Nicholas and Alexandra (10 page)

They lived that first winter in six rooms of the Anitchkov Palace, where the Dowager Empress Marie remained mistress of the house. In his haste to be married, Nicholas had allowed no time for preparation of a place for himself and Alexandra to live, and they moved temporarily into the rooms which Nicholas and his brother George had shared as boys. Although he ruled a continent, the young Tsar conducted official business from a small sitting room while the new twenty-two-year-old Empress sat next door in the bedroom working on her Russian language. Between appointments, Nicholas joined her to chat and puff on a cigarette. At mealtime, because the apartment lacked a dining room, Nicholas and Alexandra went to dine with "Mother dear."

The young couple minded their cramped quarters less than the long hours apart. "Petitions and audiences without end," Nicholas grumbled, "saw Alix for an hour only," and "I am indescribably happy with Alix. It is sad that my work takes so many hours which I would prefer to spend exclusively with her." At night, Nicholas read to her in French, as she wanted to improve her use of the court

language. They began by reading tales by Alphonse Daudet and a book about Napoleon's life on St. Helena.

Occasionally, on snowy nights, Nicholas bundled Alexandra into fur robes beside him in a sleigh. Then he set the horses to flying under the walls and domes of the city and across the frozen white landscape. Back in their apartment, they changed into dressing gowns and had a late supper before a roaring fire.

On the last day of 1894, Nicholas looked back at the enormous events of that fateful year. In his diary he wrote: "It is hard to think of the terrible changes of this year. But putting our hope in God, I look forward to the coming year without fear, because the worst thing that could have happened to me, the thing I have been fearing all my life [the death of his father and his own accession to the throne], has already passed. At the same time that He has sent me irreparable grief, God has sent me a happiness of which I never dared to dream, in giving me Alix."

Certain problems are universal. Nicholas, genuinely grieved for his abruptly widowed mother, tried to comfort her by his presence, dutifully dining with her and often staying to sit with her after dinner. During the early months of his reign, Nicholas turned to his mother for political advice. She gave it freely, never suspecting that Alexandra might be resenting her role. To Marie, Alexandra was still an awkward young German girl, only recently arrived in Russia, with no knowledge or background in affairs of state. As the period of mourning ended, Marie returned to public life, to the clothes, the jewelry, the brilliant lights she loved so much. She was constantly seen driving down the Nevsky Prospect in an open carriage or sleigh pulled by a pair of shiny blacks, with a huge, black-bearded Cossack on the runningboard behind her. In the protocol of the Russian court, a dowager empress took precedence over an empress. At public ceremonies, Marie, dressed all in white and blazing with diamonds, walked on the arm of her son while Alexandra followed behind on the arm of one of the grand dukes. So natural did the leading role seem to Marie that when she discovered that her daughter-in-law was bitter, Marie was surprised and hurt.

Alexandra, for her part, felt and behaved much like any young wife. She was shocked by the sudden blow which had struck Marie, and her first reaction toward her mother-in-law was sympathetic. Before long, however, the strains of living under the same roof and competing for the same man began to tell. At meals, Alexandra

was doubly insulted. Not only was she completely ignored, but the older woman treated her beloved Nicky like a schoolboy. Despite elaborate politeness between "dear Alix" and "Mother dear," a veiled hostility began to appear.

One incident especially irritated Alexandra. Certain of the crown jewels traditionally passed from one Russian empress to the next, and, indeed, protocol required that Alexandra wear them on formal occasions. But Marie had a passion for jewelry and when Nicholas asked his mother to give up the gems, she bristled and refused. Humiliated, Alexandra then declared that she no longer cared about the jewelry and would not wear it in any case. Before a public scandal occurred, Marie submitted.

Like many a young bride, Alexandra sometimes had difficulty accepting the swift transition in her life. "I cannot yet realize that I am married," she wrote. "It seems like being on a visit." She alternated between despair and bliss. "I feel myself completely alone," she wrote to a friend in Germany. "I weep and I worry all day long because I feel that my husband is so young and so inexperienced. . . . I am alone most of the time. My husband is occupied all day and he spends his evenings with his mother." But at Christmas she wrote to one of her sisters, "How contented and happy I am with my beloved Nicky." In May she wrote in his diary, "Half a year now that we are married. How intensely happy you have made . . . [me] you cannot think."

