Robert Alexander: The Romanov Bride

Yes, Sergei was a difficult one, and though I loved him and remained ever dedicated to him, I could not deny that over the course of time we had pulled apart, in large part, of course, due to his sternness and demands. Too, the painful truth was that I had fully expected and hoped to bear a number of children, yet for his own reasons Sergei had made this not possible-though we shared a bed, I was forever denied more than a brusque kiss. Thus, in truth, a kind of tense fondness had come to exist between the two of us. From the bedroom to the stable, every decision, every choice, made within our household was his, with the strictest belief that we were all to obey and all was to run punctually and with great order. Even the smallest decisions, the petticoat type, were not mine to make, and in no way was I expected to busy myself with intellectual burdens. Almost as if I were his decoration, Sergei planned my life to be filled with painting and piano, social occasions, and, at most, participation in charitable activities. Yet such a carefree life was not entirely pleasurable, for among other things I could not deny that I was pained by the absence of little feet running about the Palace. And so it was that in my great disappointment and loneliness I longed to do more good for the people, the suffering ones, just as my own dear mother had taught me.

Heavens, as I readied myself for our public appearance at the opera that evening I couldn’t help wonder what gossip would make the rounds of tomorrow’s tea tables. On the subject of my married life, the most horrid things had been told and retold about my husband’s predilections, and over and over it came as a great astonishment that people could talk of such things. And while these stories hurt me, all I knew was that if one were guided by gossip scant good would get done in this world. Such was my life and my fate, however. I just had to keep in mind that my only duty was to obey the vows of marriage, which were sacred before God and could not be altered. As a member of the reigning family, it was up to us to set the best example for the nation… and yet as of late there had been a rash of unequal marriages, even a few divorces. Shameful, it was, not to mention simply immoral, all these morganatic unions. Even Sergei’s younger brother, the dear, dear Pavel, had broken this firm family law by taking a bride not from another ruling house but from a lower station-and not even a princess at that but a commoner-for which the Emperor had banished him from the Empire.

I had long held it dear to my heart that to live in amplitude one must have an ideal. Ever since my childhood in Germany mine had been to become eine vollkommene Frau zu werden. A perfect woman. And most definitely that was difficult because first one had to learn how to forgive everything, and to do so with full understanding. And could I do that? Could I achieve my ideal? I was always striving, but feared it would forever escape my grasp.

I loved Sergei, I truly did, but what I had never revealed to anyone was that the first person I had to forgive-and which was proving so very difficult for me-was none other than him, my husband, from whom I so craved kind word and soft touch.

My secret group had been tracking the Grand Duke for weeks, and it was true, we were so confused by the way he darted from the Neskuchnoye Palace on the banks of the Moscow River to the Governor-General’s Palace on the Tsverskaya, next to the small Nikolaevski Palace within the Kremlin. We had no idea why he was moving around like a scared mouse, darting here and there. Some of us proudly convinced ourselves that he was dashing around because he was afraid of us and thus trying to lay no regular path, others had heard rumors that there was to be a shake-up in the government, still others claimed that all the stories were true, that the Grand Duke was no lover of women and was simply darting from boy to boy. And while I had no reason to doubt these tales-I had heard tell that there were a handful of other grand dukes inclined to stable and ballet boys alike-I really didn’t care where or with whom His Imperial Highness dabbled after dark. All I was certain of was that he was not so high and mighty, or so pure and noble, as he pretended. On account of his irregular movement, however, it was nearly impossible for us to pinpoint a time and place for our attack. It was so frustrating for us who were so ready to kill for the sake of our toiling workers and Mother Russia’s hungry peasants.

When, however, we saw in the Moskovskaya Vyedomosti, that major newspaper, that the royal couple would be attending the opera at the Imperial Bolshoi Theater on the night of February 2, well, we developed our plan almost instantly and quite easily, too. It was not far at all from the Kremlin to the Bolshoi, and there really was only one route for them to follow from that ancient, massive fortress-through the Nikolsky Gate, to the left across the end of Red Square, past the Aleksandrovski Gardens, and then onto Voskressenski Square and from there to the Bolshoi. So we decided that we would be waiting along the way, hiding in the shadows.

Of course, we all wanted to do the deed, none perhaps more than me. I had been admitted to this select group of revolutionaries because I had recently passed a test-I had slit the throat of a pathetic government fellow in Novgorod and stolen a big sum of money too. And because of this success I was allowed the honor of helping to kill the Grand Duke Sergei.

Heading our group was Ivan Kalyayev-“Our Poet,” we called him because he wrote beautiful words and always carried around worn books of poetry. He was an educated fellow, most definitely, and everyone knew he was eager to kill for the Revolution, and eager to hang for it too. But you’d never know his dark intentions by looking at him, for he had a girlish kind of face, so soft and tender, with a big forehead and dark hair and intense blue eyes that would sometimes fall with great sadness. He was the comrade chiefly in charge of our group, and because of his seniority, even though he was young, maybe twenty-five or -six, he was given the honor of throwing the bomb. This made sense, naturally. My only hope was that I would be caught along with Kalyayev and be allowed to hang with him too. Da, da, da, that was my secret wish, to avenge my wife’s death and then dangle, spinning in the wind, from the gallows.

Also in our group was Dora Brilliant, a smart Jewess, and a pretty one at that, who had abandoned her good home and easy life and become very dedicated to the Revolution. She was a trained chemist and she made good bombs, very effective, the kind packed in a tin container with kieselguhr. This Dora made the bomb, and my first duty was to pick it up.

It was promising to snow the day we planned to kill the Grand Duke, the sky a dark flinty gray, the wind strong and determined. Finally, the snow started sometime after six, just as I wound my way across Red Square and past the Upper Trading Row, a vast building of shops constructed in the old Russian Style with big arches and heavy windows. Heading into the small lanes of Kitai Gorod, I passed row after row of shops, each one given over to a specialty, this one selling lace, the next canvas, then honey, lanterns, furs, and dyes. Turning onto the Ilynka, I watched the snow blow this way and that up the street, and I thought how good it was. In fact, knowing what we were about to do, I was happy for the first time since my dear Shura had been gunned down by the Tsar’s command.

By this hour the many banks and trading and lending houses lining the Ilynka had long since closed, so there really weren’t that many people about, just a few lowly clerks and such scurrying through the cold, their heads bent. At the appointed time-seven o’clock-I reached the designated corner and glanced around as gently as I could, seeing no one. I was, it seemed, in front of some kind of money house, and I drew back into the deep, arched doorway, my collar pulled up, more to hide my face than to block the cold. Not two minutes later, I heard the dull clatter of hooves on the snowy street and peered out. A small sleigh was making my way, its driver huddled against the snow. As if I were greeting an old friend, I stepped out, smiling and waving to him. This was our Savinkov, who, I think, was born in Warsaw and who had long been dedicated to ridding his homeland of the tsars. He had a keen, intelligent face, and when he saw me he smiled, his teeth so white in the night. Really, no one ever took him for a terrorist. He looked much more like a minor aristocrat from Poland, with that medium-brown hair, that sharp face, his tall forehead.