Alexander II_ The Last Great Tsar - Edvard Radzinsky [42]
Ella ran out of the palace and threw herself on the bloody bits, crawling on her knees among the remnants of her husband. What the revolutionary Kalyaev did not know was that the bomb with which he had killed the grand duke had been prepared with the help of a workshop belonging to the Department of Police. The actual assassination had been organized by a secret agent of the department, head of the Socialist Revolutionaries’ terrorist group, the provocateur Azef.
Again the shadow of the secret police behind the event?
——
From the diary of Konstantin Romanov, the poet K.R.:
“5 February.… Thunderstruck, for the first minute I could not think at all, only as I came around did I understand what I had been deprived of and begin to cry. I had to prepare my wife—she loved Sergei very much. Both she and I felt that I should go to Moscow to see my poor friend’s body, to see poor Ella, who has no family around her….
“9 February.… The sovereign and both empresses are inconsolable that they cannot pay their final respects to the deceased. It is too dangerous for them to leave Tsarskoe. All the grand dukes have been informed in writing that not only can they not go to Moscow, but they are forbidden to attend the funeral at Kazan and St. Isaac’s cathedrals [in St. Petersburg].”
Meanwhile in Moscow a majestic tragedy was being played out.
Ella spent all the days before the burial in ceaseless prayer. On her husband’s tombstone she wrote: “Father, release them: they know not what they do.”
She understood the words of the Gospels heart and soul, and on the eve of the funeral she demanded to be taken to the prison where Kalyaev was being held. Brought into his cell, she asked, “Why did you kill my husband?”
“I killed Sergei Alexandrovich because he was a weapon of tyranny. I was taking revenge for the people.”
“Do not listen to your pride. Repent … and I will beg the sovereign to give you your life. I will ask him for you. I myself have already forgiven you.”
On the eve of revolution she had found a way out: forgiveness! Forgive through the impossible pain and blood—and thereby stop it then, at the beginning, this bloody wheel. By her example, poor Ella appealed to society, calling upon the people to live in Christian faith.
“No!” replied Kalyaev. “I do not repent. I must die for my deed and I will.… My death will be more useful to my cause than Sergei Alexandrovich’s death.”
Kalyaev was sentenced to death. “I am pleased with your sentence,” he told the judges. “I hope you will carry it out just as openly and publicly as I carried out the sentence of the Socialist Revolutionaries’ party. Learn to look the advancing revolution right in the eye.”
Kalyaev met death fearlessly.
Nicholas had lost Moscow.
The camarilla knew what came next in their intrigue: Nicholas must soon be deprived of his chief adviser. The empress-mother was leaving for Denmark, where her father was mortally ill. Now one last figure remained by the tsar, Uncle Vladimir Alexandrovich. But the third blow was known. The Department of Police had been informed that the son of Vladimir Alexandrovich, Kirill, had broken up the marriage of the tsaritsa’s brother Ernie (that “fine couple”). Victoria Melita had divorced her husband, and now Kirill had decided to marry her and create an open family scandal. This would provoke harsh countermeasures; he would be punished, which meant that his father, Vladimir Alexandrovich, would have to step down as commander of the Petersburg garrison.
From a letter of Nicholas to his mother in Denmark:
“This week there was a drama in the family over Kirill’s unfortunate marriage. You certainly remember my conversations with him, as well as the consequences he would necessarily suffer: exclusion from the service, being forbidden to enter Russia, deprivation of all crown monies, and loss of the title of grand duke. Last week I learned that he has married.… I had a very unpleasant talk with his poor