Читать книгу Once A Grand Duke by Alexander Grand Duke of Russia - Alexander Mikhailovich - Страница 24

To say that we lived in a besieged fortress would be using a very poor simile. During the war one knows one’s friends and enemies. We never did. The butler serving morning coffee might have been in the employ of the nihilists for all we knew. Ever since the November explosion a janitor coming to clean the fireplace was a potential bearer of an infernal machine.

The tremendous territory occupied by St. Petersburg made it impossible for the police to guarantee the safety of the members of the imperial family outside the walls of their palaces. The grand dukes begged the Emperor to transfer his residence to a much smaller palace situated in the well-protected suburban village of Gatchino, but the easy-going Alexander II had fully inherited the personal courage of his stern father, Nicholas I; he refused to leave the capital and he would not agree to change the itinerary of his daily drives. He insisted on following the usual routine, which included his walks in the public park and the Sunday review of the troops of the Guard. Nothing made our mother more nervous than the fact that our father was obliged to escort the Czar to this weekly parade. He laughed at her fears, pointing out that the loyalty of the army could not be questioned, but her unerring female instinct was stronger than logic.

“I am not afraid of the officers or the soldiers,” she used to say, “but I have no faith in the local police, particularly on a Sunday. It is a long drive to the parade hall and every nihilist in town can see you passing through the streets. In any event, I will not permit you to risk the lives of the children. They shall stay at home from now on.”

And so it happened that on Sunday, March 1, 1881, my father went to the parade at half past one as usual, while we boys decided to go skating in company with Nicky and his mother. We were to fetch them at the Winter Palace shortly after three.

At three o’clock sharp we heard the sound of a strong explosion.

“That was a bomb all right,” said my brother George, “no mistake about that sound.”

At this moment a still stronger explosion shattered the windows in our room. We made for the street but our military tutor held us back. Just then a servant rushed in, all out of breath.

“The Emperor has been killed,” he screamed, “and your father too. Their bodies are being taken to the Winter Palace.”

Mother heard his words and ran out of her apartment. We took her to the waiting carriage and started a mad race toward the Winter Palace, passing on our way the Preobrajensky Regiment of the Guard quick-stepping in the same direction with fixed bayonets.

Thousands of people were already surrounding the palace. The women cried hysterically. We entered by the side door. There was no need to ask questions: large drops of black blood showed us the way up the marble steps of the stairs and then along a corridor into the study of the Emperor. Our father stood at the door giving orders to a group of officials. He had to lift mother in his arms. She had fainted on seeing him alive.

The Emperor lay on the couch near the desk. He was unconscious. Three doctors were fussing around but science was obviously helpless. It was a question of minutes. He presented a terrific sight, his right leg torn off, his left leg shattered, innumerable wounds all over his head and face. One eye was shut, the other expressionless.

Every instant members of the imperial family came in. The room was packed. I clung to the arm of Nicky, deathly pale in his blue sailor’s suit. His mother, stunned by the catastrophe, was still holding a pair of skates in her trembling hands. I recognized the heir apparent by his broad shoulders; he was looking out of the window.

Princess Yourievskaya burst in half-dressed. Something or perhaps some overzealous guard had detained her. She fell flat on the couch over the body of the Czar, kissing his hands and screaming: “Sasha, Sasha!” It was unbearable. The grand duchesses began to sob aloud.

The agony lasted forty-five minutes. Not a detail of this scene could ever be forgotten by those who witnessed it. I am the only one left, all the others are dead, nine having been shot by the Bolsheviks thirty-seven years later.

The room was furnished in a rich Empire style, with different valuable little nothings (“bibelots”) spread over the small tables and numerous pictures decorating the walls. Attached to the door was an enlarged photograph of my brothers, Nicholas, Michael, George, and myself drilling with the mountain gun in our Tiflis garden. The sight of it nearly broke my heart.

“Steady, my boy, steady,” whispered the heir apparent, taking me by the shoulder.

The chief of police arrived with a complete report of the tragedy. The first bomb killed two passers-by and wounded a Cossack officer who was mistaken for my father on account of the similarity of their uniforms. The Emperor, unhurt, got out of the carriage. The coachman begged him to get off the sidewalk and proceed to the palace but he insisted on personally aiding the wounded. Then a man standing on the corner threw the second and fatal bomb, less than a minute before my father reached this spot. The fact that he had been detained by a visit to Grand Duchess Catherine saved his life.

“Silence, please,” said a hoarse voice, “the end is near.”

We came closer to the couch. That expressionless eye was still staring fixedly. The chief court surgeon, who was feeling the Czar’s pulse, nodded and let the blood-covered hand drop.

“The Emperor is dead,” he announced loudly. Princess Yourievskaya gave one shriek and dropped on the floor like a felled tree. Her pink-and-white negligee was soaked in blood.

We all knelt and prayed. Looking to my right I saw the new ruler of all the Russias. A strange change had already come over him. I could not believe it was the same Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich who liked to astound the little friends of his son Nicky by tearing a pack of cards or tying an iron poker into knots. In less than five minutes he had acquired a new personality. Something much bigger than a mere realization of imperial responsibilities had transformed his massive frame. A sort of sacred determination had suddenly appeared in his cold sharp eyes. He rose, and his relatives stood at attention.

“Have you any orders to give, Your Majesty?” asked the chief of police, who in the meanwhile had grown several inches smaller.

“Orders?” replied Alexander III. “Yes, of course. The police have apparently lost their heads. The army will take charge of the situation. I shall confer with my ministers at once in the Anichkoff Palace.”

He motioned to his wife, and they walked out together, her tiny figure accentuating his bulk.

The crowds gathered outside the palace raised a tremendous cheer. No other Romanoff ever came so near to the popular conception of a Czar as this bearded giant with the shoulders of a Hercules.

Clinging to the windows we watched him march with long strides toward the carriage, his wife running after him. He stood for a while on the curb saluting the people, and then drove away, accompanied by a whole regiment of Don Cossacks galloping in attack formation, their red lances shining brightly in the last rays of a crimson March sunset.

Two guardsmen carried Princess Yourievskaya to her apartment, and the doctors proceeded to dress the body of the late Emperor.

Gogo was crying in tormented bewilderment.