The Castle in the Forest

by Norman Mailer

  8

  To precede the Coronation on May 14, Nicky and Alix had been caught up, after the opening procession on May 9, with ceremonial receptions that required them to offer a good welcome to many a high official from home and abroad. This ability to remain affable while not shifting one’s feet, nor indicating strain, was seen as one more measure of royal competence. As he complained afterward to Alix and to his mother (with a smile), his cheeks were sore from being kissed by plenipotentiaries with stiff mustaches.

  On May 13, sacred ornaments were transported to the throne hall of the Kremlin Palace and a host of anxieties rose into his mood. The ceremonies were, by now, familiar, but he felt as if hell itself were waiting. He wanted nothing to go wrong. For he saw the fourteenth of May as deliverance. By its end, he would no longer be acting Tsar, but consecrated as the Tsar. Done with that at last—if nothing went wrong.

  I suspect he knew that something was in the offing. But he had no instinct for when it might happen. Each day from the tenth to the thirteenth seemed as dangerous to him as the next.

  For that matter, he was not alone in such anticipations. Given the firm Russian expectation that nothing good can prevail for long, many were certain that all good weather would disappear by the morning of the Coronation. Instead, on the fourteenth of May, Moscow was alive with early morning sunshine. Morose predictions had to be postponed. Any number of women who had been quick to predict floods of downpour were still convinced something would yet go bad. Since Alix had converted to Russian Orthodoxy immediately after the demise of Alexander III, these women now said, “She comes to us behind a coffin.” Given, however, the beauty of this exceptional day, a countersentiment soon arose. Many were now saying, “We are close to the end of the century. Maybe the new one, this twentieth century, will be different. Let miracles of beauty and comfort come to us.”

  9

  I am not able to offer much concerning the Coronation itself. The Maestro did not include me among those devils who were going to work during that event. I did not protest. The most dependable route to his favor was to accept without comment the position you had been assigned. Besides, he even told me, as if by now I might be developing into one of his intimates, “Across the grand scheme of things, the Coronation will yet be seen as a petty event. You will miss nothing.”

  I was not present, therefore, in any of the cathedrals, not the Assumption, the Archangel, nor the Annunciation, but I was told over and again of the unspoken scandal of the event at the Cathedral of the Assumption.

  Soon after the Tsar and Tsarina had mounted their thrones, the Chain of the Order of St. Andrew broke even as the Tsar was bending his head to receive it. Given the number of Cudgels surrounding this ceremony, was it possible that we had accomplished this? Or was it a gift of chance?

  It is not routine to be precise about these matters—there is a labyrinth of relations, after all, between the Maestro and the Dummkopf. I could list an endless register of compromises, brutalities, games, and deceits on both sides. So there is much to contemplate about these Russian ceremonial procedures, fortified as they are with their relics, their icons, such instruments of Monarchical ascension as the Chain, the Cross, the Crown, the Scepter, and the Orb. Then there is the Throne itself, resonant with blessings and curses, that same Throne upon which Tsar Michael Fyodorovitch sat in the year 1613. Of course, some of the faithful believe that the ceremony itself emits an indispensable Godly power which enters the pores, the flesh, and the heart of the Tsar. But I would suspect that this magic did not emanate entirely from the Dummkopf. The Maestro took pride in smuggling his wares into God’s gifts.

  We were not wholly unsympathetic, therefore, to the intensity with which Nicky believed in the Lord Almighty. The Maestro would look to turn such sentiments to our advantage. So I also knew many of us would be present when the procession set out from the palace at half past ten, each step buried in the peals of a thousand church bells, some as light as the rustle of leaves, others as heavy as the groans that issue from the heart of heavy metal. The priests inside Assumption Cathedral came out to welcome the Monarchs and give them the Holy Cross to kiss. The Trinity was invoked—three times were prayers repeated, three times were the holy icons embraced. Nicky and Alix then ascended the steps of the dais in the center of the cathedral. We knew it well. We were present when Michael Fyodorovitch, the first Tsar of the Romanov dynasty, had ascended to this same Throne, so I will not elaborate on how the Imperial Regalia were placed, nor repeat the address of the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg as he importuned Nicholas II to make his public confession. And Nicky did indeed make such a public confession, but in a voice spoken so low and with such brevity that no one could hear. After which, the Tsar read the prayer for the day, and the Metropolitan said, “The blessing of the Holy Spirit be with thee. Amen.”

