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By Root 2179 0

’s young society people. Unintentionally this conversation brushed a most vital chord in my soul, the dream and hope that carries me from one day to the next. Already a year and a half has gone by since discussed this with Papa at Peterhof, and nothing has changed in either the bad or the good sense. My dream is one day to marry Alix H. Have loved her for a long time, but even more deeply and strongly since 1889, when she spent 6 weeks of the winter in Petersburg. Have fought my feeling for a long time, trying to deceive myself with the impossibility of my cherished dream coming true.… The only obstacle or gap between her and me is the matter of religion. Other than that barrier there is no other, am nearly convinced that our feelings are mutual. All is up to God’s will, and am putting my trust in his mercy, calmly and meekly, looking to the future.”

He was sent away to travel and forget the whole business.

“The Mediterranean Sea, the Adriatic, Venice.… Life truly is a holiday! A ball! A ball!”

When Nicholas returned to Petersburg his father realized that nothing had changed—and it was time to act.

Soon in Nicholas’s diary yet another important character would appear: “Little K.”

“I’VE FALLEN MADLY IN LOVE … WITH LITTLE K.”

All the brilliant Guards officers, the imperial suite, and the imperial family belonged to the famous Yacht Club. It was in March 1890 that the name of Little K. was heard there for the first time.

All the club members were balletomanes. For a century the Rossi Street colonnade, where the Petersburg ballet school was located, had been a favorite spot for the dandies of the capital to take the air. It was an old tradition of the Petersburg elite to have a ballerina for a mistress.

Like the Guards, the ballet was closely linked with the court.

Grand Duke X. (various names could be substituted here) fell in love with a ballerina, lived with her openly, bought her a house, and fathered her children. The list of these scandalous tales was long. The director of the imperial theaters had to be a diplomat and strategist, always current on the complicated disposition of relationships between his wards and the members of the imperial family. Arriving at the ballet, the public first turned to notice the “imperial presence”: which member of the imperial family was sitting in the imperial box. This often determined a ballerina’s status.

——

Vera Leonidovna Yureneva:

“She wasn’t beautiful, her legs were too short. But her eyes! Two pools. She was enticing, a little temptress. She had studied with the Italians and was magnificent technically. She once danced thirty-two fouettés and, after a storm of applause, sweetly danced thirty-two more. Someone said about her: ‘She loved ballet in general and life in particular.’ On the contrary: she loved ballet in particular and life in general. All her life she aspired to become a great ballerina, but she never was considered great.… In society at that time it was fashionable to show one’s displeasure: she was doomed to the audience’s disfavor the moment the future tsar fell in love with her. My ballerina girlfriend tried to have her hissed off the stage.… This was duly noted.… And at her own performance my girlfriend received a huge bouquet of flowers and a note: ‘Mathilde Kschessinska thanks you very much.’ She could be splendid. Because of her eyes she was called the ‘fairy of the Parc des Cerfs’: the French King Louis XV had kept his harem at the Parc des Cerfs.”

It was a ballet family. Her father was the Pole Felix Kschessinski, who had taught all of Petersburg high society to dance the mazurka. He produced ballets and himself had danced with all the famous ballerinas of his day. By the end of the century, his children were already dancing on the imperial stage, Iosif and Yulia (or Kschessinska the First, as they would call her when her younger sister’s star skyrocketed).

Nicholas’s diary:

“23 March 1890. Took a carriage to Elagin Island to see a stable of young horses. Came back in a new troika. Had a bite to eat at 8. Went to a performance at the theatrical