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Buzzsaw and The Shavings



Last Updated: 9/24/2009

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Status: Single
City: NORCO
State: CALIFORNIA
Country: US
Signup Date: 9/2/2004

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Sunday, November 08, 2009 

Current mood:  distractable
Category: Writing and Poetry
 The tempests of worry and apprehension yet insulted even the moments of health and ease in the life  of the Tsarevich, founded upon his uncertain condition and the prey he remained of even the most trifling blow that must instantly translate a day from calm to an uproarious sorrow, at length proved deleterious to the health of the Empress. A long succession of stressful incidents exacerbated her native pains and aches of the spine that Alexandra had endured since her youth in Darmstadt; her maternal devotions had sat beside the bed of the suffering Alexis, uncounted hours passed as pains of spirit and body inevitably mingled, and in their unity, ravaged the Empress. Her uniting exertions were at last succeeded after a current crisis had passed by a long and insert convalescence in her bedchambers above several weeks. Alarm attended the observations of all who encountered Alexandra in these days of collapse; “Her lips were blue,” related the Grand Duchess Olga, the Imperial sister of the Tsar. “Exertion it was for her to breathe…it came in tiny and pained gasps…the Empress was a sick woman.” The Imperial doctor, Dr. Botkin, after applying the technique of a comprehensive examination returned a diagnosis that the heart of the Empress was dangerously enlarged, and expressed the belief that the family was in the possession of a hereditary weakness of the blood” and that this condition was attended by a gathering hysteria.
 The appearances that must be expected of the Empress in the public sphere were beyond Alexandra to pursue, beset by incessant worry and mounting stress and the resulting physical pains to compliment her mental sorrows. The missives of Alexandra of the period, though ever florid and expressive as must be assumed of her nature and character, yet minimised her travails under a stoic face that must gratify even Zeno and Seneca. “These are but crosses sent that must be borne,” she related to her sister, the Princess Victoria of Battenberg. “There are little pleasures that must be given up, but they do mean little, and my ideal family life is a compensation. In an epistle to an aged tutor that had instructed her in Darmstadt, one Miss Jackson, Alexandra allows a greater expression of truth. “It is so exceedingly rare that I can go anywhere, and on those occasions that I do go, I return exhausted and I must lay in bed for long periods thereafter…the heart is overtired.” The accelerating decline of the Empress was an abiding worry for the Tsar, pondering the consequences of her utter absence from the public affairs; Dr. Botkin, according to the prevailing fashion of the age that esteemed the stinking and sulphurous founts of the spa as a curative for every and last ailment, at length advised, in concert with a seasonable letter from the Dowager Empress Maria, that Alexandra foray to the celebrated spa and its salubrious waters of Nauheim in Germany. Nicholas, buttressed by such support, prevailed upon the Empress to undertake the journey in order to recover her health that must be restored for his sake and that of the children; upon one autumn, Nicholas and Alexandra travelled to the spa town, and arrived, the Tsar enjoyed the incognito that a bowler hat and a simple grey suit might provide, as the Empress, set upon a wheelchair was trundled to the shops and the markets of the German locality. This initial treatment was followed by a series of baths in the waters of the spa, constantly and heroically bolting down libations of the fetid curative from dripping silver cups direct from the spring. Yet perhaps rest might be achieved by the Empress, but the cure of her affliction was beyond the capacity of the Spa of Nauheim to deliver and Alexandra must return to an interminable seclusion in the palace that further encouraged the retreat of the Tsar from his subjects.