The domestic tensions eased in the spring of 1895 when Nicholas and Alexandra moved to Peterhof for the summer and Marie left Russia on a long visit to her family home in Copenhagen. More important, Alexandra discovered that she was pregnant. Grand Duchess Elizabeth came to stay with her sister, and together the two young women painted, did needlework and went for carriage rides in the park. Both Nicholas and Alexandra marveled at the baby's growth. "It has become very big and kicks about and fights a great deal inside," the Tsar wrote to his mother. With the baby coming, Alexandra began planning and decorating her first real home in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, fifteen miles south of St. Petersburg. "Sad to leave Peterhof and . . . our little house on the shore where we spent our first summer so quietly together," Nicholas wrote to Marie. "But when we entered Alix's apartments [at Tsarskoe Selo] our mood changed instantly ... to utter delight. . . . Sometimes, we simply sit in silence wherever we happen to be and admire the walls, the fireplaces, the furniture. . . . Twice we went up to the future nursery; here also the rooms are remarkably airy, light and cozy."

Both parents hoped that the new baby would be a son; a male heir would become the first tsarevich born directly to a reigning tsar since the eighteenth century. As the date approached, Marie returned, bubbling with excitement. "It is understood, isn't it, that you will let me know as soon as the first symptoms appear?" she wrote to Nicholas. "I shall fly to you, my dear children, and shall not be a nuisance except perhaps by acting as a policeman to keep everybody else away."

In mid-November 1895, when Alexandra began her labor, artillerymen in Kronstadt and St. Petersburg were posted beside their guns. A salute of 300 rounds would announce the birth of a male heir, 101 would mean that the child was a girl. Alexandra suffered intensely in labor, and birth was protracted. At last, however, the cannon began to fire, 99 . . . 100 . . . 101 . . . But the 102nd gun never fired. The first child born to Tsar Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra Fedorovna was the Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaievna. At birth, she weighed nine pounds.

The joy of having their first baby instantly dispelled all worries about whether the child was a boy or a girl. When the father is twenty-seven and the mother only twenty-three, there seems infinite time to have more children. Alexandra nursed and bathed the baby herself and sang the infant to sleep with lullabies. While Olga slept, her mother sat by the crib, knitting a row of jackets, bonnets and socks. "You can imagine our intense happiness, now that we have such a precious little one to care for and look after," the Empress wrote to one of her sisters.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Coronation

In the spring, when the ice on the Neva, used all winter as a thoroughfare for sleighs and people, began to crack, the thoughts of all Russians turned to the coronation. The year was 1896, the twelve-month period of mourning was over and the new Tsar was to be crowned in Moscow in May.

Realizing that for the forty-nine-year-old Dowager Empress Marie the coronation would be partially a reminder of the sudden death of Alexander III, Nicholas attempted to console her. "I believe we should regard all these difficult ceremonies in Moscow as a great ordeal sent by God," he wrote his mother, "for at every step we shall have to repeat all we went through in the happy days thirteen years ago! One thought alone consoles me: That in the course of our life we shall not have to go through the rite again, that subsequent events will occur peacefully and smoothly."

The coronation of a Russian tsar was rigidly governed by history and tradition. The ceremony was held in Moscow; nothing so solemn, so meaningful to the nation, could be left to the artificial Western capital thrown up by Peter the Great. By tradition, the uncrowned tsar did not enter the city until the day before his coronation. Upon arriving in Moscow, Nicholas and Alexandra went into retreat, fasting and praying, in the Petrovsky Palace outside the city.

While the Tsar waited outside the city, the Muscovites painted and whitewashed buildings, hung strings of evergreen across the doorways and draped from the windows the white-blue-and-red Russian flag. Every hour thousands of people poured into the city. Bands of Cossacks galloped past creaking carts filled with peasant women whose heads were covered with brilliant kerchiefs of red, yellow, blue and orange. Trains disgorged tall Siberians in heavy coats with fur collars, Caucasians in long red coats, Turks in red fezzes and cavalry gen-

erals in bright red tunics with golden, fur-trimmed cloaks. The mood of the city was buoyant: besides excitement, pageantry and feasting, the coronation meant a three-day holiday, the granting of pardons to prisoners, the lifting of fines and taxes.