  I can say that we are always ready to feel the approach of the Holy Spirit. (On many an occasion, His Blessing is infiltrated with our spirit.) Indeed, it was at this point that the Chain of the Order of Saint Andrew broke. Of course, the priests ignored this startling event. Among them, it is a rule of order never to indicate that some element in a sacred service has gone awry. Without pause, therefore, the Metropolitan made the sign of the cross, laid his hands on the Tsar’s head, and said two prayers, after which Nicholas II was able to take up the Crown, place it upon his own head, and proceed to hold the Scepter in his right hand and the Orb in his left. He then placed his royal hindquarters once more on the seat of the throne of Tsar Michael Fyodorovitch. Whether or not he felt any residual resonance from such ancient contact, he rose but a few moments later, handed over the Regalia to his attendants, and beckoned to Alix, who knelt before him on a crimson cushion, its border of golden lace. Again cannon sounded from one hundred and one guns.

  The ritual continued. Orthodox service on such occasions is never brief. Many who had felt some inner illumination at the commencement now settled into the weariness of their limbs. Boredom entered the Divine Liturgy. I have to wonder if that is not part of the genius of Russian worship. For the length of the service captured many in the congregation who were without real interest at the start. Ergo, there is no need to enumerate every step taken by the Tsar and the Tsarina once they descended from the dais. A measured three paces here, three there, the Trinity to be commemorated again and once again. Indeed, the Maestro always spoke well of the Trinity, as if he knew something others did not. I have seen the best man at a wedding who, unknown to all but the bride, has had carnal knowledge of the lady, and there is a subtlety in the posture of such a fellow that I do not find dissimilar to the nuance of appreciation our Maestro is always offering to the Holy Ghost. That is always the point of his attack. Since the Holy Ghost is the embodiment of the love of the Father for the Son, and the Son for the Father, so is it always a point of attack chosen by the Maestro in order to weaken that quintessential integrity.

  I believe therefore that it was the Maestro’s act which broke the link in the Chain of the Order of Saint Andrew.

  10

  The Tsar and his retinue would move from Assumption Cathedral to Archangel Cathedral, where, with a few variations, the service would be repeated before going on to the Annunciation Cathedral.

  I was told that the Tsar and Tsarina were in need of rest but were facing a ceremonial meal in the Palace of Facets. In his diary, he would write, “All that happened in the Assumption Cathedral, though it seems but a dream, is not to be forgotten for life.” To that he added, “We went to bed early.” Whether this was from fatigue or a resurgence of lust from the good and happy sense that it was done and they would never have to do it again, I cannot say. I would certainly have liked to have been in their room. At the least, I would have learned how much the corrupted sanctity—I use precisely those two words, the corrupted sanctity—of these holy Metropolitans had to do with Nicky and Alix’s raptures. Had these endless ceremonies served some sweet bubble of concupiscence? I suffered all the pains of exclusion.

>   If it seems strange that I am always hungry to learn more, let me dispel the common assumption that God and the Devil have all the knowledge they need. I would suggest that the easiest approach to comprehending my powers is to assume that I am about as much endowed beyond an accomplished scholar as he in turn is more knowledgeable than a clod from a poorly endowed school. Since I hardly command, however, every answer to questions that bedevil humankind, I, too, can be unmanned by what I do not know.

  That night, occupied with my own preparations for the Peasants’ Festival which was going to take place in four days, I also missed the banquet in the Palace of Facets. It was the event of the season for Moscow and for Russia, one of those social occasions which can offer great advancement to one’s future if one has been invited—an orgy of putative achievement, therefore, to the richest of the nouveaux riches.