 The society of Petersburg yet continued in the absence of the sovereigns; the various dances and balls upon the Neva, such as the Bal de Blanc comprised of the young and virginal in ivory gowns ever attended by the severe and untiring glance of a race of ancient and ugly chaperones upon them and the young lord that sought their first favour. The Bal de Rose, a pastel celebration of newlyweds was still conducted, and for those who had further gathered years and maturity, other diversions of Petersburg were ever conducted, though largely of the dinner comprised of heavy conversations and cloyingly-sweet wine. The tables, that functioned as salon and as ministry, were conducted in the princely houses of the city and none was more celebrated than the palace of the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, the German spouse of the Grand Duke Vladimir, an uncle of Nicholas. Society, excluded from the  Alexander Palace sought a surrogate for a court they regarded as negligent; the great ministers and ambassadors of the West crowed in numbers before the Grand Duchess, celebrated as an abode of charm and intellect and the Ambassador of King Edward VII, one Buchanan hailed her as the beguiling source that inspired the best in her guests. Pavlovna assumed the role of host over the festivities of wintertime Petersburg, and her attendance at the Christmas Bazaar was the occasion of the great and the noble of Petersburg to array themselves in a glittering splendour, to pour out at the feet of the milliner and dressmaker stupendous sums in order that a costume might be assembled to secure the greatest smile of assent from the Grand Duchess...
2:55 PM 
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Saturday, November 07, 2009 

Current mood:  pensive
Category: Writing and Poetry
 The Tsarevich would still yet rise from his bed upon the moments that calamity relented and Despair was dispersed upon a shiny beam of Hope, and upon these moments when Alexis was well were ably and speedily exploited by the Imperial parents. After his deliverance from the latest haemophiliac episode, the vast gathering of toys in the bedroom of the boy prince was further added to; an entire army of toy soldiers was augmented by a new tinny platoon, placed about a model of a village, populated with a miniature race and  comprised of cottages and churches festooned in onion domes and set with bells that rose to a height that must approach the dimensions of Alexis. A model train, set upon sizable tracks, carried dolls and stuffed animals as passengers in its carriages of generous size as its course wound abut toy factories filled with a toiling race of dolls, that were set into their labouring motions at the press of a button, and these wires might even ring the bells in the miniature belfries in the village that covered the floor of the room of the Tsarevich. Toy forts and toy guns completed the array of the amusements of Alexis and after the boy had tired of these baubles, he would be attired in the uniform of a sailor of the Imperial Navy, or perhaps opt for the dress of a Cossack, the finest of gleaming boots of the softest kid leather and a cap of bounding and soaring fur in his certain possession.
 The Tsarevich also coveted the company and the society of animals and adored the pets that were given him; a spaniel by the name of Joy, dragging behind it and not impeding its romps a vast length of drooping ears was the favourite of Alexis. He esteemed a particular donkey in the Imperial stables and might often appear before the beast bearing a plenty of lumps of sugar that the donkey unerringly discerned stowed in the pockets of the Tsarevich. Yet the greatest prize, a domesticated sable was that delivered to Alexis by a kindly hunter and his wife who had departed their homely abode in the dark woods of Siberia and had expended every last coin in order to travel to distant Petersburg. The rustic couple of the wilderness appeared before the palace gates bearing their present for the Tsarevich, and after the motions of investigation ordered by the vigilance of the palace, ever determined to thwart the admission of revolutionaries in the court and tempt the reprise of the assassination of Alexander II, the hunter and his wife, the Tsar informed of their long journey and of their gift, were at length admitted. Upon a rapid audience, they appeared before their Tsar and it is another priceless moment that is a primary source, ever the joy of the Historian, that the rural hunter later related as a report before a minister of the palace who had required a commanded an accounting with the moments that had been passed with the Imperial family. “We fell to our knees before the Little Father, and even the sable seemed to understand he looked upon the Batiushka Tsar…the Tsar bade us rise and follow him into the children’s rooms…we were told let go of the sable….the children burst out in excitement and began to play with the sable.” The hunter, still dressed in awe of his Imperial encounter, sputtered before the official of the palace, entering his recollections into a gathering of pages with a careful precision and stern eye and after a moment reassembled his thoughts scattered and blowing, and at last resumed his report. “The Father Tsar then asked us to sit…he asked us many questions about Siberia…meanwhile the sable rushed about the room, knocking over things, chased by the children….the Father Tsar looked at the scampering sable and inquired what must be done to care for the animal…after I told him, the Father Tsar reflected a moment, looking at his happy children still at play with it and he then informed me to take it to the Village of the Hunters (at Tsarkoe Selo). The hunter recalled his unease and concern over the Imperial suggestion. “I told Father Tsar that I could not take the sable there, that the hunters would seek to take its pelt and say it had an accident…the Father Tsar replied that there were hunters there he trusted, but then he reconsidered, and told me to take it back to Siberia and care for it for the remainder of the days of its life, and always remember that it was the sable of the Tsar now.” The rustic couple were lavishly paid for the sable in a plenty and amount that must beggar their imaginations and supplied with yet further finds in order that they might return to Siberia in some comfort and in a suitable train-cabin that must be expected by even a figure of the wilderness that now cared for and looked after the Imperial sable. The children were disconsolate over the withdraw of the sable, and begged the Emperor to recover the animal, but at length they submitted to his decision as they must ultimately accept all else that the counsels of his mind and musing must at last recommend...
