first time gazed about them, breathed in the scent of the dark, gold-tipped Russian cigarettes, listened to the sound of rapidly spoken French and burst into tears.
These elegantly dressed habitues, cheeks a shade too red, eyes a shade too bright, ate with unappeasable appetite. Here and there, throughout the reception rooms, stood long tables covered with food. The Valenskys kept open house, both at tea time and dinnertime, with dozens of Russian servants busy refilling glasses and plates and passing boxes of imported cigarettes and cigars. On those evenings when the Princess was not well enough to appear, none of her guests was so tactless as to remark on her absence. On the days when she felt strong enough, she was dressed by her maids in one or another of her two hundred tea gowns. Languidly Titiana decided whether to wear herrope of Burmese sapphires of the prized cornflower blue which matched her eyes or her triple string of matched black pearls, before she descended on Vasily’s arm to reign over her guests.
The festive atmosphere of the Valensky chalet might have deceived a total stranger, but everyone in the huge house was trained to revolve around a sickroom. The inner weather of the family depended on whether the Princess had spent a quiet night or a restless one. The barometer of spirits, from the kitchen to Vasily’s study, from the peasants’ rooms to Alexander’s nursery, rose or fell determined by Titiana’s fever chart or the news that either she had been permitted out for a walk or was confined to her balcony. Every day two doctors attended her and, at all times, two trained nurses made up part of the permanent household.
From his earliest memories, the little boy, Alexander, never knew what it was like to have a healthy mother. His babyish play with her was always cut short by someone who was afraid that he was tiring her. When Titiana read out loud to him, a nurse would always close the book far too soon. When Alexander grew old enough to play simple games of cards with his mother, her chief doctor took him aside and gravely warned him of the dangerous excitement engendered by any games of chance. His love for her was imprinted, from earliest memory, by the terrible tension which lies between the sick and the well. From babyhood on he was crippled, permanently, with a resentment, a wordless hatred, and a deep and irrationally superstitious fear of any sign of illness. Even normal weakness was loathsome to him, although his frustrated child’s love for his mother made him conceal his sense of horror.
From 1912 to 1914 this life, half enforced holiday, half devoted to the monotonous routine of the cure, endured. On that day of June 28, 1914, when the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, the Valensky family, attended by ten servants, was having a rare picnic in a green pasture from which they could clearly hear the sound of cowbells. Titiana was making the most of one of her brief and deceptive periods of well-being. Their world had just died although no one yet knew it.
Two months after that happy Alpine picnic, the defeat of Tannenberg took place, during which the finest and best of Russia’s fighting men were lost. Within a year over amillion Russian soldiers were dead, while in Davos, far from the sound of guns, Alexander received his first pony for his fourth birthday. In 1916, the year of Verdun, the year in which nineteen thousand British soldiers were killed in a single day in the Battle of the Somme, Alexander’s chief interest was in the hours he spent in the garage, being surreptitiously introduced to the interior workings of a Rolls-Royce engine.
On March 12, 1917, after another long winter during which his father had rarely smiled, Alexander, six years old, and already an audacious skier, had gone to the slopes of spring snow with his school friends. On that day in St. Petersburg, now called Petrograd, and soon to be called Leningrad, a starving mob,
These elegantly dressed habitues, cheeks a shade too red, eyes a shade too bright, ate with unappeasable appetite. Here and there, throughout the reception rooms, stood long tables covered with food. The Valenskys kept open house, both at tea time and dinnertime, with dozens of Russian servants busy refilling glasses and plates and passing boxes of imported cigarettes and cigars. On those evenings when the Princess was not well enough to appear, none of her guests was so tactless as to remark on her absence. On the days when she felt strong enough, she was dressed by her maids in one or another of her two hundred tea gowns. Languidly Titiana decided whether to wear herrope of Burmese sapphires of the prized cornflower blue which matched her eyes or her triple string of matched black pearls, before she descended on Vasily’s arm to reign over her guests.
The festive atmosphere of the Valensky chalet might have deceived a total stranger, but everyone in the huge house was trained to revolve around a sickroom. The inner weather of the family depended on whether the Princess had spent a quiet night or a restless one. The barometer of spirits, from the kitchen to Vasily’s study, from the peasants’ rooms to Alexander’s nursery, rose or fell determined by Titiana’s fever chart or the news that either she had been permitted out for a walk or was confined to her balcony. Every day two doctors attended her and, at all times, two trained nurses made up part of the permanent household.
From his earliest memories, the little boy, Alexander, never knew what it was like to have a healthy mother. His babyish play with her was always cut short by someone who was afraid that he was tiring her. When Titiana read out loud to him, a nurse would always close the book far too soon. When Alexander grew old enough to play simple games of cards with his mother, her chief doctor took him aside and gravely warned him of the dangerous excitement engendered by any games of chance. His love for her was imprinted, from earliest memory, by the terrible tension which lies between the sick and the well. From babyhood on he was crippled, permanently, with a resentment, a wordless hatred, and a deep and irrationally superstitious fear of any sign of illness. Even normal weakness was loathsome to him, although his frustrated child’s love for his mother made him conceal his sense of horror.
From 1912 to 1914 this life, half enforced holiday, half devoted to the monotonous routine of the cure, endured. On that day of June 28, 1914, when the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, the Valensky family, attended by ten servants, was having a rare picnic in a green pasture from which they could clearly hear the sound of cowbells. Titiana was making the most of one of her brief and deceptive periods of well-being. Their world had just died although no one yet knew it.
Two months after that happy Alpine picnic, the defeat of Tannenberg took place, during which the finest and best of Russia’s fighting men were lost. Within a year over amillion Russian soldiers were dead, while in Davos, far from the sound of guns, Alexander received his first pony for his fourth birthday. In 1916, the year of Verdun, the year in which nineteen thousand British soldiers were killed in a single day in the Battle of the Somme, Alexander’s chief interest was in the hours he spent in the garage, being surreptitiously introduced to the interior workings of a Rolls-Royce engine.
On March 12, 1917, after another long winter during which his father had rarely smiled, Alexander, six years old, and already an audacious skier, had gone to the slopes of spring snow with his school friends. On that day in St. Petersburg, now called Petrograd, and soon to be called Leningrad, a starving mob,
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