Imperial Dancer: Mathilde Kschessinska and the Romanovs (6 page)

Despite the critics’ good reviews and her early successes on the stage, Mathilde was becoming more and more depressed at Nicholas’s absence. Finally she was forced to admit the reason to her parents, who were worried about her health. (Later a legend grew up that, in Cairo, Nicholas was greeted by a handsome young officer who kissed the Tsarevich’s hand on presentation and hardly left his side. He allegedly bore a strong resemblance to the ballerina Kschessinska.)

Then in April 1891 came news that while riding in a rickshaw in Otsu, Japan, the Tsarevich had been attacked by a fanatic wielding a sword. With blood streaming down his face he jumped out and ran along the street, pursued by the madman. He was saved by the prompt action of his cousin Prince George of Greece, who knocked the man out with his cane.

For several days Mathilde lived in torment until the newspapers published reassuring news about the Tsarevich’s health. Despite profuse apologies from the Emperor and Empress of Japan the Tsar ordered his son to return to Russia immediately.

Reassured and relieved, Mathilde and her sister began to enjoy themselves. Mathilde and Julie shared a small bedroom and sitting-room in their parents’ St Petersburg apartment and despite the six-year gap in their ages remained close. As their parents only allowed them to visit close friends (if they were suitably chaperoned), they began to find ways to bend the rules. Pretending they were going to one of the approved houses, they slipped off somewhere else. Evening dresses were covered by a coat before they said goodbye to their parents, and on returning home they hastily changed into nightdresses before wishing them goodnight.

Nicholas arrived in St Petersburg on 4 August and went straight to Krasnoe Selo for a reunion with his parents. That evening he attended the theatre, where Mathilde was performing. Soon afterwards the Imperial family left for Denmark, travelling from there to the Crimea where the Tsar and Tsarina celebrated their silver wedding anniversary. It was late in the year before the Tsarevich returned to the capital.

When the summer season ended Mathilde’s godfather Monsieur Strakatch took her abroad. Officially, this was a reward for successfully finishing her studies. More probably her parents had heard rumours of the Tsarevich’s interest in their daughter and wanted to get her away from the gossip.

They went first to Biarritz and then crossed into France. Mathilde prayed before the Madonna at Lourdes and bought miraculous images and souvenirs. From there they went to Rome and Milan, where they attended a performance at La Scala, before travelling around Italy. They finished the journey in Paris, returning to St Petersburg in time for the winter season.

On 23 September 1891 the Italian ballerina Carlotta Brianza appeared in
The Tulip of Harlem
, the ballet in which she had made her debut at the Maryinsky two years earlier. This time she had to share the praise. ‘The success of the ballerina was shared with the youthful Mlle Kschessinska II,’ reported Colonel Bezobrazov in the
St Petersburg Gazette
. ‘Mlle Kschessinska astonished the connoisseurs with the audacity of her
tours
and her steel
pointes
. We will soon have an accomplished ballerina if the theatre administration does not obstruct her promotion.’
²⁷

Soon afterwards, Brianza left St Petersburg. With Virginia Zucchi already dancing in Europe the field was now temporarily clear for Mathilde Kschessinska – a situation she was determined to exploit. She was already outshining her main rival Olga Preobrajenska, who only came to the notice of the critics when she replaced an injured soloist.

With the way clear at the Maryinsky, Mathilde now began to pursue the Tsarevich almost obsessively.

After Nicholas returned from the Crimea in November 1891 Mathilde ‘only saw him by chance in the streets of the capital’.
²⁸
The ‘chances’, however, were entirely of her making. She discovered that almost every day he rode along Winter Palace Quay. Mathilde had a smart carriage drawn by two ponies, which reminded her of the carriage of the Fairy Carabosse in
Sleeping Beauty
. She now began driving out alone with a Russian coachman.