3:15 PM 
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Friday, November 06, 2009 

Current mood:  productive
Category: Writing and Poetry
 These exhibitions only fed the apprehensions of Alexandra, further submitted to the weight of facts and of a disabling sense of complicity in the woes of a son she had so earnestly entreated both Fortune and the Divine. The capriciousness of the malady of the Tsarevich exceeded those of other conditions, that though disabling and frightful in their visitations were more regular, more amenable to a dress of routine that at length might successfully admit the adjustment of life. But haemophilia recognised no such bounds and fixed itself to every moment and might introduce its perils at any time, the merest tumble loosing ungoverned blood, the most minor of nosebleeds inexplicably occurring and very nearly delivering him into the grip of Death. The conduct of Alexis only further induced Alexandra to further lay protections upon her son and both Derevenko and Nagorny were instructed to further intensify their watch over the boy, and indeed to place themselves upon the footsteps of Alexis and insure that he never tumble nor fall and provide the insulation of an isolation from the company of other children. The tutor Gilliard, at last amending this regieme, was at length assigned the task of instructing Alexis in the idiom of French, after regarding the boy from the reach of a distance, romping and running and resisting the embrace of maids and mother, during his years of tutoring the Grand Duchesses; the French Swiss remained largely ignorant of the condition of the Tsarevich and noted with interest that the boy would suddenly vanish for weeks at a time, and these events were attended by tears and sorrows throughout the palace and when Gilliard asked the cause of the melancholy, was informed the Tsarevich was unwell.
 The tutor at last was given the charge of Alexis, and Gilliard was instantly captivated by the charm of the boy, enchanted by the depth of his wit and agile mind capable of questions that were advanced for a child of his years, and already endowed with a deep sense of compassion for the pains of others, as the Gilliard later related,” he had, after all experienced much sorrow himself.” Yet the steely-blue eyes of the Tsarevich also broadcast an ill-discipline that illustrated his often defiant behaviour that Alexandra never laboured to correct as the duties of Nicholas oft precluded him from tending to the correction of his son. “The child was averse to discipline,” Gillard related. “He could hardly bear to be reproved…to expect work from him only achieved an expression of hostility.” The moments of his lessons were ever subject to a bleeding episode and the pupil might vanish from the classroom for weeks, yet the boy at length confided to Gilliard of his frustration and his loneliness and the tutor must at last amend his opinion of his Imperial student. “It was later clear, Gilliard expressed in altered tone, “that the boy possessed a treasure of a nature and that I must continue to tend to and to aid a child possessed of such gifts.” Gilliard, still in ignorance over the haemophiliac condition of Alexis, soon regarded the dangerous isolation of the Tsarevich, his exclusion from playmates of his own age and the enduring over-protections of the two sailors and rapidly appeared before the Imperial physicians to express his concerns over such a treatment that must inevitably produce a mind that was addled by dependency and weakness.
