Diary of a Wimpy Czarovitch

by JG Hampton

provincial government. Papa still had not arrived, but we've heard from him and he's still alive. Would the new government kill Bloody Nicholas? I still wasn't voer his treachery, but having sisters, I was alarmed for their sakes if not my own, that he might be murdered.

  Throughout the day, I heard various leaders bullying our remaining servants telling them that they were all traitors to bloodsuckers. Is that what they thought my family were? Were we nothing but bloodsucking leeches who fed off the populace? I'd never heard of us being represented this way before having been kept in a cocoon in my numerous palaces. This was a new first for me.

  Mama sent for Uncle Paul to come and meet the new authorities with her. He came over immediately. Mama was afraid that the men intended to imprison her causing us all to be separated. What she should do? Stalling for a time, she rolled bandages as she tried to think of a plan. I laid by her on the flowered mauve divan and she refused to let me out of her sight. Telling the men that she was now merely a woman concerned about her sick children, they would have to be patient with her.

  At midnight, with my Uncle Paul by her side, she met with Guchkov and the General. They were polite to her and asked Mama if she had everything she required. As usual, Mama put the needs of others before her needs and ours. She requested that her hospitals continue to be supplied although I longed to have a fresh egg and a nice steak rather than the gruel we were eating three times a day.

  Our new guards acted more like jailers than protectors and we soon realized that is exactly what they were. Crude and coarse, they yelled obscenities at my sisters. I would reply to them in Russian that true gentleman didn't speak so offensively. By their language, they were revealing themselves as the scoundrels they were.

  Marveling at Mama's cleverness, I was impressed at her ability to change like a chameleon when circumstances warranted it. Dressed in her plain nurse's dress instead of one of her elaborate silk gowns, she'd removed her blue sapphire cross and replaced it with a plain wood one. Almost overnight, she had become a plain citizen instead of a czarina, one who was a concerned mother, a fellow Russian, like he was.

  Count B. was impressed with the calm dignity that Mama displayed now. Nevertheless the ruthless General informed us that Papa had been arrested when he'd returned to Mogiliev, but arrangements were being made for him to join us at the Alexander Palace.

  Mama pleaded that some of the servants be allowed to remain to help her nurse her sick children who were still to sick to be moved. She continued to stall for time sot that her children were well enough to be moved. She told the authorities that she'd had to shave off their hair because it was beginning to fall out and showed him pieces of their shorn braids trying to earn his sympathy for her as well as her patients. What a diplomat my Mama would have made! Was this the real reason my comely sisters heads had been shaved? Or was it to protect their virtue? They were no longer the sirens Auntie Olga had painted in her oil painting which I had coveted. My sisters looked like four bald Russian eaglets. In front of the General, my sisters no longer appeared as spoiled cosseted Grand Duchesses in white picture hats wearing beautiful clothing, but bald headed invalids in dirty nightgowns. The pity factor was presented during that meeting, but without much effect because of the hardness of our enemies' hearts.

  Mama continued to plead for her hospitals to be supplied and for compassion to be used for the wounded soldiers hospitalized in the Catherine Palace showing that she had a heart and that she was not the selfish unfeeling empress she was purported to be in the newspapers.

  General Kornilov squirmed when he told Mama that any remaining servants would be arrested. All who wanted to avoid arrest must leave today. Then he left. Now we would see how much our servants loved us. Nagorny and Demerov were some of the first to leave. I had no idea they despised me so much since they'd carried me around from my infancy. This duplicity was hard for me to stomach. I was not loved by all as I thought.

  M. Gilliard, Count Buxhoeveden and his wife, Count B. as well as Mademoiselle Schneider, Anastasia Henrikov, and our two doctors remained. All others left as fast as their short legs could carry them without a word or kiss of farewell. We had the German measles, not the Bubonic plague.

  The real gold was separated from the dross that day mentioned my Mama as she kissed me that night with tear filled eyes sick with worry over what would become of us.

  At least Minister Miliukow had sent a message to the English minister Lloyd George asking his country for asylum. King George was Papa's look a like first cousin, who no doubt would quickly grant us asylum in England or one of the other countries in his vast empire. Perhaps I would grow up to become a country squire like many of my English cousins. Wasn't blood thicker than water? On tenter's hooks we waited for King George's reply.

