Nicholas and Alexandra

   Moved by her plea, Orlov decided to act despite the lateness of the hour. He ordered a troika and dashed to the Alexandra Villa, where the Tsar was staying. Bursting through the door, he was stopped by a valet who told him that the Tsar already had retired. Nevertheless, Orlov insisted. A few minutes later, Nicholas appeared in his pajamas and asked quietly, “What is happening?” Orlov told him the story.

   “I thank you very much for acting the way you did,” said Nicholas. “One must never hesitate when one has the chance to save the life of a man. Thank God that neither your conscience nor mine will have anything to reproach themselves for.” Quickly, he wrote a telegram to the Minister of Justice: “Defer the execution of S. Await orders.” He handed the paper to a court messenger and added, “Run!”

   Orlov returned to the girl and told her what had happened. She fainted and Orlov had to revive her. When she could speak, her first words were, “Whatever happens to us, we are ready to give our lives for the Emperor.” Later, when Orlov saw Nicholas and told him her words, the Tsar smiled and said, “You see, you have made two people, her and me, very happy.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“OTMA” and Alexis

DIRECTLY over the mauve boudoir of the Empress were the nurseries. In the morning, Alexandra could lie back on her couch and through the ceiling hear the footsteps of her children and the sound of their pianos. A private elevator and a private stairway led directly to the rooms above.

In these large, well-aired chambers, the four Grand Duchesses were brought up simply, in a manner befitting granddaughters of the spartan Alexander III. They slept on hard camp beds without pillows and took cold baths every morning. Their nurses, both Russian and English, were strict, although not without their own weaknesses. A Russian nurse assigned to little Olga was fond of tippling. Later she was found in bed with a Cossack and dismissed on the spot. Marie’s English nurse, a Miss Eager, was fascinated by politics and talked incessantly about the Dreyfus case. “Once she even forgot that Marie was in her bath and started discussing the case with a friend,” wrote the Tsar’s younger sister, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna. “Marie, naked and dripping, scrambled out of the bath and started running up and down the palace corridor. Fortunately, I arrived just at that moment, picked her up and carried her back to Miss Eager, who was still talking about Dreyfus.”

The passage of time and the shortness of their lives have blurred the qualities of the four daughters of the last Tsar. Only Anastasia, the youngest, stands out distinctly, not for what she was as a child, but because of the extraordinary, often fascinating claims made on her behalf in the years after the massacre at Ekaterinburg. Yet the four girls were quite different, and as they became young women, the differences between them became more distinct.

Olga, the eldest, was most like her father. Shy and subdued, she had long chestnut-blond hair and blue eyes set in a wide Russian face. She impressed people by her kindness, her innocence and the depth of her private feelings. Olga had a good mind and was quick to grasp ideas. Talking to someone she knew well, she spoke rapidly and with frankness and wit. She read widely, both fiction and poetry, often borrowing books from her mother’s tables before the Empress had read them. “You must wait, Mama, until I find out whether this book is a proper one for you to read,” she parried when Alexandra spotted her reading a missing book.

Reading Les Miserables in French under the guidance of her Swiss tutor, Pierre Gilliard, Olga almost brought the tutor to calamity. Gilliard had instructed his pupil to underline all the French words she did not recognize. Arriving at the word spoken at Waterloo when the commander of Napoleon’s Guard was asked to surrender, Olga dutifully underlined “Merde!” That night at dinner, not having seen Gilliard, she asked her father what it meant. The following day, walking in the park, Nicholas said to the tutor, “You are teaching my daughter a curious vocabulary, Monsieur.” Gilliard was overcome with confusion and embarrassment. “Don’t worry,” said Nicholas, breaking into a smile, “I quite understand what happened.”

If Olga was closest to her father, Tatiana, eighteen months younger than Olga, was closest to Alexandra. In public and private, she surrounded her mother with unwearying attentions. The tallest, slenderest and most elegant of the sisters, Tatiana had rich auburn hair and deep gray eyes. She was organized, energetic and purposeful and held strong opinions. “You felt that she was the daughter of an Emperor,” declared an officer of the Imperial Guard.