  Of course, there was also much curdling of expectation among many of these ambitious souls. They were not always happy with where they had been seated. Studying other placements in the room gave them too close a measure of their present status in the world. Had it just been lowered? Indeed, only the most elevated of the guests were in the same room as the Tsar and Tsarina. The cream of the diplomatic corps was there, and the Holy Synod, as well as the Grand Marshal, the Grand Master of Ceremonies, the highest ministers, and some of the exceptionally wealthy. The remainder had been assigned to the Hall of St. Vladimir.

  A blunting of one’s sense of self-importance is, however, the last punishment a monarch would care to arouse among rich, celebrated, and powerful guests—nor does it require much wisdom to be aware of this. So Nicholas, in company with Alexandra, made a point of visiting every table in both rooms, followed by the Dowager Empress Marie, the Queen and Prince of Naples, the Duchess of Edinburgh, the Crown Prince of Sweden, Duchess Elisabeth and Grand Duke Alexey, all of them proceeding to table after table through the Hall of St. Vladimir, and were in turn greeted at each seating with the kind of ovation that issues from the parched throats of people who had been all too ready to assume that no matter what trials they had suffered to obtain an invitation, their efforts had been absurd. They were about to be ignored. What relief and what applause, then, to see the Tsar and Tsarina approaching.

  I will not describe the meal. It would give me no pleasure to carry on about the gold plate, the French dishes, the categories of caviar, the wines (French and Crimean), the vodka, the champagne. Banquets succeed almost always in generating the same gastric acids, but here the guests were personally served by three waiters in red coats with gold trim. The menus were illustrated, the Imperial Band played throughout dinner, and the Palace of Facets sparkled.

  In that era, journalists were not encouraged to speak ill of the great and mighty. So they all declared that this occasion would never be forgotten by posterity. The Palace of Facets was, after all, renowned for the rarity of its celebrations. Only the most important events in Russian history had the power to open such ancient doors. Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great had held their Coronation banquets here. One of the reporters from America, obviously bewitched by the occasion, concluded her piece by saying:

  So ended the greatest day of our lives, the one to be remembered for years. We all felt that we had seen the grandest sight that could possibly be imagined and we were pretty lucky mortals, everything had gone so beautifully.

  Another reporter from America stated that he not only believed now in Russia’s immense potential for grandeur, but in Nicholas’ legitimacy. Russia was more prosperous and more peaceful now than she had been for years.

  …Nicholas II begins his reign with the good wishes of the entire world. Monarchies, empires, and republics alike united to wish him “bon voyage” on his momentous journey. From Germany, from France, from a venerable Queen who has reigned longest in the history of England’s throne, from our own President, and from many other rulers of nations great and small, he received messages of warmest greeting, and above all, the great heart of the common people with a single impulse felt that it has in the kindly, smiling face of this youthful Tsar the promise of a reign beneficial and just.

  11

  I could understand why Nicky’s ministers considered it mandatory that this Coronation surpass every grand European celebration of the past. They were facing gigantic problems. If Russia was immensely rich, it was also extraordinarily poor. For the country to become an economic power comparable to Great Britain or to America, the rapid completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, begun years earlier, was now paramount. Ever in need of a large inflow of foreign funds to complete work on the track, Russia had been obliged five years before the Coronation to export most of its grain to the West. The Minister of Finance under Alexander III had declared that there was no other choice. Grain was the only commodity Russia could offer in bulk. So the largest portion of the harvest had been exported. That brought on the famine of 1891. Millions of peasants died.

  Now hundreds of thousands of the relatives of these peasants had come to Moscow, where they congregated at various railroad stations in the city. Many slept on the floor. This occasioned a comment from the Maestro: “Of course these peasants are looking to stay in railroad stations. Five years ago they watched their grain being taken away on freight cars. Now they wait at the depot to see if it will come back.”

