Read Online The Romanov Sisters (Four Sisters) by Helen Rappaport - Free Book Online Page A

breastfeeding did not, however, go to plan, for baby Olga rejected her, and, as Nicholas recalled, it ‘ended up with Alix very successfully feeding the son of the wet-nurse, while the latter gave milk to Olga! Very funny!’ ‘For my part I consider it the most natural thing
    a mother can do and I think the example an excellent one!’ he told
    Queen Victoria soon after.43
    Alexandra, as one might expect, bloomed as a nursing mother;
    her whole world, and Nicholas’s, revolved around their adored
    newborn daughter. The tsar delighted in recording every detail of
    her life in his diary: the first time she slept through the night, how he helped feed and bathe her, the emergence of her baby teeth, the
    clothes she wore, the first photographs he took of her. Neither he
    nor Alexandra of course noted that little Olga was in fact not the
    prettiest of babies – her large moon-shaped head with its awkward
    quiff of blonde hair that replaced the long dark hair she was born
    with, was too large for her body, and made her seem almost ugly
    to some members of the imperial family. But she was, from the
    outset a good, chubby and happy baby and her doting parents rarely
    let her out of their sight.
    On the morning of 14 November 1895 – her parents’ wedding
    anniversary and the Dowager Empress’s forty-eighth birthday – Olga
    Nikolaevna Romanova was christened (with just the one given name,
    according to Russian Orthodox practice). It was a particularly joyful occasion for the imperial court as it marked the end of official
    mourning for Tsar Alexander III. The baby was dressed in Nicholas’s
    own christening robes and conveyed in a gold state coach drawn by
    six white horses, accompanied by the Tsar’s Escort, to the Church
    of the Resurrection, the imperial chapel at Tsarskoe Selo. From
    here, Princess Mariya Golitsyna, the mistress of the robes, carried
    Olga to the font on a golden cushion. In line with Russian Orthodox
    practice, Nicholas and Alexandra did not attend the actual ceremony,
    at which members of the Orthodox synod, illustrious royal relatives,
    diplomats and foreign VIPs, all in full court dress, were gathered.
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    FOUR SISTERS
    The baby had seven sponsors including Queen Victoria and the
    dowager empress. But most of these could not attend in person, so
    Maria Feodorovna presided, resplendent in Russian national dress
    and jewelled kokoshnik , surrounded by most of the Russian grand dukes and duchesses. During the service, the baby ‘was dipped three
    times into the water in the orthodox way and then was straight laid
    into a pink satin quilted bag, dried and undressed, & returned to the gamp [nurse], who was very important in corded silk’.44 Olga
    was then anointed with holy oil on her face, eyes, ears, hands and
    feet and carried round the church three times by Maria Feodorovna,
    with one of the godfathers on either side of her. When the ceremony
    was over, Nicholas invested his daughter with the Order of St
    Catherine.
    Olga’s difficult birth had, inevitably, left Alexandra considerably
    weakened and she was not allowed out of bed until 18 November.
    Thereafter, she went for quiet drives in the park with Nicky but
    despite the presence of her brother and his wife Ducky (Victoria
    Melita’s pet name in the family), she took little advantage of their
    company, even though they were only there for a week. Ducky
    complained in letters to relatives of her boredom, of how Alix was
    rather distant and that she talked endlessly of Nicky and ‘praise[d]
    him so much all the time’, that she came to the conclusion that her
    sister-in-law preferred being on her own with him.45 She certainly
    jealously guarded her time with Nicky; the rest of it was spent
    mothering Olga. Orchie was still in evidence, as a superannuated
    family retainer, given the token role of supervising the running of
    the nursery, but she was not entrusted with the baby’s care, even
    when Madame