The Romanov Sisters (Four Sisters) (23 page)

like his sisters.’30 Whether this was in any way the result of inter-

vention, by telegram or over the telephone, by Rasputin is unknown.

Two months later Alexey was still unwell when members of the

wider imperial family gathered at Tsarskoe Selo for the wedding of

the girls’ childhood playmate, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, to

Prince Wilhelm of Sweden. After the day’s ceremonials, which she

steeled herself to sit through despite her anxieties for her son, and looking beautiful but extremely strained, Alexandra went up to

Alexey’s bedroom. The nurse told her his temperature had finally

fallen at 8 p.m. There was a telegram waiting for her – from Grigory

in Pokrovskoe – which, when she opened it, assured her that all

would be well and that ‘he would say a special prayer at eight that

very evening’.31 Coincidence or not, such manifestations of the power of Grigory’s prayers for her boy were for the tsaritsa incontrovert-ible proof that he alone could save him from death – even at a

distance. How could she not but invest all her desperate hopes in

him? Wouldn’t any other mother have done the same?

Many of Nicholas and Alexandra’s European relatives who came

to Russia for the wedding, and knew nothing of Alexey’s haemophilia,

commented on how isolated the family had become by 1908 – ‘shut

away from the rest of the world’, as Crown Princess Marie of

Romania observed. The ‘happy family life’ that Nicholas and

Alexandra clearly fostered was all very laudable in her view, but

‘their exclusiveness was little conducive towards that fine, loyal unity which had always been traditional in the Russian Imperial Family

during the two former reigns and which had constituted its great

power’.32 Marie felt the two of them were ‘too self-centered, too

exclusively interested in their own children’, in so doing they

neglected their European relatives, and this had led to their

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alienation from them. Brief state visits with the children in the

Shtandart
in the summers of 1907 and 1908 to Reval
*
in the Baltic

– for a meeting between Nicholas, Edward VII and Kaiser Wilhelm

– and to the King and Queen of Sweden at Stockholm had done

nothing to change the general consensus. In the meantime, rumours

continued to circulate about the tsarevich’s ill health, with whisperings that he suffered from ‘convulsions’, and from a ‘certain form

of infantile tuberculosis which gives rise to acute alarm’; another

source suggested ‘one of the layers of his skin was missing’, which

predisposed him to constant haemorrhage.33 But nobody as yet had

publicly uttered the dreaded word – haemophilia.

Because of the intense secrecy surrounding Alexey’s condition

little record survives of the various attacks he suffered over the next four years or how often Rasputin visited Tsarskoe Selo or treated

him from a distance, but just before Christmas 1908, in Rasputin’s

continuing absence at Pokrovskoe, Dr Fedorov was summoned

urgently from Moscow to attend the child.34 Anxiety within the

family was further compounded that winter when Alexandra’s own

health took a turn for the worst and she was laid up for eight weeks.

‘It is too sad and painful to see [Alix] always ailing and incapable of taking part in anything’, Maria Feodorovna wrote to Nicholas. ‘You

have enough worries in life as it is – without having the ordeal added to it of seeing the person you love most in the world suffer.’35

Alexandra’s daughters too were increasingly feeling the separation

from their mother through her constant illness and had taken to

sending her plaintive little notes. ‘So sorry that never see you alone Mama dear’, wrote Olga on 4 December,

can not talk so should trie to write to you what could course

better say, but what is to be done if there is no time, and neighter

can I hear the dear words which sweet Mama could tell me.

Good-bye. God bless you. Kisses from your very own devoted

daughter.36
†

* The capital of Estonia, now known at Tallinn.

† The idiosyncratic spelling and grammatical errors of the Romanov sisters when writing in English, as here, are reproduced as given throughout.

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Tatiana took it particularly hard: ‘I hope you wont be today very

tied’, she wrote on 17 January 1909,

and that you can get up to dinner. I am always so awfuy sorry

when you are tied and when you cant get up. . . . Perhaps I have

lots of folts but please forgive me . . . I try to listen what Mary

[Mariya Vishnyakova] says now as much as I kan. . . . Sleep well

and I hope that you wont be tied. Your loving daughter Tatiana.

I will pray for you in church.37

Alexandra responded from her sickroom with motherly exhorta-

tions: ‘Try to be as good as you can and not cause me worries, then

I will be content,’ she told Tatiana, ‘I really can’t come upstairs and check how things are with lessons, how you are behaving and

speaking.’38

In most cases, though, the onus was on Olga to set an example.

‘Remember above all to always be a good example to the little ones,’

Alexandra told her in the new year, ‘then our Friend will be contented with you.’39 Alexandra’s advice that Olga be kind and considerate

extended to the servants as well, especially Mariya Vishnyakova, who

of late had been getting cross with her: ‘Listen to her, be obedient

and always kind . . . you must always be good with her and also

S. I. [Sofya Ivanovna Tyutcheva]. You are big enough to understand

what I mean.’40 It was advice that Olga responded to gratefully:

‘Mama dear it helps me very much when you write to me what to

do, and then I try to do it is better as I can.’ The motherly exhor-

tations followed thick and fast: ‘Try to have a serious word with

Tatiana and Maria about how they should conduct themselves

towards God.’ ‘Did you read my letter of the 1st? It will help when

you speak to them. You must have a positive influence over them.’41

It is clear that Olga felt frustrated that she and her mother never

had ‘time to talk things over properly’. ‘We will soon,’ Alexandra

reassured her, ‘but right now I’m just too tired.’42 She was, however, concerned that Olga found it hard to contain her patience with her

younger siblings: ‘I know that this is especially difficult for you

because you feel things very deeply and you have a hot temper,’

