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Nicholas came to a decision.

Kschessinska recalled that March Petersburg day. She was sitting at home, ill, with a bandaged eye. The romantic K. had been suffering from a mundane stye. When her maid informed her that a certain Guards officer, a Mr. Volkov, wished to see her, the surprised ballerina, who did not know Mr. Volkov, nevertheless told her to show him into the drawing room. She could not believe her eyes: standing in the drawing room was Nicholas.

They were alone for the first time. They made their declarations and … nothing! To Little K.’s astonishment, after “a pleasant hour and a half,” he took his leave.

The next day she received a note: “Ever since our meeting I feel as if I am in a daze. I hope I shall be able to see you again soon. Nicky.”

Now for her he was “Nicky.” A charming (and what was amazing for the times) innocent game of love began. His fellows in the Corps brought flowers from her admirer, and the admirer himself was now a frequent visitor at Felix Kschessinski’s apartment. But each visit coincided oddly with the absence of the rest of the family. Notes when he did not visit followed without letup. Now he called her pannochka, Polish for “young lady.”

“Think of what Andrei, who adored a young pannochka, did.”

He brought up Gogol’s characters to no purpose: the story of the Cossack Andrei, who betrayed the behest of his father, the old Taras Bulba, for the love of his pannochka, was utterly inappropriate. Because the whole time, behind the scenes of his love story, stood the terrible Bulba—his father-emperor.

Actually, during his meetings with Mathilde he was always dreaming of another, whom his father opposed and with whom a union would indeed constitute a betrayal of the old Bulba. Kschessinska was merely the false pannochka. Hidden away as before in the depths of his soul was the true pannochka: Alix H.

In a strange way, he merged the two.

“31 March. Stopped in for a while at Uncle Misha’s.… He led us through the rooms of his deceased wife—nothing had been touched.” Here he is thinking about Alix. The touching love of the parents of his friends Sandro and Sergei—marital love—this is Alix H.

“Returned to Gatchina. Am in the most un-Lenten of moods. A good thing am staying at Gatchina and 49 versts [30 miles] from the capital.” This is Mathilde.

“1 April.… I note a very odd phenomenon in myself: never thought that two identical sentiments, two loves, could cohabit the soul simultaneously. Now it is over three years I have loved Alix H., and I constantly cherish the thought that God might let me marry her one day.… But ever since camp in 1890 I have loved little K. passionately. An amazing thing, our heart. At the same time do not cease to think of Alix, although it is true, one might conclude from this I am very amorous. To a certain extent, yes! I must add, though, that inside I am a harsh judge and extremely scrupulous—this is the mood that yesterday I called un-Lenten.”

But for now a merry company gathered almost every evening in Little K.’s room. Nicholas came with his friends, the brothers Sergei, Sandro, and George. The three grand dukes and the heir had a good time in the fashionable ballet teacher’s modest apartment.

Nicholas accompanied the emperor to Denmark, whence he sent Mathilde passionate letters. But simultaneously with these letters Nicholas cautiously resumed his discussion of Alix with his father.

The emperor was disturbed—his game had been to no avail. Was it not a direct consequence of this that the pannochka made her decisive thrust?

“At the time I was thinking more and more about intimacy,” Kschessinska would recall in Paris. “I adored the tsarevich and wanted only one thing—my happiness, however brief it might be.” Finally she was able to force Nicholas to come to a decision. He bought her a “ravishing palace” on the English Embankment, where their platonic love was finally to end. At one time Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich had bought this palace for the dancer Kuznetsova. Little K. left her home and openly became the tsarevich’s mistress. “This