 Gilliard argued against the personal physician of the Tsarevich, one Dr. Derevenko who had promoted and prescribed the stiffing cares followed by the Empress. He further expressed the consequences of the labours of the palace and of its minions, dangerously misled to assure the safety of the Tsarevich. Gilliard expressed the undeniable truth that accidents are inevitable, that to guard him against every intrusion of life must humiliate the boy at last inevitably seeking to evade his minders, to fill him with an inclination towards deceit and a dangerous cunning  and thusly leave his morals spoilt and exposed to the very harms that were so earnestly attempted to be avoided. Dr. Derevenko yet refused to admit the wisdom of the tutor Gilliard; he dwelt in fear of the responsibility that must attend him if the boy should perish from an attack and the Imperial parents themselves must settle the issue. Shortly thereafter Gilliard appeared before the Empress, and so rapid and so easy was the assent of Alexandra to the recommendation of Gilliard that the two sailors be withdrawn, the tutor was instantly convinced of the depth of the love and the affection of the Imperial parents for their son, as he thence expressed, “now permitted to foray into uncertainties and thus delivered from a future comprised of little character and dependence.” The following day the Tsarevich returned to his lessons without the attending sailors and some time passed without incident, and Gilliard permitted himself to forget the possibility of incident. Upon one day, Alexis climbed upon a chair in the classroom, stumbled and rendered an impact upon his knee; the ensuing day the boy was confined to bed, unable to walk, a disabling swelling upon his limb. “I was astounded that the Tsar and the Empress did not fix blame on me,“ the Swiss later wrote, recalling a visit to the sickbed of the Tsarevich. “They rather laboured to lessen my despair with as much attention as the pains of their son, fevered, face ashen-white…he groans only ceased to admit the murmur of the word Mummy…his mother leaned forward to press a kiss upon her son, to relieve his suffering and to restore life to a boy for whom she was both the author of his pains and the minister of his hopes.”...
4:35 PM 
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Thursday, November 05, 2009 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x8vM9-2DKA

Another day of research beckons, thereby another opportunity to match adjectives with pictures.

4:25 PM 
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Wednesday, November 04, 2009 

Current mood:  accomplished
Category: Writing and Poetry
 The condition of Alexis compelled his Imperial parents to swaddle their coveted son in disabling layers of care and attention; from his earliest days, a score of maids were assigned to watch over every last second of the life of the boy and ward off the merest of harms. As he aged, these were recalled and two sailors, one Nagorny and one Derevenko were fetched from the deck of the battleship and assigned to the Tsarevich as keepers, and wise were their choices, as both exhibited amazing and certain capacities of calming the child in his flights of pain and sorrows and lifting the Imperial leg with precision and delicacy in order to administer a therapeutic massage advised by the doctors as a treatment for the chronic malady of the Heir, who ever asked them to warm his hands in a breaking voice that seemed to announce a failing condition.
 Yet the essential character and nature of Alexis was that given to liveliness and a spreading capacity for mischief that might even eclipse that of Anastasia. The confines of the bath did not constrain the little Heir, nimbly evading the hands of the maids, ambling with speed down the halls of the palace and intruding, dripping and in utter undress, into the classroom of his sisters, loudly expressing a  screeching. Alexis was frequently a trial during palace dinners, deftly vanishing under the table in order to draw forth the slippers of the maids of-honour and proudly offer the plunder as a trophy; during one dinner, Alexis had stolen the shoe of a particularly venerable lady of Petersburg and after having been sternly commanded by Nicholas to return the slipper, the Tsarevich indeed did so, but not before inserting a ripe berry into the confines of the shoe and replacing the loaded footwear, exciting a scream from the elegant matron. The tutor Gilliard yet expresses the assertion that these moments of indiscipline were moments of happiness for the Tsar and the Empress, a signal indication that their son was well, un-smote by malady and pains, and sunbeams of dazzling radiance filled the palace. In the moments that the reign of his haemophilia was suspended, the Tsarevich indeed revelled in the moments of life and issued an unaffected joy that must charm despite the rambunctious nature of the boy.