On the afternoon of May 25, the day of Nicholas's formal entry into Moscow, the sun sparkled on the city's domes and windows. Two ribbons of troops bordered the four-mile line of march, holding back the crowds. Every balcony and window above the street was jammed with people. On one of the viewing platforms built along the street sat Mathilde Kschessinska. "It was agonizing to watch the Tsar pass . . . the Tsar who was still 'Niki' to me, one I adored and who could not, could never, belong to me."

At two o'clock, the first squadrons of Imperial Guard cavalry rode into the streets, forming the van of the procession. Those watching from the windows could see the flash of the afternoon sun on their golden helmets and cuirasses. The Cossacks of the Guard came next, wearing long coats of red and purple, their curved sabers banging against their soft black boots. Behind the Cossacks rode Moscow's nobility in gold braid and crimson sashes with jeweled medals sparkling on their chests. Then, on foot, came the Court Orchestra, the Imperial Hunt and the court footmen in red knee breeches and white satin stockings.

The appearance of the officials of the court in gold-embroidered uniforms signaled the coming of the Tsar. Nicholas rode alone, on a white horse. Unlike the lavishly costumed ministers, generals and aides who wore rows of medals from shoulder to shoulder, he was dressed in a simple army tunic buttoned under his chin. His face was drawn and pale with excitement and he reined his horse with his left hand only. His right hand was raised to his visor in a fixed salute.

Behind Nicholas rode more clusters of horsemen, the Russian grand dukes and the foreign princes. Then came the sound of carriage wheels, mingled with the clatter of hoofs. First came the gilded carriage of Catherine the Great, drawn by eight white horses. On top was a replica of the Imperial Crown. Inside, beaming and bowing, sat the Dowager Empress Marie. Behind, in a second carriage, also made of gold and drawn by eight white horses, sat the uncrowned Empress, Alexandra Fedorovna. Dressed in a pure white gown sewn with jewels, she wore a diamond necklace around her neck which blazed in the brilliant sunlight. Leaning from left to right, bowing and smiling, the two Empresses followed the Tsar through the Nikolsky Gate into the Kremlin.

The following day, on coronation morning, the sky was a cloudless

blue. In the city's streets, heralds wearing medieval dress proclaimed that on that day, May 26, 1896, a tsar would be crowned. Inside the Kremlin, servants laid a crimson velvet carpet down the steps of the famous Red Staircase which led to the Ouspensky Cathedral, where the ceremony would take place. Opposite the staircase, a wooden grandstand had been built to hold guests who could not squeeze inside the cathedral. From this vantage, hundreds of people watched as soldiers of the Imperial Guard in red-white-and-gold uniforms took up positions on the staircase, lining the crimson carpet.

In their apartment, Nicholas and Alexandra had been up since dawn. They had coffee, and while Alexandra's hair was being done by her hairdresser, Nicholas sat nearby smoking one cigarette after another. With her attendants, she practiced fastening and unfastening rhe clasps of her heavy coronation robe. Nicholas settled the crown on her head as he would do in the cathedral and the hairdresser stepped up with a diamond-studded hairpin to hold the crown in place. The pin went too far and the Empress cried with pain. The embarrassed hairdresser beat a retreat.

The formal procession down the Red Stairway was led by priests, trailing long beards and golden robes. Marie came next in a gown of embroidered white velvet, her long train carried by a dozen men. At last, Nicholas and Alexandra appeared at the top of the stairway. He wore the blue-green uniform of
the
Preobrajensky Guard with a red sash across his breast. At his side, Alexandra was in silver-white Russian court dress with a red ribbon running over her shoulder. Around her neck she wore a single strand of pink pearls. They walked slowly, followed by attendants who carried her train. On either side walked other attendants, carrying over their sovereigns' heads a canopy of cloth of gold with tall ostrich plumes waving from its top. At the bottom of the steps, the couple bowed to the crowd and stopped before the priests, who touched them on the forehead with holy water. Before an icon held by one of the priests, they said a prayer; then the churchmen in turn kissed the Imperial hands, and the pair walked into the cathedral.