• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Twenty-seven years later he would repeat this same cry, also at a deadly moment, as he stood in that cellar in Ekaterinburg—to be recorded by his assassin, Yurovsky.

So in 1891, for the second time in his life, he eluded death, and Nicholas began to feel that he was under His protection; He would not let Nicholas die. Did this mean he had another purpose?

“1 May. Tokyo. Am not so very angry at the good Japanese for the repulsive act of one fanatic. As before, their model order and cleanliness is a pleasure, and I must confess I keep on watching … whom I see on the street from afar. Received the Mikado at 11 o’clock.”

His father ordered him to return to Petersburg, and again all was joyous; life was a never-ending ball. In Vladivostok he helped lay the first stone at the eastern terminus of the great railway that was to cross all of Siberia. And there was a pleasant journey down the rivers of Siberia, with plenty of card playing and drinking—to celebrate death twice cheated.

On the return trip he visited Tobolsk.

“10 July 1891. At 7 arrived in Tobolsk in a dim, gray light. On the wharf, as always was met by the mayor with bread and salt, the citizens of the town of Tyumen, with platters by the craft guild, and an honor guard.… Took a carriage and rode up the hill to the cathedral—through the original wooden streets of the town. From the cathedral we went to view the vestry, where they keep most of the objects relating to the subdual of Siberia. Went to the museum; here I found most interesting the bell sent away from Uglich because it had been sounded as an alarm on the day Tsarevich Dmitry died.”

Subsequently he himself, like this bell, would be exiled to Tobolsk. As a prisoner he would climb an icy slope to look over a fence at the very edge of the streets and town he had admired in his happy youth.

——

He returned. Not stopping in Petersburg, he continued on to Krasnoe Selo to see his parents.

“7 August 1891. Strange not to have to go anywhere or have any more night lodgings with late arrivals and early departures.”

He resumed his old familiar life.

“15 December. This morning received an entire shipment of papers from the Council of State and Committee of Ministers. Simply cannot understand how anyone can read so many papers in one week. Always limit myself to one or two matters, the most interesting, and the rest go straight into the fire….

“31 December. Cannot say I have regretted 1891 coming to a close. It was definitely fateful for the entire family: the death of Aunt Olga [the mother of his friends Sergei and Sandro Mikhailovich],… the illness of and long separation from George [his brother], and finally, the incident in Otsu. All happened so fast, in such quick succession. Added to these great misfortunes has been the famine. I pray God that the year to come will not resemble the year just past.”

Again it was March.

“5 March 1892. Mama says she hardly sees me, I gad about so much, but I do not think so, it seems to me at my age that is the way it should be.

“8 March. Woke up just before Mass. Sleeping so soundly that it drives even me to despair.”

Thus passed this scattered life. Alix was far away, a myth, a dream, and nearby was this dear girl who was so well liked—by him, by Sergei, by his entire company of friends.

“25 March. Returned to Anichkov in falling flakes of snow. And this is spring? Dined with Sergei in my rooms, then went to visit the Kschessinskis, where I passed a pleasant hour and a half.”

That day Nicholas ventured a step that was surprising for the indecisive young man.

The bold decision must have been made during the dinner he mentioned. The wine and the talk with his childhood friend Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, who made no attempt to hide his own rapture over the young ballerina’s charms. One might even guess what they talked about—after all, exactly two years had passed since Nicholas had first seen Mathilde. One might easily imagine what the lady-killer, the brilliant Petersburg dandy Grand Duke Sergei, advised