 Alexis inherited the simplicity of his father and even as the boy was at last aware of his title and his exalted future station, he remained estranged from affectation and never was haughtiness spread over his days by implements and motions of gold. He heeded the instructions and even the commands of his sisters, and also submitted to the decision of his sailors-in-waiting; once Gillard advanced upon a scene where a gathering of visitors to the palace were assembled before Alexis engaged in a perfect genuflection. Upon asking the Tsarevich why all were upon their knees, Alexis, replied, “I don’t know, but Derevenko says they must be.” Yet Alexis was very much comprised of a human substance and moments occurred where the growing Tsarevich was beguiled and seduced by the knowledge of his eminent rank; once Alexis came upon the Foreign Minister Izvolsky waiting upon an audience with the Tsar. The boy narrowly regarded the rotund figure in a monocle, suddenly advanced upon the minister and sternly and with stunning volume declared that, “when the Heir to all the Russias comes into a room, you get up!” Upon another day, on the occasion of a children’s party in the palace, where the Tsarevich conducted himself as host, presiding over ice cream and the novelty of motion pictures, the boy suddenly bounded atop a table and commanded all the other children to imitate his example. Thereafter Alexis led them in a energetic game of leaping to and fro from tabletop to tabletop; when Derevenko intruded to arrest the appalling display, Alexis abruptly pushed the sailor away with disdain and fury and asserted, “By my command all grown-ups must go!” However upon another moment, the Tsarevich exhibited a greater indulgence, when he suddenly erased his signature from a paper that directed a playmate to compose some jingles and offer some drawings. Alexis then explained that if he had kept it upon the page, it would be an order that must be obeyed, rather than a mere request that need not be done, “if he really doesn’t want to.”
 The scarlet shadow of haemophilia loomed over ever day of the life of the growing Alexis and never was its shade deeper and its implications more pronounced when Alexis wished to conduct himself in the manner of any boy of his age and engage in an active play, seeking the company of friends, the mock battle, the roughhouse and the energetic motions of games. The veto of Alexandra attended every request of her son to join the fellows with an explanation that he must not, that he must be careful. The boy wept over these refusals and then proceed to engage in the forbidden conduct, to bound upon a bicycle or wield a racket in a contest of tennis and thusly demonstrate to his Imperial parents of his capacity and his ability to defy and to overcome injuries and satisfy to himself a nature that still might be saluted as normal...
3:45 PM 
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Tuesday, November 03, 2009 

Current mood:  hungry
Category: Writing and Poetry
  The incident was first recorded in an entry in the diary of Nicholas. “Alix and I are rather worried…an haemorrhage began this morning for no reason on Alexis…it continued intermittently until the evening.” the Tsar related. “At length we had to call upon a surgeon to apply a bandage…yet the baby remained merry and in good spirits and it was left to us to live in anxiety.” The bleeding resumed the following day when stains of crimson stained the bandage; new ones were applied upon Alexis and the haemorrhage was regarded by the doctors as ended by noon. But the unsettling incident had excited an alarm that was vigorous in the minds of Nicholas and Alexandra and was never entirely stilled in its motions of concern; as Alexis grew older, he departed his crib and began to crawl, to toddle and to romp in the rambunctious manner of any boy of his young age, and it was expected that he must tumble and he must fall as the child learnt the craft and the skill of walking. Bumps and bruises of the most concerning nature were the result of these impacts and soon thereafter they swelled forth, the blood incapable of clotting, clearly indicating the malady of haemophilia.
 The doctors of the palace, attended by the specialists of Petersburg retuned this grim diagnosis to the Imperial parents, earnestly entreating their Orthodox God that some other cause must ultimately be proven as the source of the issue; reconciled to the illness they begged treatments and medicines and were sadly informed with effort over the tears and cries of Alexandra that none were known to medical science. Alexandra intruded upon the medical discourse to announce that Alexis would never be permitted to cut himself; the physicians replied with an explanation of the nature of the malady, that surface cuts were of no great concern, that a laceration upon a finger might be bandaged very taught and the bleeding would shortly cease of its own accord. To the rising apprehensions of the Tsar and the Empress, they then related the more deleterious consequences of an internal bleeding, that the capriciousness of the disease was illustrated by a great blow upon the child that might inflict no harms or the most infinitesimal tap that might tear the merest of capillaries. According to the notions of Medicine and Science, the blood would seep into the surrounding tissues, pooling and forming an agonising swelling that might protrude forth in the dimensions of a grapefruit, the skin stretched forth tightly, and in the resulting pressure the haemorrhage at last ceased, and the blood gradually was reabsorbed into the body. Yet as the blood gathered it assumed the status of a corrosive, it frequently would assail the bones, flowing into the gaps between the joins of the knees or ankles and leaving the precise bodily construction bent rigidly, twisted and misshapen, inflicting further pains that must test the capacity of endurance. Alexis was soon introduced to the restrictive host of heavy orthopaedic devices that must irk and vex a boy that would prefer to gambol and to roughhouse rather than be consigned to bed above several weeks lest another destructive episode ensue.
