I arrived at the hospital toward six and found him drifting in and out of consciousness. The poor fellow, quite a substantial man with big beard and big stomach, too, had been ripped wide, not to mention pierced by countless splinters of wood. As I approached his bed, the sister of mercy quietly told me he had suffered more than a hundred wounds to his back and that gangrene had set in.
Bending over him and gently taking his weak hand in mine, I quietly said, “Oh, my dear man.”
Opening his eyes, he stared up at me in vague recognition, clutched my fingers, and with no great ease, asked, “How is… how… how is my master, the Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich?”
It would have been far too easy to finally unleash a torrent of tears. It would have been far too simple both to confess Sergei ’s death and to express at last my piteous grief. But what good would that kind of answer done him? How would that have helped his soul, let alone his damaged body, in these, his final hours?
“All is well with him,” I said with the gentlest of smiles. “Why, it is he who sent me to see you.”
Relieved of worry, the man ever so slightly smiled through his pain, and said, “Slava bogu.” Thank God.
His eyes closed again, and I remained there for quite some time, holding his hand. And it was good, for I sensed it, his soul focusing on what was soon to come: his earthly end. Yes, dear Rudinkin died later that night. In short, in the days to come I walked behind his coffin as well, and from my own purse I of course saw to his funeral and made accommodation for his widow and also arrangements that his eldest son, Aleksandr, should attend the Imperial Trade School.
Returning that eve to the Nikolaevski, I found that the Palace continued to run like clockwork, as if nothing at all had happened, for my personnel, like all servants, feared the variation of routine. Quite on regular time, dinner had been announced and served, and the only thing that was remarkable was that the children were eating alone. Still wearing the blue dress, I entered the dining room and took my seat, but I could neither face food nor make conversation. The children stared upon me but spoke not and ate little, as if ashamed.
Soon thereafter I once again donned black, and afterward I knelt down in prayer with the children. I saw young Dmitri to bed, but as for returning alone to my own apartments I could not, so I accompanied Maria to her room.
“May I, child, sleep up here?” I humbly asked.
Although Maria could not hide her surprise at my pathetic need for the very tenderness that I myself had denied her, she acquiesced. We laid down side by side, and, with my eyes fixed on the ceiling, I began to speak of my darling, of how much he loved Maria and her brother, and, too, I confessed to Maria how I had suffered at Sergei’s so total devotion to her and her brother, and begged forgiveness for my brusqueness. The girl listened and held my hand, and I talked on and on. Completely forgetting the physical attention that Sergei had so crudely denied me, I felt immeasurable sadness for the tormented life he had been forced to live. And then I rambled on of everything that was truly sweet between us-of our happy days at Ilyinskoye, of the books Sergei loved to read to me, of the music he loved to hear, of our walks, the dinners, the balls, the operas. And somewhere in the midst of all this, something broke within me and one tear finally came and then all the rest, and I wept well into the hours until I thought I, too, would die.
Chapter 22 PAVEL
When I first heard the story, I couldn’t believe it, it was too incredible. They said she wished it kept secret, that no one was supposed to learn of her hush-hush trip. Russians feasted on gossip, though, and it wasn’t long before word of her bizarre actions spread to every corner of the Empire. The guards were perhaps the ones who leaked it, maybe first to their wives, then over tea or beer at the corner traktir. None of which was a surprise, because stories of the tongue were the way those who couldn’t read have always passed news from hut to hut and village to village. I’d even heard some of our educated masters say, “Who can trust the papers and their censors, anyway?” Right, what better way was there to get information than gossip?
But the trouble was, which story was true?
One fat droshky driver told me that one of the guards personally told him she was allowed all the way into his cell, but when Kalyayev recognized her he went crazy and leaped at her and nearly ripped out her throat-and she would have been killed on the spot had not two loyal guards pulled her away. Another, a charwoman at the prison, swore that with her own eyes she saw Kalyayev fall to his knees upon seeing her, that they talked of God and mercy, and that in the end he kissed her hands and feet and begged for mercy. Yet someone else, a herring man at the market, said he’d heard that she had arranged for Kalyayev to be transferred to a monastery lost in the farthest parts of Siberia, where he was to be walled into a cave with just a window for food, buried alive like a forgotten hermit. Still another story claimed that she begged the Emperor for clemency, but that one I didn’t believe at all. She couldn’t be that crazy, could she?
So why did she do it? Why did the Grand Duchess take it upon herself to visit Kalyayev, the man who’d murdered her husband, the very next day? It made not a bit of sense to me.
Chapter 23 ELLA
There were countless matters of importance, but first came the children, to whom I tried to amend my ways and see after as I never had. I worried about them constantly in the days and weeks to come, and I prayed to God for his guidance, that I might bring up Maria and Dmitri as well as Sergei had begun. I promised my very best and knowing his ideas and principles, only needed to try and follow what had always been before my eyes and warm up those tender little hearts as true Christians and real Russians, founding all on faith and duty.
With good speed Sergei’s remains were placed in a coffin beneath a silver canopy there in the Church of St. Aleksei. The cof fin had to rest open, naturally, for such were the standards of Orthodoxy, but of course this presented quite a situation, for so much damage had been done to him, so much blown away, even, God forbid, lost. And so it was that I ordered and the next day found my husband in the open box, his destroyed face and hands-what was left of them, anyway-completely veiled, and his lower body draped in brocade edged with gold braid. In front, placed on a brass stand, stood the icon Savior Not Made by Hands, which I know would have pleased Sergei, while stacked all around were nearly 300 wreaths and floral decorations. Services were held all that day long, and while the children came only for morning and evening prayers, I remained on my knees before the bier nearly the entire time. Indeed, I attended services each and every one of the following six days, and after the funeral I was at all prayers for the following forty days.
I, who had never so much as commissioned a new dress without Sergei’s express approval and permission, was suddenly issuing constant instruction with surprising confidence. By my command-and expressly against the advice of my security-the gates of the Kremlin remained unlocked and open to all, and access to the church itself was completely at will to Muscovites of every rank and walk of life, who were allowed inside one hundred at a time. Most touching to me was that as they passed by so many, if not all, dropped coins into Sergei’s coffin, wanting that the whole of the Orthodox people pay for continued masses for this “True Believer.” So moved was I by this and countless other kindnesses that on the day of the funeral I ordered that Moscow’s poor receive, at the expense of my private purse, a free meal in memory of the newly departed.