. That sum, spent in building new schools, or even hospitals in various large towns in Russia, would have made his name and person popular all over the country; would have brought him blessings and thanks from millions of poor people whose needs, physical and moral, such a gift would have met. But apparently no such idea occurred to him or to his Consort. On March 6th their only thought was to admire the decorations and the bunting displayed in the streets of the capital; they accepted the addresses, felicitations, and gifts of their subjects. For all the outward expression evinced they never, even for one single moment, gave their attention to the fact that in return for what was presented to them they also ought to give something to those who offered them all that was in their means to give.

The amnesty so solemnly promulgated proved to be nothing less than a farce. All the thieves and common malefactors who were crowding the prisons of St. Petersburg and the other towns of the Empire were set free, but the political exiles, men of culture and the highest civic and private virtue, were left to their sad fate, with only their sorrow and their despairing memories.

There was one personage who had been the object of the general pity because a feeling of honesty, unknown generally in a man placed in the position he was in at the time of his fall and condemnation, had led him to tell the truth about the conduct and machinations of the political police of which he was the head. M. Lapoukhine had been followed into his exile by the sympathy not only of those who knew him well but also of many persons who had never seen him. It was felt that he was a victim of a corrupt order of things, perhaps also of private revenge coming from such high quarters that one could not even mention them. One had fully believed that the three hundredth year of the reign of the Romanoff Dynasty would bring him a free pardon and the right to take up once more his place in a Society that had never excluded him from its midst. But March 6th came and went, and nothing was heard about this unfortunate man, and this indifference to his fate raised such a storm of indignation everywhere that even the feelings of loyalty of many which until then had never wavered began to be shaken in presence of this arrant injustice.