 It was rapidly clear to Alexandra, through at least the inference of the doctors that she was the cause of the torments of her son, that whenever she regarded the natural laughter and joy be washed from his face by the advent of tears rendered by pains and an ungoverned inward flow of blood, she must believe that she had plunged a knife into her son. It was explained that with the rarest of exceptions, it was females that carried the defective gene and passed it to their sons, the destination of the malady, although it was never certain that the disease would be transmitted or that the daughters born of a haemophiliac family would be assigned by the caprice of chromosomes that role of carriers. It had been introduced into the family through Queen Victoria, ignorant of her station as carrier of haemophilia and regarded either as originated as spontaneous mutation or inherited from her father the Duke of Kent; through her union with Prince Albert, Victoria had already endowed her youngest son, the Duke of Albany with the affliction. The Queen rejected the diagnosis with disdain, asserted it was only a complaint of the unfortunate Habsburgs and their ill blood and thence covered the Prince in a regimen of interminable care and overprotection; two of her daughters including the Princess Alice, the mother of Alexandra, also conveyed the disease. A brother of Alexandra, Frederick, or Frittie was soon revealed as suffering from haemophilia and he once bled over two days from a tiny laceration to the earlobe. Yet in the manner of many youthful sufferers of the disease, Frederick was given and prone to vigorous and outrageous behaviour and once leapt with bounds into the bedroom of his mother; the chamber was fitted with French doors and Frederick soon fell from the second-story height down to the pavement and to his death as a severe interior bleeding rapidly followed. Alexandra, but a year old at the moment, was unaffected by the tragedy and as she grew, Alexandra was kept in concealment from the further incidents of haemophilia, of the travail and sorrows that it engendered, and might at last wed Nicholas in a blithely unwitting of the seeds of affliction that she bore...
3:51 PM 
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Monday, November 02, 2009 

Current mood:  quixotic
Category: Writing and Poetry
 The Imperial family was completed on the 12th of August, 1904, when in the midst of tempests of revolution and the reverses offered by the contest with Japan, Fortune, currently rancorous towards Nicholas at last offered a mercy and a blessing. The long yearning of the Tsar and Empress to fill the Imperial cradle with a son and an heir was at last happily registered in the meticulous diary of Nicholas. “A great day,” he related. “The mercy of God was shed upon us…at one o’ clock, Alix was delivered of a son…he has been called Alexis.”
