The Grand Duchess Marie was seized with measles late that evening. Like her sister, Anastasie, she dreaded being ill. “Oh, I did so want to be up when Papa comes,” she kept on repeating, until high fever set in, and she lost consciousness ... her last comprehensible words being, “Lili, can’t you sleep with Mamma to-night?”
“Yes, darling,” I told her. “I won’t leave Mamma alone--I’ll be somewhere near her, even if I have to sleep in the bath.”
I went to the Empress. “Madame,” I said, “will you permit me to remain near you to-night?”
“No, Lili, certainly not. If anything should happen, why should you be obliged to witness a tragedy?” she replied.
I returned to Olga and Tatiana, who, like Marie, were very anxious about their mother. “Lili, you _must_ not leave Mamma alone. One of us has always slept with her[5]--she’s not strong. Promise, promise us that you won’t leave her alone;” and, when the Empress came to pay her last visit to the sick-room, the Grand Duchesses reiterated their request.
The Empress at first demurred ... but, when she realised how much the Grand Duchesses dreaded her being left alone, she consented. “Well, Lili,” she said reluctantly, “you see that the children must have their own way. But I will not allow anyone to think I am frightened. Undress upstairs, and, when my maids have left me, slip down the private staircase, bring your
[Illustration: HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY AND THE TSAREVITCH, 1913]
sheets and blankets, and you can make up a bed on the couch in my boudoir.”
It was a bright moonlight night. Outside, the snow lay like a pall on the frost-bound Park. The cold was intense. The silence of the great Palace was occasionally broken by snatches of drunken songs and the coarse laughter of the soldiers. The intermittent firing of guns was audible. It was a night of beauty, defiled by the base passions of men.
I went quietly downstairs to the mauve boudoir. The Empress was waiting for me, and as she stood there I thought how girlish she looked. Her long hair fell in a heavy plait down her back, and she wore a loose silk dressing-gown over her night clothes. She was very pale, very ethereal, but unutterably pathetic.
As I stumbled into the boudoir with my draperies of sheets and blankets she smiled--a little affectionate, mocking smile, which deepened as she watched me trying to arrange my bed on the couch. She came forward, still smiling. “Oh, Lili ... you Russian ladies don’t know how to be useful. When I was a girl, my grandmother, Queen Victoria, showed me how to make a bed. I’ll teach _you_.” And she deftly arranged the bedding, saying, as she did so: “Take care not to lie on this broken spring. I always had an idea _something_ was amiss with this couch.”