Alexander II_ The Last Great Tsar - Edvard Radzinsky [75]
How she hoped he would suddenly say, “The time has come.” In vain.
May 6 was approaching.
She: “May 4th 1915.… So sad we shall not spend your dear birthday together—the first time!… It is not an easy nor light cross He has placed upon yr. shoulders—would that I could help you carrying, in prayers & thoughts I ever do. I would yearn to lessen yr. burden—so much you have had to suffer in those 20 years—& you were borne on the day of the long-suffering Job too, my poor Sweetheart.”
“IT IS EASIER FOR ME TO PUT IT DOWN ON PAPER—OWING TO STUPID SHYNESS”
She: “June 13th.… I am sad that your dear heart does not feel right, please let Botkin see you upon yr. return.… I feel so awfully for those who have anything with the heart, suffering from it myself for so many years. Hiding ones sorrow, swallowing all, makes it so bad.… Your eyes seemed like it at times. Only always tell it me, as I have after all enough experience with heart complains & I can perhaps help you. Speak about all to me, talk it out, cry even, it makes it phisically too, easier sometimes….
“June 14th 1915.… Then he [Grand Duke Paul] mentioned another thing to me wh. tho’ painful its better to warn you about—namely, that since 6 months one speaks of a spy being at the Headquarters & when I asked the name, he said Gen. Danilov [one of Russia’s most talented generals].… Try & have an eye upon the man & his doings.”
Defeats at the front compelled him to look for scapegoats, and he found a way: spies. Spy mania began—a spy hunt. At first they wanted to make Jews into spies. A field court-martial in Dvinsk hung several for espionage. Subsequently it turned out that they were innocent and were posthumously vindicated, but by that time Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich had already hatched a different plan: the commander-in-chief decided to go hunting for much bigger game.
So arose the famous affair of the German spy Colonel Myasoedov. With the help of Myasoedov’s testimonies, Nikolasha got his main enemy, War Minister Vladimir Sukhomlinov. In June Sukhomlinov resigned from his ministerial post. From Sukhomlinov a thread stretched, via his wife, to “our Friend.” And that meant to Alix. The “German spy”—what could be simpler!
Alix decided to show that she too was taking part in this universal occupation of spy catching. She found her own: Quartermaster General Danilov, one of the most talented and evil-tongued generals at Headquarters, and her “Friend’s” natural enemy.
She: “June 15th 1915.… I am eagerly awaiting your promised letter.… I went to Mavra for an hour [the wife of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstaninovich, K.R.], she is calm & brave—Tatiana [K.R.’s daughter] looks awful & yet thinner & greener.”
In early June, K.R. passed away at his palace in Pavlovsk. Not long before, the youngest and most brilliant of his sons, Oleg, had been mortally wounded at the front during an attack. K.R. himself had shut the young man’s eyes. The death of his favorite son had hastened K.R.’s own end. The poet was the last Romanov to be buried with ceremony in the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul.
She: “June 16th 1915.… Your sweet smelling jasmine I put in my gospel—it reminded me of Peterhof.… The afternoon I remained on the balkony—I wanted to go to Church in the evening, but felt too tired. The heart is, oh, so heavy & sad—I always remember what our Friend says & how often we do not enough heed His words. He was so much against yr. going to the Headquarters, because people there get round you & make you do things, wh. would have been better not done.… When He says not to do a thing & one does not listen, one sees ones fault always afterwards.… That can mean no good. He [Nikolasha] grudges no doubt Gr[igory]’s visits to our house & therefore wants you