There is malicious intrigue and tendentious versions of our private meeting. The question arises: could either have happened without your participation, albeit passive, in the form of nonresistance, when your honor dictated the opposite course of action? The answer is contained in the question itself, and I protest vigorously against a political interpretation of my decent feelings of sympathy for you and your grief. My convictions and my attitude to the Imperial House remain unchanged.
I fully recognize my own mistake: I should have reacted to you impassively and not entered into any conversation. But I was gentle with you, and during our meeting I suppressed that feeling of hatred, which in reality I feel for you. You know now what motive guided me. But you have proved unworthy of my magnanimity. Because for me there is no doubt that you are the source of all the stories about me, for who would have dared to reveal the substance of our conversation without first asking your permission (the newspaper version is distorted: I never admitted to being a Believer, I never expressed the slightest repentance).
The fact you remained alive is also my victory, and one that made me rejoice doubly when the Grand Duke had been killed.
– Kalyayev
Ha! Talk about a real man, talk about honesty!
Actually, though, that last part was not quite right. His victory? Not really, more like my little mistake. And back then I was quite sure she never, ever realized it-that that Romanov woman never knew that the reason she lived past her husband was not because of some God or Kalyayev, but because of me, a cowardly revolutionary who was afraid to act as she traveled to the opera. Oh, and when I read that letter I came up with a fat wish, that one day our paths should cross and I could… could…
Yes, my revolution burned with the hot embers of revenge.
A few months later, that May, actually, Kalyayev was secretly transferred to the capital and from Peterburg to the Shlisselburg Fortress way out on that small island, where they planned to take his life. I saw it all, too, for I killed someone else, a stupid merchant. Sure, I cut that guy’s fat neck, stole all his money, and then used those rubles to bribe one of the guards to get my way into the fortress just so I could watch them kill my great hero.
The execution of Our Poet was supposed to be secret, because they wanted no one of the people to know, because the bigwigs were afraid that riots would break out. And so at two o’clock in the morning, just as the first of the northern morning light was beginning to color the sky, they brought Kalyayev out. In the yard there were only a handful of officials, some guards, some prison people, and me, too, standing way at the back in the uniform of a yard worker. I wanted to wave, to call out, to say, “Don’t worry, I will witness your end and spread word far and wide of your bravery!” But I kept quiet. To my eyes he looked thinner, otherwise normal. And he mounted the scaffold without hesitation or assistance. Yes, true to his word, he was eager to die for the cause.
At the top of the steps he was met by a gray-bearded priest robed in black, who asked, “Would you like to address a last prayer to God, my son?”
Kalyayev shook his head, turned to the few of us there, and shouted, “I am happy to die for the cause of the Revolution! I am happy to have retained my composure right until the end!”
His words made me smile with pride, and I’ve always cherished the thought that maybe he recognized me out there, for I saw something-a grin of recognition, perhaps even a wink-when he looked my way. The next moment he was led up onto the block, and the beasty executioner, wearing a white shroud and red bonnet, smiled as wide as an opera singer. Having done this hundreds of times if not more, the executioner threw a rope over Kalyayev’s neck-and then in the blink of a second he knocked away the very block on which my hero was perched.
But the rope was too long!
Oh, dear Lord, it was so cruel the way Kalyayev fell, dropping through the air until his feet hit the ground. He cried out as he choked and struggled and half tumbled over, yet the rope kept him kind of upright. It was disgusting to see the way that young man twisted this way and that like a fish hanging from a pole and slapping the ground! Even the officials cried out in shock! Even I shut my eyes, so painful was it to see Our Poet stretched between life and death! It was only when the idiot executioner in his red bonnet and two others hoisted desperately on the rope, yanking Kalyayev completely up into the air, that they finished the job, either breaking his neck or choking him, I couldn’t tell which. Radi boga, even I had never been so mean, even I had always done a better job of killing someone.
And though our beloved Kalyayev met an early end, our young Revolution, its roots fed by his blood, was bursting with violent life! And I’ll shout it again and again, “Da zdravstvuet revolutsiya!”
Chapter 25 ELLA
Yes, the revolution took great hold that year of 1905 and caused such turmoil that I thought we would all be washed away. On top of this, the war in Manchuria continued so poorly, and while I could not busy myself with the doings of the Empire, I did have my beloved Moscow and countless wounded and abandoned who were in need of my attention. In essence, I had begun my withdrawal from the magnificent world where fate had cast me, and it was sometime during these months that my great scheme took birth and grew, it seemed, by the day if not the moment.
I accomplished many things, and one of the first things I did was to gather as many of Sergei’s diaries and letters and papers as I could. I myself read only a handful or two of pages, but it was more than I could bear, and so that history would never know the beasts that tore at the poor man’s soul, I took the papers I had gathered and tossed them in the tiled stove in my chamber, burning Sergei’s confessions completely and absolutely. With that accomplished, I turned away from the pain of the past and looked forward to the future.
Too, I prayed for many months for poor Kalyayev’s soul, and in my heart I found forgiveness for his deed, just as I prayed he found forgiveness for any of my sins upon him. I never visited him a second time, but if I had I would have said to him that I told virtually no one of our conversation. My visit to him was reported everywhere, but the thought that I could have betrayed his spiritual confidence was and still is repugnant to me. The only thing I can imagine is that we were secretly listened upon, for someone quite apart from me spread our conversation.
The day my husband was killed was the day I turned away from animal meats and began to wear black garment and avoid festivities of any sort. It was a completely natural step, one that I took without even thinking. From then on, as if the decision had been made for me, I did not even partake of a glass of champagne at a christening and rarely appeared in public, and for these offenses society widely criticized me. But it made no matter what the tongues said, just more petty dishrags. Fortunately, Nicky gave me delicate kindness by permitting me to remain in the Nikolaevski Palace, and that I could live in that house was an intense comfort, and I found great strength and peace being near St. Aleksei’s relics and, of course, near my husband who had been laid to rest in a peaceful chapel of the Chudov. I made a request to Nicky, which was granted, to have the historical furniture taken out of my rooms and stored away with the catalogue kept in the Kremlin, so that after my death all would be put back as it was. With the luxurious appointments removed, I had my chambers painted white and the walls hung with icons, and there were those who with dismiss said my rooms quite resembled a nun’s cell. But I found it full of tranquillity. In addition, I gathered together some tattered pieces of Sergei’s clothing that he had worn on his last day, and I tucked them inside a large hollow cross, which I placed in a corner of my room. This, too, brought me great comfort.