Alexander II_ The Last Great Tsar - Edvard Radzinsky [17]
Kschessinska would bid the stage farewell many times but would continue to dance until 1917, and all the while she would keep the Romanov family around herself by whatever means necessary. When Sergei Mikhailovich and Kschessinska were accused of accepting huge bribes in arms deals during World War I, Nicholas refused to betray her, even to Alix.
For many years Sergei Mikhailovich remained by Little K.’s side. But when the frivolous grand duke became involved in a serious romance, Little K. immediately took an interest in a new Romanov: Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich came into her life. They went to Venice and then Provence, where he bought her a house by the sea. When they returned to Petersburg, Sergei Mikhailovich was by her side once more. Then she bore a son, Vladimir. Did she know whose son it was? Yes, indeed: the Romanovs’!
In February 1917, Kschessinska gave her last reception on the eve of the revolution. The following morning, as her housekeeper was checking the tea service and silver, she saw a vast crowd turning onto the bridge—toward the Winter Palace. Then she got a call from the chief of police: “The situation is critical, save whatever you can.”
Vera Leonidovna: “In February 1917 I was in the apartment of a friend, the famous artist Yuriev.… That is where Mathilde hid out for a few days. She showed up dressed in a pathetic coat and some kind of kerchief with her little son, her dog, and a tiny reticule, which contained all that was left of her palaces and incalculable riches.”
With her trembling, age-spotted hands, she showed me how Kschessinska had held her reticule.
Kschessinska had no faith in the stability of the situation in the capital. She decided to leave Russia and take her son with her. After her departure, the Bolsheviks occupied Kschessinska’s palace. Cheap tobacco smoke permeated the upper rooms, endless people streamed up and down the trampled stairs, and sailors guarded the palace. In April 1917 a conference of Bolsheviks was held in her beloved hall, with its tall mirror over the mantel and its winter garden. And there, on her chairs, sat Filipp Goloshchekin, who was appointed to lead the Ural Bolsheviks. He would be the man to decide the fate of the two people who had been closest to her—Nicholas and Sergei.
Having escaped to Paris, Little K. would finally fulfill her dream: Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich married her. His brother Kirill became the Russian emperor in exile, and she became his relative.
BY THE WINDOW IN COBURG CASTLE
Early in 1894 it became clear that Alexander III was going to die, evidently as a consequence of the train wreck at Borki six years earlier. The tsar had received only a bruise, but that bruise developed into a fatal kidney disease. Now the heir’s marriage had to be readied with all due speed.
The emperor’s sudden mortal illness put an end to the game with Little K.
The diplomats earned their pay. Constant negotiations were conducted back and forth between Petersburg and Darmstadt.
In April 1894, Alix’s brother Ernie was to marry his cousin the Saxe-Coburg Princess Victoria Melita, (“Ducky”), another granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Emperor Wilhelm II, Queen Victoria, and innumerable European princes were assembling in Coburg. One of the last brilliant balls of royal Europe was to be held at the brink of the terrible new century.
Russia was represented by a powerful phalanx of grand dukes. Even Father Ioann Yanyshev, confessor to the tsar’s family, attended. His presence spoke clearly to the very serious intentions of those who had come: Father Ioann was supposed to instruct Alix in the fundamentals of Orthodox teaching. Also arriving in Coburg was Ekaterina Adolfovna Schneider, who had taught Russian to Ella, Alix’s sister. Should the matter reach a favorable