The Old Order
Things I Remember. By Tho Grand Duchess Marie of Russia. (Cassell. 21s.) TuE Emperor Nicholas the First used to say to his children, " always act so that you will be forgiven for being Grand Dukes." His great-grand-daughter, who writes this book, had the words continually dinned into her ears, and she and her brother in the midst of a luxury and ceremonial Eastern in its splendour were brought up in a kind of exotic simplicity. Theirs was, she says, the typical upbringing for their caste. Humility was instilled into these children (who were carried to their christenings in golden chariots drawn by six horses) as the first of the Christian virtues. An " exaggerated submission was required of them " not only
towards their grown-up equals but " especially to inferiors." So far as books were concerned their education was superficial and intermittent, but their moral and social training was methodical and, severe. They did not know what it was to give an order, much less to resist one.
In a palace flooded with servants they had their own separate suites of rooms. Little Dimitri had his governor and Marie her governess, but the children were not kept apart. They played together, often shared lessons, and had for one another a deep and intimate affection undimmed by the ordinary quarrels of childhood. Playmates were not
allowed them, or only under strict surveillance. They saw little or nothing of guests. On occasion they lunched down-
stairs, but the meal, unless the family was alone, must have been something of an ordeal. They must not take part in general conversation but if spoken to must make affable replies. Marie was lectured and even punished if she had not obviously done her best in conversation. Outdoor pleasures were allowed the children. At Ilinskoie, on the Grand-Duke Serge's estate near Moscow, they ran about in what was practically a model village, delighting in the yearly fair when they threw sweets to the peasant children and bought presents for everyone, including all the servants.
No subjects unsuited to their age were ever mentioned before them, or not by the authorities; for instance, the sinister foreshadowing's of revolution were never alluded to nor any family gossip. They picked up, however, a great deal from their entourage and learned to feign ignorance. Marie writes that she could hardly remember a time when the thought of some great vague change which would destroy their way of life was not familiar to her. She remembers sitting on the nursery floor trying to fasten her own shoes because " in the revolution " there would be no one to dress her.
Neither of these children had known their mother who died when Dimitri was born. During " the long, slow years " of their early childhood they passed the winter with their father at St. Petersburg but Ilinskoie was their summer home and when their father was banished, for making a second marriage without the Emperor's consent, they lived all the year round with their uncle, Serge, who was, and always had been, a second father to them. His wife showed them a colder kindness, being a childless woman and jealous of her lmsband's great devotion to his brother's son and daughter.
There is something pathetic in the resistance children seem often to make to a grown-up love. " To me you must always remain little children " the uncle would say, when for a moment he realized their half-conscious revolt. His is a pathetic figure. We easily forgive him for being a Grand Duke as we see him indulging his beautiful wife, and taking her childlike submission for granted, anxiously drilling his "little children " and petting his model village, to whose inhabitants he is represented as wishing to be a "little father."
But all these different " children " wanted to grow up, and when the Grand Duke was assassinated it was horror rather than grief which stopped their hearts—for a moment. They gasped, and were free.
The tragedy of the Grand Duke Serge's assassination, as seen through the eyes of a little boy and girl is made marvel- lously real. The bomb which blew his carriage to piece's struck just out of sight of their schoolroom windows. They saw the people in the square outside running in the direction of the noise and their aunt in her beautiful bright dress rushing out of the Palace. A police sleigh passed driving fast against the current of the people. There was a man struggling in it. In another minute they were shepherded to the far end of the room, the Grand Duchess had sent back a message Keep the children from the windows."
Almost immediately they were taken by a private way into an adjoining church. It was full of poor people crying. The Grand Duchess in her brilliant blue draperies knelt by a litter covered with coats out of which a boot was " casually " sticking. They are even more frightened by the " look of hallucination " in her eyes. She, however, like themselves was a creature of training. She never lost her self command and that very evening she visited the dying coachman who anxiously enquired the fate of his master. " It is the Grand Duke who has sent me to you," she replied. The very next day in a carriage draped in black crape she visited the murderer in his prison and even insisted on seeing him alone. The
children were told of this " exalted act," but they, not so simple as they seemed, did not see " the utility of the gesture."
" The first evening of our mourning Dimitri and I, completely exhausted, still felt the need to talk, to exchange impressions. 'We lingered there in the schoolroom, conversing in whispers= What do you think ' said Dimitri's voice in the darkness= will we be happier t ' " The rest of the book tells of an unhappy marriage against her will, an annulment, the martyrdom of the Imperial family,
Dimitri's banishment and a series of hairbreadth escapes. The writer lives now, she tells us, in New York, and has thrown herself heart and soul " into business." The fate she foresaw when, as a child, she struggled to fasten her own shoes has come about. The reader does not gather that she
is unhappy—after all, Dimitri is alive- and she has written a really delightful book.
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