We had already reached Vladimir Alexandrovich’s Palace and I had lost all hope of seeing him. But the moment we went back, when I least expected to see him, he went by on his way to meet Xenia. It all happened so fast that I couldn’t even act. But I did manage to greet him. I’ll be going driving more often now.
²⁹

She went out every day and occasionally was rewarded with spectacular success. ‘Driving by the Anichkov Palace, we saw the Tsarevich and Xenia behind the fence. How happy I am that for three days in a row I’ve seen the Tsarevich!’
³⁰

There were also ‘chance’ meetings in the theatre. On 4 January 1892, during the interval of the opera
Esclarmonde
, Mathilde left her box and ran into Nicholas, who was on his way to the Imperial box. Another occasion did not go so well and Mathilde was annoyed:

When I left the stage I became angry with myself because I spent so little time looking through the hole in the curtain at the Tsarevich. Because of this I stayed in the theatre until the end of the opera in order to see him through the curtain hole. After it was over I met Nabokov at the stage door and purposefully stayed and talked to him, since the Tsarevich should have gone by and I wanted him to see me. He drove by in his coach with Xenia and nodded. But I don’t know if he nodded at Nabokov or me!
³¹

These encounters triggered conflicting emotions. ‘I’m very happy to have seen the Tsarevich, but it’s unfortunate that we couldn’t speak. But at the same time I feel that I’ll be very sad and cry. It’s better not to have seen him at all. My heart is so pained every time I see him. And I have begun to fear for myself!’
³²

Plunged into the atmosphere of the Imperial Ballet with its intrigues, favourites and love affairs, Mathilde was soon to prove herself adept. First she had to dispose of a rival.

In 1892 Maria Labunskaya was banished from Russia, allegedly for spreading ‘gossip and slander’ about the Imperial family. The allegations were false. Some years later, according to Bronislava Nijinska, Labunskaya said she felt the source of these cruel allegations was Kschessinska, her rival for the attentions of the Tsarevich. Bronislava Nijinska was no admirer of Mathilde, seeing her hand behind every intrigue, but it is possible that in this instance she was right. Maria Labunskaya was granted leave of absence to study and dance in Paris. In 1894 while still officially on leave she was dismissed from the Imperial Ballet.
³³
A few years later she was one of the stars of the Gaité-Lyrique Theatre in Paris.

For Mathilde the turning point came towards the spring of 1892. On 10 March Nicholas again attended the graduation performance at the Theatre School. ‘During supper I sat with the pupils as before,’ he wrote in his diary, ‘only little Kschessinska was very much missed!’
³⁴

A boil had appeared on Mathilde’s leg and another on her right eye. At first she covered her eye with a bandage and continued to drive out as usual, until the boil became so bad that she remained
home. Mathilde and Julie were at home alone on 11 March when the doorbell rang and Masha, the maid, announced the Hussar officer Eugene Volkoff. Mathilde asked Masha to show him into the sitting-room – but it was not Volkoff who walked through the door, it was the Tsarevich. ‘I spent the evening in a wonderful way,’ he recorded. ‘I went off to a new place for me – to the Kschessinsky sisters. They were awfully surprised to see me there.’ When Mathilde recovered from the shock she was overjoyed. Nicholas stayed for over two hours, ‘and we chatted about everything without cease … But our joy was mutual and grand!’
³⁵

Mathilde had dreamed of this meeting for a long time. Nicholas stayed until 1 a.m. and in the morning, before leaving for the suburban palace of Gatchina, he sent her a note. ‘… Since our meeting I have been in the clouds! I shall try to come back as soon as possible. Nikki.’
³⁶
Mathilde read and re-read that first letter until she knew it by heart, as indeed she must have done as the letter was ‘lost’ in the Revolution, yet she was able to quote it in her memoirs over sixty years later.

Nicholas returned to St Petersburg on 16 March. That afternoon Mathilde and Julie met him while he was out riding. They were upset. ‘A total rumpus has taken place due to the fact that this evening at Koni’s [Nicolai Maximilianovich, Duke of Leuchtenberg] with the pupils they have to play a role as Ethiopians in the chorus!’ Nicholas recorded incredulously. The Kschessinsky sisters were saved from this indignity by the intervention of the Tsar’s brother Grand Duke Alexei, who was afraid of the publicity the next day. Nicholas was pleased.
³⁷

