Alexander II_ The Last Great Tsar - Edvard Radzinsky [18]
The engagement of Nicholas and Alix was to take place at the wedding of Alix’s brother Ernie. Everyone knew it.
Nicholas’s diary:
“5 April.… She has grown remarkably more beautiful, but she looked extremely sad. They left us alone, and then there began between us the conversation I have wished for and at the same time greatly feared for so long. We talked until 12, but with no result: she still objects to conversion. Poor thing, she cried a lot, and we parted more calmly.”
Everything was drowning in lilac It was a chilly, magnificent spring. That is how those days began. Despite her refusal, he was joyously calm. He knew that all his people were now in favor of this marriage, and most of all he knew she loved him. He had discovered a rule for himself, having twice found himself on the brink of death: trust the Lord in all things. He would be governed by this rule all the rest of his life, but during those Coburg days, in violation of this rule, he was quite persistent. The girl he wanted for a wife was deeply religious, and he ached for her, understanding what a change of religion meant. Loving her for her despair and her tears, he helped her with his tender persistence to shift responsibility for the decision onto him.
She, however, cried a lot during the interval. Subsequently she would write many times about how hard it had been for her to accept the idea of converting. Religion played an enormous role in her life. But her predecessor princesses of Hesse had set out for distant Russia many times and had converted. Even her sister Ella had accepted Orthodoxy and was happy in her new religion. No, something else was behind all this crying, but she could not put it into words. In decisive moments it is given to exalted, nervous natures to sense the future. Is that not why she cried so bitterly and, virtually terrified, did her utmost to tell him no?
Nicholas’s diary:
“7 April. Ducky and Ernie’s wedding day. It began with me being late for breakfast and having to walk like a cock past the crowd on the square. At 12 everyone gathered upstairs, and after the civil marriage act was signed, we went into the church. Ernie and Ducky make a fine couple. The pastor gave a good sermon, the point of which was amazingly apropos to the essence of what I am going through. At that moment had a terrible urge to look into Alix’s soul. After the wedding a family dinner.… The young people left for Darmstadt. Went for a walk with Uncle Vladimir, climbed the hill, and finally reached the castle. We viewed the weapons museum at length and had dinner with Aunt Marie, in our uniforms, because of the emperor [Wilhelm II], who will not wear civil dress. Then we went, or rather ran, to the theater in a downpour. They gave the first act of Pagliacci.”
What a good time he had clambering up the hill to the castle and then running across the street in the evening and sitting in a wet uniform in the theater! He had a good time whatever he did then because he knew it would all work out—and by tomorrow for sure. He loved them all: dear Ernie, dear Ducky, dear Uncle Willy, and dear Uncle Vladimir.
“8 April [he underscored the date three times in the diary]. A marvelous, unforgettable day in my life! The day of my engagement to my precious, beloved Alix. After our conversation we declared ourselves to each other. So joyful to be able to gladden dear Papa and Mama. Walked around the entire day in a haze, not fully conscious, actually, of what had happened to me.… Then a ball was arranged. Didn’t feel like dancing; walked and sat in the garden with my fiancée. Can hardly believe that I have—a fiancée.”
In a letter to his mother he described in more detail Alix’s strange despair and tears:
“She cried the whole time, and only whispered now and then: ‘No, I cannot.’ Still I continued to insist and repeat my arguments, and though this conversation went on for two hours, it came to nothing.… I gave her