 The delivery of Alexandra on this occasion was mercifully brief; she had sat down to luncheon with Nicholas and had but barely tasted her soup when the pangs of labour commenced. Excusing herself, Alexandra hastened to her bedchambers and but an hour later, the boy arrived. At last the command to the Fortress of Kronstadt to issue forth the announcement of an Imperial birth permitted the cannons to persist in their thunders above the ninety-nine rounds that signalled the arrival of a girl; the full salute of three hundred that proclaimed the advent of a boy sounded forth. The long-awaited declaration loosed innumerable peals from the belfries of Petersburg, and thence across the Empire, their din joined by the tumultuous noise of festivals that dwelt under uncounted and streaming banners imprinted with the slogans of a dynastic celebration. The central figure of this adoration was a rotund infant, the tint of sky-blue dwelling in his eyes and possessed of a scatter of flaxen curls already upon his head, wrought with care by the operations of nature in the Imperial womb. The ritual of the christening of the boy prince followed shortly thereafter in the chapel in the Palace of Peterhof; the ritual expressly excluded the Imperial parents from the ceremony, and the immediate family was represented by the Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana both attired in the most formal of court apparel rendered in charming miniature, Olga already appointed as godmother. The sermon was spoken by the venerable minister John of Kronstadt and thence the aged Princess Golitsyn, the Mistress of the Robes, carried the infant to the font, her uncertain trod secured by the attachment of rubber to the soles of her shoes. The young Alexis was lain upon an elaborate and majestic pillow of cloth-of-gold and a mantle, supported by the Marshall of the Court, of that same expensive fabric covered the babe, dressed in ermine, to clearly express to all the Heir to the Throne of all the Russias had come to be admitted into the grace of the Church of Orthodoxy. The Orthodox rite of baptism, physical and dramatic, differed from the western rite comprised of a gentle sprinkle of lustral water upon the forehead of the infant; the presiding minister, Father Yanishev took the child, incessantly bawling, from the elderly and venerable princess and swiftly dipped the infant directly into the waters of the font. The wailing of Alexis, drawn upward again and dripping, rapidly escalated into a howl of fury that resounded throughout the sanctuary populated by the great and the august of Europe, including his relation, the King of Denmark. Outside the chapel, obeying inflexible custom, Nicholas awaited the conclusion of the ceremony, comprised of anxiety and apprehensions over the capacity of the two elderly figures in holding his cherished son, fearing he must be dropt into the basin. Returned to a grateful Imperial embrace, Nicholas and Alexandra installed themselves in a chambers, the Empress reclined upon a sofa, to receive the customary stream of visitors, and it was immediately sensible to all of the joy that dwelt between the Tsar and the Empress at this moment, the day of a long-sought accomplishment.
 As Alexis grew, he was soon regarded as a most merry and lively baby, possessed of copious measures of spirit, swelling the delight of Nicholas and Alexandra and exciting their desire to proudly display the boy to virtually all who called upon the palace. Beaming, both the Tsar and the Empress declared to all, expecting an instant assent to their oft-expressed query, “He is a grand and striking beauty, is he not?” On one occasion during a happy inspiration, the doting Nicholas installed the young Alexis in the procession of a military parade upon the grounds of the palace where Alexis achieved the shouted acclaim of the warriors of the Empire. The babe was frequently carried with Alexandra as she rode forth in her carriage beyond the confines of the palace grounds in order that the people might behold and adore the future Tsar and Alexandra was most gratified to regard the acclamations of the populace, dropping to their knees in celebration that they had directly looked upon the Heir. The rancour of Fortune at last seem to dissipate, even the clouds and inclemency that assailed the days of Nicholas and Alexandra, raining the calamities of war and rebellion were parted by a mighty shaft of sun and for some weeks after the birth of Alexis, a unalloyed happiness comprised the court and was assumed it must invariably continue. Yet the moment of an inexplicable bleeding from the navel of Alexis at the age of six weeks was the first ominous sign of a gathering darkness that ever thereafter would impact with dread shadow, the lives of Nicholas and Alexandra...
3:38 PM 
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Sunday, November 01, 2009 

Current mood:  refreshed
Category: Writing and Poetry
 The youngest of the daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra was the famous Grand Duchess Anastasia, the name ever fixed to the fallacious claims on her behalf that would issue in the coming decades and still generate alternative fancies that vainly dispute the final verdict of History and Science. The birth of the genuine Anastasia was the moment of a profound disappointment for the Tsar, and after the birth of a fourth daughter was announced, Nicholas was compelled to disappear into the palace grounds for some hours, wandering and bewailing the inability of his Imperial spouse to produce a son, before he returned to peer into the cradle of an unwanted child or again behold his spouse. Anastasia was an intemperate centre of vigour, radiating forth incessant acts of mischief and ungoverned capers; it must be suggested that the Grand Duchess was very early aware of the resent of her parents and of the mundane and even unattractive appearance bestowed upon her by an indifferent Nature, comprised of a stocky stature that might be further described as plump and resolved upon a compensation. Anastasia, gifted with a speedy wit, evolved a cutting, trenchant humour spoken by an adroit and agile tongue, and the sisters and even her governess and tutor were the frequent destination of the darts and sallies of her wit and might even dwell in some fear of her contempt. She also possessed a great capacity for the art of mimicry and rendered with a humorous precision the manners and the speech of her siblings.
