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The governor’s house, where they were to live, was called Freedom House after the February Revolution, which brought the Provisional Government to power, and the street where this house was located was called Freedom Street. The word freedom was very popular then.

Freedom House became the first home of their Siberian captivity. (The Dno station, the Russia steamer, Freedom House, the Ipatiev house—was all this history’s irony?) Freedom House had two floors; the family lived on the second, and on the first were the dining room and rooms for the servants. There was also a half-cellar, ground floor, where their possessions were taken.

The entire downstairs was stacked with the family’s traveling bags, trunks, and suitcases. Special belongings were kept in two small wardrobes, and there was a trunk filled with albums of yellowed photographs. There was also a dark leather suitcase that contained the former tsar’s diaries and letters. This was all that remained of their vanished life.

While their people were preparing the house, hanging portieres, arranging the furniture they had brought, and cleaning the furniture bought in town, the family remained on the steamer. They even took rides on it, as they once had on their yacht.

“8 August. Went up the Irtysh and after about 10 versts [6 miles] landed on the right bank and went for a walk. Passed bushes and crossed a stream, then climbed a high bank which had a very beautiful view.” Happy days.

On August 13 they moved into Freedom House. Tatiana and the empress rode in a carriage; the rest walked.

“We examined everything in the house from the bottom to the attic. Occupied the second floor.… Many rooms … have an unattractive view. Then we went into the so-called garden—nasty! Everything has an old, neglected look. Unpacked our things in the study and in the washroom, which is half mine and half Alexei’s.”

Freedom House reminded them of Noah’s ark: the emperor and empress of a nonexistent empire, the aide-de-camp to a nonexistent emperor, the marshal of a nonexistent imperial court, and the ladies-in-waiting of a nonexistent empress gathered in the large dining room in the evening and called each other nonexistent titles: “Your Highness … Your Excellency.”

The servants were well matched to their masters. These accomplished liveried people passed silently from one generation to the next. The menu was written on cards with the tsar’s seal: it did not matter that modest dishes were inscribed. As in the Alexander Palace, the gentlemen of the suite were invited to the tsar’s table.

A dance of shadows, a fantastic masquerade, unfolded in this Siberian house. The last outpost of a three-hundred-year-old empire.

“14 August.… Spent all day sorting through photographs from the cruises of 1890, 1891.”

He was still trying to live in a vanished world—in that round-the-world trip when he saw Tobolsk for the first time. And here he was again in Tobolsk. Full circle.

Life in the Tobolsk house proceeded peacefully.

“9 August. In the morning we sat in the garden for an hour, and in the afternoon for 2 hours. Set up the trapeze there for myself.”

This was the same trapeze that would go with him all the way to Ekaterinburg. In the morning he swung on it, in the afternoon he played gorodki, a game similar to skittles, or sawed wood.

“After all, is this any worse than the Time of Troubles?” Nicholas said to Valya, chuckling, over his sawing.

“A lot worse, Your Highness. A prince is sawing wood.”

Tatishchev and Dolgorukov took turns joining in the tsar’s sawing: when one got tired the other took over. Nicholas was indefatigable. How he loved movement and thirsted for his beloved walks.

“22 August. What a marvelous day. One gets frustrated at not being able to take walks along the riverbank or in the woods in weather like this. We read on the balcony.”

They had a favorite spot.

“16 August. Now every morning we have tea with all the children.… We spend a great part of the day