In public, Grand Duchess Tatiana regularly outshone her older sister. Her piano technique was better than Olga’s although she practiced less and cared less. With her good looks and self-assurance, she was far more anxious than Olga to go out into society. Among the five children, it was Tatiana who made the decisions; her younger sisters and brother called her “the Governess.” If a favor was needed, all the children agreed that “Tatiana must ask Papa to grant it.” Surprisingly, Olga did not mind being managed by Tatiana; the two, in fact, were devoted to each other.

Marie, the third daughter, was the prettiest of the four. She had red cheeks, thick, light brown hair and dark blue eyes so large that they were known in the family as “Marie’s saucers.” As a small child, she was chubby and glowing with health. In adolescence, she was merry and flirtatious. Marie liked to paint, but she was too lazy and gay to apply herself seriously. What Marie—whom everyone called “Mashka”—liked most was to talk about marriage and children. More than one observer has noted that, had she not been the daughter of the Tsar, this strong, warmhearted girl would have made some man an excellent wife.

Anastasia, the youngest daughter, destined to become the most famous of the children of Nicholas II, was a short, dumpy, blue-eyed child renowned in her family chiefly as a wag. When the saluting cannon on the Imperial yacht fired at sunset, Anastasia liked to retreat into a corner, stick her fingers into her ears, widen her eyes and loll her tongue in mock terror. Witty and vivacious, Anastasia also had a streak of stubbornness, mischief and impertinence. The same gift of ear and tongue that made her quickest to pick up a perfect accent in foreign languages also equipped her admirably as a mimic. Comically, sometimes cuttingly, the little girl aped precisely the speech and mannerisms of those about her.

Anastasia, the enfant terrible, was also a tomboy. She climbed trees to dizzying heights, refusing to come down until specifically commanded by her father. She rarely cried. Her aunt and godmother, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, remembered a time when Anastasia was teasing so ruthlessly that she slapped the child. The little girl’s face went crimson, but instead of crying, she ran out of the room without uttering a sound. Sometimes Anastasia’s practical jokes got out of hand. Once in a snowball fight, she rolled a rock into a snowball and threw it at Tatiana. The missile hit Tatiana in the face and knocked her, stunned, to the ground. Truly frightened at last, Anastasia broke down and cried.

As daughters of the Tsar, cloistered at Tsarskoe Selo without a normal range of friends and acquaintances, the four young Grand Duchesses were even closer to each other than most sisters. Olga, the eldest, was only six years older than Anastasia, the youngest. In adolescence, the four proclaimed their unity by choosing for themselves a single autograph, OTMA, derived from the first letter of each of their names. As OTMA, they jointly gave gifts and signed letters. They shared dresses and jewels. On one occasion, Baroness Buxhoeveden, one of the Empress’s ladies-in-waiting, was dressing for a ball when the sisters decided that her jewels were inappropriate. Tatiana rushed off and reappeared with some ruby brooches of her own. When the Baroness refused them, Tatiana was surprised. “We sisters always borrow from each other when we think the jewels of one will suit the dress of the other,” she said.

Rank meant little to the girls. They worked alongside their maids in making their own beds and straightening their rooms. Often, they visited the maids in their quarters and played with their children. When they gave instructions, it was never as a command. Instead, the Grand Duchesses said, “If it isn’t too difficult for you, my mother asks you to come.” Within the household, they were addressed in simple Russian fashion, using their names and patronyms: Olga Nicolaievna, Tatiana Nicolaievna. When they were addressed in public by their full ceremonial titles, the girls were embarrassed. Once at a meeting of a committee of which Tatiana was honorary president, Baroness Buxhoeveden began by saying, “May it please Your Imperial Highness …” Tatiana stared in astonishment and, when the Baroness sat down, kicked her violently under the table. “Are you crazy to speak to me like that?” she whispered.