Confessions of the Czarina

by Princess Catherine Radziwill

For months this kind of thing went on. Alexandra Feodorowna knew herself to be watched with anything but kind eyes, and this consciousness of the ill-will of which she was the object added to her anxiety and moral sufferings. As the weary months dragged on, she thought more and more of Orloff, and suddenly she realized that she loved him more than any one in the world, and she began to understand all that she must have cost him, in pain and vain regret.

But for her, at least, consolation was at hand. One July morning the Imperial Family were called together with the principal Court and State functionaries in all haste to Peterhof. The long-expected event was at hand, and a few hours would decide as to the future of the Romanoff dynasty. People with anxious faces thronged the vast halls of the Palace, waiting for news which seemed to be very long in coming.

At last, just as the clock struck noon, a doctor entered the room, and told the assistants that Nicholas II. was the father of a son.

There was one person present who listened to this announcement with an impassible face but with a breaking heart, and who could barely find sufficient strength to reach the little cottage where Anna Wyrubewa was sitting pale and anxious, in expectation of—she did not know well herself what. When she saw Colonel Orloff she extended toward him her two hands in a gesture of passionate greeting. But what was her surprise to see him fall on the sofa beside her and bury his head in the silk cushions, with such sobs as rarely shake the frame of a strong man. He had had the courage to sacrifice his personal happiness at the shrine of the woman whom he adored with such religious fervor, but it was more than he could bear to find how thoroughly this sacrifice had been accepted by Providence, and for just a few minutes he had hated this new-born child, whom he knew but too well was going to usurp the place he had hoped to keep forever in the heart and the affections of Alexandra Feodorowna.

XIII
HE DIED TO SAVE HER HONOR

THE christening of the little Grand-Duke Alexis was solemnized with great pomp at Peterhof, and there is no doubt but that the position of his mother became, after his birth, quite different from what it had been before this much-wished-for baby had appeared. For one thing, the talk of a divorce between her and the Czar, which had been so frequently indulged in, came to an end, and it was felt, even by the most bitter enemies of the Empress, that it would be waste of time to think about the possibility of its ever taking place.

Nicholas II., in his joy at having at last an Heir, seemed to have returned to his former allegiance in regard to his wife, and he began to confide in her far more than he had done formerly, even consulting her on different occasions. She was the mother of the future Sovereign, and as such entitled to a consideration a childless Empress Dowager could never aspire to in the case of widowhood. It became, therefore, necessary to initiate her in matters concerning the government of the country, and the Czar did this the more willingly that at heart he distrusted his brother, and his numerous uncles and cousins, and feared that in case he died before the small Cesarewitsch had reached his majority the interests of the latter would not be looked after as well as would be necessary, unless his mother were there to protect them.

Alexandra Feodorowna, on the other hand, urged by her two friends, Madame Wyrubewa and Colonel Orloff, began to show far more interest in public affairs than she had ever done since her marriage, and she tried to establish between herself and her husband more intimate relations than she had cared to do formerly, when she used to spend her days lamenting over sorrows, imaginary most of the time, but sufficiently acute to render her intensely miserable. Her son became the principal preoccupation of her existence, and she would not intrust his care to any one, but transformed herself into his nurse, governess, and constant attendant, forgetting everything else, even the care of her daughters, in her nervous solicitude for him. Unfortunately the child was born excessively delicate, and had a curious and rare disease, a weakness of the blood-vessels, which were affected in such a way that he was attacked with hemorrhage at the slightest touch; the smallest of knocks or wounds would endanger his life. He might bleed to death from an ordinary bruise. An unfortunate accident which occurred when he was two years old, and which brought about a rupture that necessitated an operation from which he recovered only by a kind of miracle, only aggravated the chronic ailment with which he was afflicted.

One may imagine how terrible this state of things proved for the Empress, who very stupidly, as it seemed to some people, applied herself to hide from the public the state of physical health of her son, which had, among other results, that of people supposing him to be even more dangerously ill than was the case. The truth was that Alexandra feared that if it were known the boy was afflicted with an incurable disease, it might add to her own unpopularity. Her friends hoped that she might bear another son in time, but after the birth of Alexis she never had any more hopes of maternity, and so there remained nothing else to do but to try and rear this weak, frail, and puny infant, in whom were centered all the future hopes of the proud Romanoff dynasty.

Anna Wyrubewa did her best to comfort the sorrowing mother, and both she and Colonel Orloff agreed that the only thing to do in order to turn her thoughts into another channel than that of her child’s state of health, over which she brooded until she had become absolutely morbid in her constant preoccupation of the painful subject, was to speak to her of the necessity of becoming the Czar’s principal adviser and counselor. They tried to induce her to assert herself in the interest of Alexis, who they assured her would one day outgrow his native weakness and require her help in the numerous duties entailed upon him by his position as Heir to the Throne. In a certain sense they succeeded, and the Empress began to develop an independence of opinions and views in which she had never dared to indulge before. Ministers were surprised to hear the Czar say to them, when they pressed him for a reply to some decision or order they presented to him for confirmation, that he first wished to discuss the subject with his wife. Somehow there arose among the public, and especially among the Imperial Family, an impression that Alexandra had at last completely subjugated her husband, and that she was henceforward a factor to be reckoned with in every important State affair which might arise in regard to foreign or home politics.