the tsaritsa’s life has been lived out on the plane of the family, not of the empress. she might have swayed vast power, she might have liberated or helped to liberate one hundred and forty millions of people from oppression and tyranny; and her name would have been enshrined in all hearts for generations. but she has chosen an humbler part. she has shrunk from the larger burdens of the opportunities presented to her, and accepted the quieter tasks of the home. this much we may say, it is a tragedy that circumstances have prevented her carrying both parts. but to have been the great empress, she would have been obliged to sacrifice her love to a degree. nicholas doubtless cares tremendously for her, but a man never loves as a woman loves. for a woman’s joy is sacrifice, and the sacrifice of ambitions, of personal hopes and dreams, of ideas, of principles, is the greatest of all sacrifices. in proving herself the absolutely loving and loyal wife the tsaritsa turned her back upon the opportunities fate gave her for moulding history by ameliorating the condition of humanity in her own vast sphere.{211}
the tsar must understand the attitude of the court toward the empress and the fact that she is not popular doubtless makes him endeavour the more to make their own little family circle happy. for after all, the really exclusive circle of an emperor and his empress and their children is very, very small.
in august 1907 when the tsar returned from his meeting with the kaiser at swinemünde, the tsaritsa went to greet him far down the gulf of finland in a royal yacht. court etiquette merely required that she meet him at the pier upon his landing, and this effort of hers caused a good deal of comment at the capital and was accepted as another evidence of her love for him.
when the tsar promised the nation a constitution—and a parliament—all might have been well had these promises been literally carried out. no sooner had the waves of revolutionary activity subsided, however, than the emperor began to withdraw and nullify his honeyed promises and to take back piecemeal the constitution which had been granted in a moment of panic. now the people feel that russia will not have a real constitution nor a real parliament for years to come unless these institutions of liberalism and progress and civilisation are battled for. the government by maintaining a watchful grip on the country, by extraordinary vigilance, by arresting or exiling thousands upon thousands of citizens, women and girls{212} just as frequently as men, it is able to preserve a certain surface calm.
of late public opinion in russia, like public opinion in other countries, has been altering toward the tsar. he is no longer the “weak,” “well meaning little man,” who is prevented from doing what he believes to be right by wicked grand dukes, bad ministers and a corrupt court. if he is ever “led” we know now that it is only in directions in which he desires to go. if his ministers are “bad,” or the grand dukes “wicked,” we know that the inclinations and ambitions of nicholas ii are toward reaction, and that he aspires, in the words of the tsaritsa, to “hand on to his successor an autocracy such as he received.”
we know, too, that however much local police and other officials may be directly responsible for a policy which uses massacre as a political weapon that the tsar himself is not opposed to these methods, and that he directly patronises and encourages the “league of russian men,” popularly called “the black hundred.” we know that the tsaritsa, likewise, contributes money to support this organisation. this is the organisation that carries out the pogroms and the policy of governmental terrorism. in view of these (now) unquestioned facts, it seems passing strange that the tsar has not sooner fallen a martyr to his own despotism. scores of governors, generals, and other officials have paid the penalty for their misdeeds, but the tsar has thus far been spared.
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the tsar and tsaritsa at the head of a reviewing party.
{213}
there are good reasons for this, however. in the first place the person of the tsar is constantly guarded, and to such an extent that it would doubtless be difficult for a mere fanatic to reach him. but the revolutionists could get him if they believed his death would serve the cause of liberty. that the tsar lives to-day is due solely to this doubt. the revolutionists have emissaries at court, in the palaces. it would not be difficult to carry out a death sentence passed upon him. but what would be the result of this? who would be his immediate successor, that is, the dictator pending the coming of age of alexis?
the russian liberals cannot forget that the assassination of alexander ii in 1881 instead of helping the cause, set it back twenty years. it would be fatal to repeat such a blunder as that. and as to the dictator—he might be any one of several grand dukes, and one or two of these would unquestionably be more aggressively tyrannical than the present emperor. and while so much doubt prevails the life of nicholas ii is comparatively safe. on the other hand, if there is a desire to end the rule of the romanoffs a much safer method would be to do away with the successors to the throne. such a proceeding would be unaccompanied by immediate political disturbance, and yet would be effective.
we can understand, therefore, the anxiety with which the tsaritsa watches over alexis. his birth was so long and so earnestly desired, and at least so{214} long as he is the only son any disaster overtaking him would be viewed as the most terrible of calamities—probably worse from the standpoint of the court than disaster to the tsar himself. from the hour of his birth the tsaritsa has taken it as her especial task to guard and protect her son from all dangers.
at peterhof, at tsarskoe-selo, on the royal yacht, wherever alexis goes the tsaritsa is close beside. the little grand duchesses may sometimes be seen playing in the park at peterhof accompanied by only their governesses and a groom, but if their brother is there too, so is the royal mother. at functions, military reviews and the like, when alexis is on exhibition to inspire the regiments with loyalty, the empress always remains particularly near to her son.
the education of the children is supervised personally by the tsaritsa. the instructors of the children of the tsar have a very difficult task indeed. there are certain subjects in which the children must be thoroughly grounded, and certain others which must be taught eclectically and others which must be eschewed altogether.
i have a friend, now living in st. petersburg, who was a court tutor for four years, and he has sometimes told me of the difficulties he encountered during that period. the russian tutors generally have the rank of general, and are addressed in great formality as “your excellency.” teachers from abroad, however, appear in the pal{215}ace class-rooms in what we know as “evening dress.” how strange it would seem to american boys and girls to go to school one morning and find the teacher wearing a low cut vest and long-tailed coat!
the two older children, olga and tatiana, inherit from their mother a fondness for music, and they both play quite well already. the tsar enjoys listening to music, but he plays only by ear and never sings himself.
the end of the chapter is not yet. the tsaritsa is still a young woman, and empress of one of the most turbulent empires on earth. the rank and file of her one hundred and fifty million subjects hold nothing against her but they are weary of the romanoff régime. militarism is now the last bulwark of the empire. martial law is spread over a large part of the empire and the people are kept in subjection, in artificial quiet only through the constant menace of bayonets and prisons whose doors ever yawn to political heretics.
no one may prophesy the end, nor when it will come. the future is shrouded in complete mystery and therefore possesses incomparable fascination.
the tsaritsa is still, by virtue of her position, one of the most powerful women in the western world, but whose life has been given to the natural development of the love of her school-girl days, at the expense of a career which might have rivalled that of the greatest heroines of history.{216}
this is the story of the little german princess, who was left motherless at six, and came unto her own through her heart’s romance, and has remained faithful to this romance despite the tempting circumstances of opportunity. the simple loving child who was called “sunny” is to-day more than anything else the simple, loving wife of nicholas ii, the devoted mother of his children. judging from her life, if she had the dearest will and wish of her heart it would be that she might be remembered as wife and mother, rather than as empress. thus the life of princess alix of hesse—“sunny”-passed into the romance of an empress—with its burdens and its sufferings and its tragedies, and thus the end of the road looks dark, uncertain and ominously fearful.
