Alexander II_ The Last Great Tsar - Edvard Radzinsky [51]
Here is quite a nasty caricature—testimony to Alix’s infinite jealousy: “She is full of how thin she has grown, tho I find her stomach & legs colossal (& most unappetising)—her face is rosy, but the cheeks less fat & shades under her eyes.” In her letters Alix refers to her as “the Cow.”
But now we have nearly a cry: “No one dare call you ‘my own.’ You are mine, all mine, not hers.… Anya wants to come see us tomorrow & I was so happy that we are not going to have her in the house for a long time.”
Yes, “she,” “the Cow”—this is all Anya. What about “naive” and “meek”? Does this mean the rumor was right? And there was no idyllic love between Alix and Nicky? Was Anya the tsar’s mistress? But here is Investigator Rudnev:
“The facts of the medical certificate for Mrs. Vyrubova drawn up in May 1917 at the instruction of the Special Commission of Inquiry establish beyond a doubt that Mrs. Vyrubova was a virgin.” Does this mean, again, that there was nothing going on? But what was in fact going on? Where are these curses of the tsaritsa coming from?
Meanwhile, almost simultaneously, Alix was writing her husband: “Perhaps you will put in your telegram to me that you thank her for the inclosed letter & send love or messages?” And in another letter: “Ania talks about her loneliness—that makes me angry. She visits us twice a day & spends 4 hours every evening with us,—you are her life.” Does this mean the home wrecker calmly visited every day and they allowed her to spend long hours at court?
What was going on?
“THE OTHER MAN”
On September 2, 1915, Alix wrote Nicholas: “I went with Ania to Orlov’s grave.” On October 4 Alix wrote again: “Then we fetched Ania & drove … to the cemetery as I wanted to put flowers on poor Orlov’s grave.” She informed Nicholas of each visit to “poor Orlov’s” grave. This is amazing, for rumor proclaimed Orlov to be Alix’s lover. Moreover, society gossip named him Alexei’s father.
Alexander Afinogenovich Orlov was a major-general of the imperial suite, a brigade commander, and namesake of the famous Alexei Orlov who put Catherine the Great on the Russian throne. Alexander Afinogenovich liked to play up his connection to that handsome rake of the gallant eighteenth century, but with a dash of the twentieth century—cocaine and other such pleasures. Everything changed completely with the arrival in Petersburg of the young Hessian princess. Orlov offered up to her his sincere, chivalrous respect. His crude hussar ways disappeared, leaving only the ecstatic admiration of a knight encountering his Beautiful Lady. When Alix was rejected by Nicholas’s parents, Orlov remained constant in his admiration. We underscore—admiration. When she became empress, Alix never forgot the faithful Orlov.
Orlov was assigned to a regiment whose chief was the Beautiful Lady herself. Now he rightfully carried the empress’s colors. The medieval romance continued.
Jack London wrote a story about two people who decide to trick God and make their passion eternal: they come up with the idea of not allowing a final embrace. Alix did not want her romantic passion with Nicky to extinguish in the prose of life. Her instinct as a loving woman told her that it would require “another man” to keep the fire going. And Orlov’s love—the respectful love of a poor knight for an unattainable princess—was the love of that other man.
The court reacted as would be expected: an artless rumor about the tsaritsa’s amorous intrigues was born. The result was a conversation between the empress-mother and Nicholas. But Alix would not allow this exciting game canceled. She thought up something with her friend: Orlov could marry Anya, to forestall gossip. But the handsome general declined, and this, evidently, was his downfall. Orlov was sent abroad, and en route he died suddenly. Possibly the omnipotent secret police was concerned with the family’s reputation.
There was no “other man” now. Would Alix and Nicky’s love actually die of familiarity? Anya took on the role of the other woman. Orlov had adored the tsaritsa platonically.