  As she tucked me into bed, Mama told me that I must forgive my Papa and musn't judge him so harshly. Admonishing me she said: "The Savior of the world had forgiven everyone and I must follow His example and do the same." She forgave Papa and so must I. However, I would hear him out and confront him before I forgave him. Perhaps, I would be able to understand his circumstances and exactly what had happened after he arrived home and faced him face to face.

  Mama was a true saint and I wasn't, at least not yet, but I was beginning to lose some of my rough edges because of my suffering and all that I had now lost. Maybe I was a diamond in the rough, but I was quickly becoming cut and my beautiful facets were beginning to be explored. How much weight would be lost as I was cut, polished, and perfected I wondered?

  All of us assumed that we Romanovs and our devotees would be leaving for England on our yaughts. Grandmama was packing her trunks in the Crimea as were the Yousoppovs and other Russian aristocrats. Auntie Ella would be staying in her cloister caring for the poor.

  22 March 1917 - 4 April 1917 - C. Beckendorff advised Mama to begin packing our trunks. Practically, she packed our sheets first and her lace collection which was priceless and had my sisters begin sewing precious jewels into their brassieres, corsets and under garments. If we had to leave our homeland, we were not leaving empty handed. She intended to pack as many of her valuable possessions as she could. While she packed I laid on her divan and couldn't help but notice Queen Marie Antoinette's Portrait which hung on the wall above her. The words of the old crone we'd seen that afternoon entered my mind: "There goes the martyr Empress Alexandra. Then as now, I said nothing not wanting to disturb my Mama.

  23 March 1917 - 27 March 1917 - I was watching Mama burn all of her papers: all her diaries, her letters from her sisters and brother, old ones from her father, and even her love letters from my father. Her private life was to remain her private life regardless of its historical significance. Nothing incriminating was to remain and as she threw these cherished items in the fire in her boudoir. I watched as sentimental lines of words went up in smoke.

  "Alexei, I do not want my writings scrutinized by thousands of unseen strangers delving into affairs which are intensely personal. A few of my letters have already been misinterpreted and sensationalized in the newspapers." Auntie Annya was doing the same in her rooms in the palace.

  In this matter I disagreed with my Mama. I wanted others to know about me and recognize that I was a flesh and blood youth who lived, breathed and loved. I wanted to live in my writings if I couldn't live in their hearts forever.

  As the smoke filled the room, I heard the crunch of gravel out front in the drive and knew that Papa was finally home. Peering out the window, I watched transfixed while he opened his own car door and then closed it himself. That, more than anything else made me realize that he was no longer the czar; he was simply Nicholas Romanov. His gold epauletter had been removed from his uniform along with all of his other medals. Would he be required to carry his own suitcases? I watched carefully as my father removed them from the trunk of the Rolls Royce and carry them into the house.

  "Hell's bells!" I was glad that Mama had not witnessed this humiliation: How far the great had fallen. The man wh
o had been worshipped by millions was carrying his own luggage and opening his own doors.

  As he entered the room, my bald headed sisters and I all rushed to him and hugged him. Briefly, he hugged us back, but then he was in my Mama's arms and we children knew that no one else was in the room but her and politely we exited leaving them alone together. I shut the door as I heard Papa stammer: "Forgive me, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." Mama held him tightly to her shushing and comforting as if he were her child while Papa sobbed.

  He was a broken man. Any resentment that I'd felt for him melted and I was ashamed at the harsh feelings that I'd felt. Would Papa ever recover? It was as if he'd shattered into a thousand pieces. Could anyone glue them back to resemble the man I knew as my Papa? If anyone could, it would be Mama, but I did not envy her the heartrending task.

  Hobbling to my bedroom I sat on my window seat with Joy in my arms so that I could absorb all that was happening without cataclysmic consequences. Joy licked my face and I breathed in her comforting doggy smell patting her soft calming fur and felt her reassuring tongue. Hearing my Papa breakdown had shocked my system as well as my sense of security that I'd always felt in