  The peasants were certainly of interest to us. Without their loyalty, how could Nicholas II exercise his rule? He could not count on the cities. The proletariat, recently peasants themselves, now lived with their diseases—cholera, typhus, syphilis, tuberculosis. Housing was desperately overcrowded. Alcoholism was an immense social problem, prostitution another.

  The sale of the grain in 1891 had, however, served its economic purpose. Investment in heavy industry had tripled over the next ten years. To balance such growth, the sewers of Moscow, now glutted, would flood slum streets in summer even as workers froze to death in winter.

  Those who remained in their villages still lived in one-room log cabins, their interiors blackened by smoke. Cheap reproductions of icons were on the wall, but any visitor who came into a peasant’s cabin felt obliged, nonetheless, to bow before them. Only then could he greet the master of the house, who, as master, had the best place to sleep—which was on top of the oven, still warm from the remains of the fire that had heated the evening meal. The rest of the family slept on the dirt floor. To undress was unheard of, but if the room was not too cold, the men would take off their boots before lying down. They had a saying: “The reek of your feet will scatter the flies.”

  Nonetheless, I respected the peasants I watched at Moscow’s railroad stations. If they were old before their time and had few teeth, they were as strong, nonetheless, as draft animals. For that matter, these men and women rarely moved—they had the patience of cattle. Yet my study gave me an intimation of why the Dummkopf was devoting so much attention to Russia. These poor, ugly, big, strong, dumb men with their plain, sturdy, and often misshapen wives might be mean, small-minded, ignorant, bewildered, even stupefied, but all that could amount to no more than protective wax over a fine jelly in a jar. Beneath their torpor, I could sense a capacity to be strong, wise, generous, fair, loyal, yes, even understanding, or so, at least, had Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky harangued their readers. If future genius was to be found in the peasantry of Russia, this was of grave concern to us. Our aim, after all, was to keep reducing human possibilities. We were looking forward to the point in time when we could take the reins from the Dummkopf.

  12

  My day was arriving. An immense gathering, scheduled to take place in Khodynskoe Field on May 18, would honor all the peasants now in the city. It would be a convening for those who had traveled hundreds of miles by railroad, by wagon, even some on foot, in order to be in Moscow when the Tsarevitch became the Tsar.

  The event on the field had been planned to demonstrate Nicky’s love for his people. It would celebrate their value. It would entertain them. Circus performers, singers, and dancers would a
ppear, and at numerous stands and kiosks, gifts from the Tsar and Tsarina would be distributed. The great open stretches of Khodynskoe were ready to receive half a million souls. Four hundred thousand iron mugs, painted in red and gold, bearing Nicky’s initials, would also be given out, as well as silk scarves for the women, ten thousand gallons of beer, and free packages of food containing Russian bread, walnuts, sausage, cookies, and jam, accompanied by a small book about the Coronation bearing the Tsar and Tsarina’s initials.

  To face the horde, Nicky, Alexandra, and members of the court were to arrive by midday and sit in state on a Royal Pavilion recently erected at one end of the parade ground. It would offer places to a thousand notables. Nearby would be another pavilion with seats for an additional thousand who were ready to pay for the privilege.

  Among a few officials, there was, however, a good deal of concern that there might not be enough police. Only three officers had been assigned to oversee a company of one hundred and fifty Cossacks who would be brought in to serve as enforcers. One hundred and fifty Cossacks to control half a million Russian souls? Their commander applied for more guards but was told there was a shortage of police. Many other areas of the city had to be protected against demonstrations by rowdies or revolutionaries. Moreover, the government had already spent large sums maintaining security for the Tsar during the ceremonial week. Now there was no money available for more security. The hand of the Maestro was obvious to me in all of this.

  We were ready to take advantage. Thirteen years ago, following the Coronation of Alexander III, Khodynskoe Field had also served as the site for a peasants’ festival. While several unhappy episodes took place, and thirty peasants lost their lives, it had been considered an acceptable loss. One was not to be held accountable for every mishap in so large a gathering.