Now Mathilde again had to make all the running, popping up everywhere Nicholas went – out driving on the Morskaya, sitting in the opposite box at the Maly Theatre, attending the
concours hippique
at the riding school and later standing on Karavannaya Street opposite the Anichkov Palace.
³⁸
On 23 March Nicholas finally called at the Kschessinskys’ apartment, where he and Mathilde spent a ‘jovial and homey’ time chatting while Julie played the piano. ‘A wonderful evening!’
³⁹

On the Feast of the Ascension there was a regimental parade. Mathilde sat in one of the public boxes watching the Emperor review the troops. According to Mathilde, Nicholas walked behind him and constantly gazed at her, a loving look which she returned.That evening he visited the Kschessinskys, ‘where I spent a pleasant one and a half hours’.
⁴⁰

Although Nicholas was infatuated with Mathilde, he never stopped dreaming about Alix of Hesse. ‘I never thought that two … loves could co-exist at one time within one heart,’ he wrote in his diary on 1 April.

I have already loved Alix … for three years and constantly hope to marry her one day! The following year I fell very much in love with Olga D. [Dolgoruky]. … And since the camp of 1890 until now I have been madly (platonically) in love with little K.… At the same time I never stop thinking of Alix!
⁴¹

On Easter Sunday Mathilde and Nicholas were alone together for the first time when he called to wish her a happy Easter. ‘The older sister was off drinking.’ Nicholas now became a regular evening visitor. Sometimes she was alone but often Julie was present and once or twice Nicholas’s regimental comrade, Baron Alexander Zeddeler, made up a foursome. If Mathilde was dancing Nicholas came to the theatre, especially enjoying
The Queen of Spades
when she danced the shepherdess. Afterwards he called at the apartment and praised her performance. ‘I enjoy these rendezvous,’ he admitted.
⁴²

Nicholas occasionally brought his father’s cousins Grand Dukes George, Sergei and Alexander (‘Sandro’) Michaelovich to Mathilde’s home. The ‘Michaelovichi’ were Nicholas’s childhood playmates. The three Grand Dukes had spent their early years in the Caucasus where their father, the highly respected Grand Duke Michael Nicolaievich, the Tsar’s uncle, was Viceroy until 1880. The family now lived in the huge New Michaelovsky Palace in St Petersburg, where the halls and corridors were so vast that in later life they used bicycles to visit each other. George, now twenty-nine, had a talent for painting, liked racehorses and had a passion for the Caucasus. Twenty-three-year-old Sergei nurtured an unrequited love for the Tsarevich’s sister Xenia, but she was in love with his brother Sandro. Twenty-six-year-old Sandro was serving in the Imperial Navy and he returned Xenia’s love. Dark-haired, handsome and reputedly extremely ambitious, he hoped to become the Tsar’s son-in-law.

Julie joined these parties as ‘chaperone’ and the Michaelovichi sang Georgian songs while the girls served their father’s champagne. On one memorable evening the Tsarevich impersonated Mathilde’s Red Riding Hood dance from
Sleeping Beauty
, with a handkerchief tied round his head and carrying a basket. ‘Sandro also appeared there at 1 a.m.; we danced a little to his music!’ Nicholas recorded.
⁴³

The romance was now heating up. On 20 April Mathilde and Julie saw the Tsarevich four times in St Petersburg. ‘I rode past, bowing seriously and trying not to laugh!’ he wrote. That night, at 12.30 am, he again called at the apartment. ‘I stayed very long and had an exceptionally good time. There was even some little refreshment. I was happy to the limit finding out something from M., which interested me very much. It’s time now!’ he added, ‘Get on with it!’
⁴⁴
Mathilde had perhaps begun to hint that she wanted more from their relationship.

In April the Tsar complained that Nicholas had ‘disappeared’ in St Petersburg after attending the opera with Sandro, ‘evidently they have gone somewhere else, since it is now half-past one and he is still not home! … What he is doing I do not know, he telegraphs nothing.’
⁴⁵
Nicholas’s diary shows he had gone to see Mathilde. Two weeks later the Tsar complained that his son had spent the night somewhere in St Petersburg. One evening Mathilde and Nicholas were interrupted by the Prefect of Police. The Tsar had discovered that his son had left the palace and the Prefect wanted to inform the Tsarevich immediately. Yet from Nicholas’s diaries it appears that all they did was talk. The affair had still not been consummated.