The excitement gradually subsided and a neutral zone was fixed between the two camps.
Thus was the night passed, and in the morning formal orders from the Provisional Government arrived which put an end to the dreadful situation.
In the afternoon Her Majesty sent for the Grand Duke Paul and asked him if he knew where the Czar was. The Grand Duke did not know. When the Czarina questioned him about the situation he replied that in his opinion the grant of a constitution at once could alone avert the peril. The Czarina shared that view, but could do nothing, as she had been
[Illustration: IN THE CHAIR, THE GRAND-DUCHESS MARIE RECOVERING FROM HER ILLNESS. ON THE LEFT, ANASTASIE NICOLAÏEVNA. ON THE RIGHT, TATIANA NICOLAÏEVNA. APRIL, 1917.]
[Illustration: THE FOUR GRAND-DUCHESSES IN THE PARK AT TSARSKOÏE-SELO. MAY, 1917.
unable to communicate with the Czar since the previous evening.
The day of the 15th passed in an oppressive suspense. At 3.30 a.m. next morning Dr. Botkin was called to the telephone by a member of the Provisional Government, who asked him for news of Alexis Nicolaïevitch. (We heard subsequently that a report of his death had been circulating in the city.)
The Czarina’s ordeal was continued the next day. It was three days since she had had any news of the Czar and her forced inaction made her anguish all the more poignant.[59]
Towards the end of the afternoon the news of the Czar’s abdication reached the palace. The Czarina refused to believe it, asserting it was a _canard_. But soon afterwards the Grand Duke Paul arrived to confirm it. She still refused to believe it, and it was only after hearing all the details he gave her that Her Majesty yielded to the evidence. The Czar had abdicated at Pskoff the previous evening in favour of his brother, the Grand Duke Michael.
The Czarina’s despair almost defied imagination, but her great courage did not desert her. I saw her in Alexis Nicolaïevitch’s room that same evening. Her face was terrible to see, but, with a strength of will which was almost superhuman, she had forced herself to come to the children’s rooms as usual so that the young invalids, who knew nothing of what had happened since the Czar had left for G.H.Q., should suspect nothing.