Alexandra told her, ‘but you must learn to control your tongue.’43

By now, the children had come to enjoy visits from their ‘friend’

Grigory as a welcome diversion from their mother’s sickbed. He

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played with them and let them ride round the room on his back;

he told them Russian folk tales and talked to them about God in a

way that seemed entirely natural. He was clearly playing a key role

as the girls’ moral guardian and kept in regular touch with them,

sending telegrams such as one received in February in which he

thanked them for remembering him, ‘for your sweet words, for your

pure heart and your love for the people of God. Love the whole of

God’s nature, the whole of His creation in particular this earth.’44

On 29 March 1909 he arrived unexpectedly on a visit, which

delighted all the children. ‘I’m glad you had him so long to your-

selves’, Alexandra told Olga from her sickbed.45 In June, at Peterhof, young Olga sent a note to her father, who was away on a visit to

the King of Sweden: ‘My dear kind Papa. Today the weather is

lovely, it’s very warm. The little ones [Anastasia and Alexey] are

running around barefoot. Grigoriy is coming to see us this evening.

We are all so very happy that we will see him again.’46

Despite her misgivings about the man himself, Olga Alexandrovna

always refuted any suggestion of impropriety by Rasputin towards

the girls: ‘I know what their upbringing was down to the tiniest

detail. The least sign of what is known as “freshness” on Rasputin’s

part would have dumbfounded them! None of it ever happened.

The girls were always glad to see him because they knew how greatly

he helped their little brother.’47
*
Nevertheless, Alexandra continued to worry about the derogatory gossip in circulation about Rasputin.

Although the charge of heresy had been abandoned as unproven,

other accusations had followed and Stolypin (unmoved by Rasputin’s

bedside manner in 1906) now had him under police investigation.48

St Petersburg was rife with talk of Rasputin’s disreputable drunken

behaviour, his sexual exploits and the dubious company he kept.

Even the faith of his erstwhile supporters Militza and Stana had

waned, particularly now that Anna Vyrubova – whom they despised

– had gained privileged access to him, supplanting them as the link

* In her book
My Father
,
p. 56,
Maria Rasputin denied allegations of impropriety vehemently: ‘My father was never received in Their Majesties’ bedchamber, nor in those of the Grand Duchesses, but only in that of Alexis Nicolaievitch [
sic
], or in one of the drawing rooms, and once or twice in the schoolroom.’

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between Rasputin and the throne. The Montenegrin sisters began

actively trying to dissuade Nicholas and Alexandra from having any

further dealings with Rasputin, whom they now looked upon as a

‘devil’. As a result, the close relationship they had until now enjoyed with the imperial family disintegrated. The imperial couple refused

to be influenced by the gossip and doggedly clung to their own

perception of Grigory as a true friend, despite his obvious faults – to which they were far from oblivious. The true reason for their friendship and their increasing dependency – Alexey’s haemophilia – ‘was

kept a strict secret and it bound the participants still closer to one another, separating them still further from the rest of the world’.49

By the end of 1909 Alexandra was seeking regular spiritual advice

from Grigory and meeting him at Anna Vyrubova’s house. Such was

her trust in him that she was making unguarded and potentially

compromising remarks in letters to him such as ‘I wish only one

thing: to fall asleep, fall asleep for ages on your shoulders, in your embrace’, a comment which would later be seized on by her enemies

and used against her.50 The girls too were writing regular notes,

thanking Grigory for his help, eager to see him again and asking

his advice. Now at a highly impressionable age, Olga, in her isola-

tion from other more suitable mentors, looked upon her friend

almost as a father confessor. She wrote in November 1909 saying

how much she had missed seeing him, for she had been confiding

in him about a teenage crush and was finding it hard to control her

feelings as Grigory had advised her. She wrote again in December

once more asking what she should do:

My precious friend! We often remember you, how you visited

us and talked to us about God. It’s hard without you: I have no

one to turn to about my worries, and there are so very many of

them. Here is my torment. Nikolay is driving me crazy. I only

have to go to the Sophia Cathedral
*
and I see him and could

climb the wall, my whole body shakes . . . I love him . . . I want

to fling myself at him. You advised me to be cautious. But how

* Olga is referring to the Ascension Cathedral at Sophia – a suburb of Tsarskoe Selo, where the imperial entourage often worshipped before their own private church, the Fedorovsky Sobor, near the Alexander Palace was built.

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can I be when I cannot control myself . . . We often go to Anna’s.

Every time I wonder whether I might meet you there, my precious

friend; oh if only I could see you there again soon and ask your

advice about Nikolay. Pray for me and bless me. I kiss your

hands. Your loving Olga.51

Olga’s three sisters were all writing to Grigory in an equally

trusting manner. Tatiana had sent a letter in March that year, asking him how long it would be before he returned from Pokrovskoe and

wishing that they could all visit him there. ‘When will that time

come?’ she asked impatiently. ‘Without you it is boring, so boring.’

Tatiana’s words were echoed by Maria, who told him she was pining

in his absence and finding life so dull without his visits and his kind words: ‘As soon as I wake up in the morning I take the Gospel you

gave me from under my pillow and kiss it . . . then I feel as though

I am kissing you.’ Even the normally subversive Anastasia was

demanding when she would see Grigory again:

I love it when you talk to us about God . . . I often dream about

you. Do you dream about me? When are you coming? . . . Come

soon, and then I will try to be good, like you have told me. If

you were always around us then I would be good all the time.52

Such was the solitary existence of the four Romanov sisters that,

by 1909, apart from each other’s company and occasional contact