 Anastasia frequently violated the bounds and frontiers that were fixed upon the conduct of the little girls of the age, much less those expected of a Grand Duchess of Russia and she might be described as an utter genius in misbehaviour. The girl would find a great amusement in tripping the footmen of the palace, extending leg in their path; Anastasia would ascend to the uppermost reaches of the loftiest trees of the park with such intention and indomitable spirit that only the direct command of her appalled Imperial father would compel her to return to the ground. The girl would frequently and mercilessly tease and torment the rare playmates that were admitted to the palace grounds, spitting and striking and scratching at them, cheating in games and employing an almost cruel wit to abuse and to harm her companions. The niceties of rank were as nothing to Anastasia, and attending an opera in Petersburg, the young Grand Duchess was seen to greedily devour a large portion of chocolates with a hand still clad in a white silken opera glove, stained in brown hue and it was certain that Nicholas was clearly embarrassed by the conduct of his youngest daughter. Tears to Anastasia were an exceedingly rare phenomenon, akin to precipitation in the Sahara, and it is reported that such a storied event occurred during the course of a furious contest of snowballs with her sister Tatiana. During the climax of the conflict, the malicious Anastasia rolled a stone into the chill white and hurled the dangerous projectile at her sibling; it struck Tatiana in the face with such an impact she collapsed to the ground, and Anastasia at last affected by the consequences of her behaviour and frightened for Tatiana, at last wept freely.
 As Anastasia aged, a tardy maturity at last intruded upon her  conduct and this was further abetted by the descent of the great war upon Russia, and the establishment of military hospital upon the grounds of the palace. Anastasia, in the company of Marie, would frequently visit the wounded and the suffering, to engage in games of checkers with the soldiers and to again employ her wit to amuse and to distract the casualty with a exaggerated and amusing trod between the beds and filled the room with enjoyment and diversion when she loosed a race of laughter that in the estimation of an observer rather was akin to that that might be assigned to a squirrel.
 Despite her lively demeanour, Anastasia was rather prone to ailment and suffered from the afflictions of bunions and was subject to backaches that required the therapy of a frequent massage and it was regarded along with her other sisters, Anastasia was subject to a pronounced bleeding that was derived of the haemophilia that proliferated in the family of Queen Victoria and was transmitted to Russia by dynastic links and matrimony. A tonsillectomy performed upon the Grand Duchess Marie was the moment of an episode of a profuse and severe haemorrhage and the affrighted doctor was only able to continue the operation after a stern command of the Empress Alexandra, inwardly aware of her complicity in this affliction by her role as carrier of the condition, as were her daughters, although it was not the lot of the female to endure the full measure and calamity of the disease, that was reserved to impact the days of the coveted son so earnestly desired by Nicholas and Alexandra and ultimately to affect and to impact the direction of the history of the Empire and of the wider world...
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Saturday, October 31, 2009 

Current mood:  indescribable
Category: Writing and Poetry
 The next youngest daughter was the Grand Duchess Marie; she was a rather merry child, pretty with ruby cheeks and hair of the merest tint of brown. Marie was most notable for the immense size of her iron-blue eyes that were referred to within the family confines as saucers. Marie was early on esteemed as most amenable of the Imperial daughters and her hale and hearty health and surging flanks of chubbiness gifted her with the name Botticelli’s Angel. The young Marie was also the seat of an intemperate energy, and it is recalled that the she exceeded the capacity of her maid assigned to bathe the child; Marie evaded and escaped the servant and burst forth from the tub in a perfect undress, bounding forth into a hall of the palace where the governess Miss Eagar was to be found discussing a most delicate matter of politics. The girl was at last captured by the laggard maid and restored to the most certain control of the governess, though these ventures rapidly faded and the Grand Duchess soon was saluted as the epitome of the well-behaved that might never experience the frown of the maid or the disappointment of the Imperial parent, and so at odds was Marie with the greater indisciplines of her sister that they might soon regard her as a stepsister. But the Grand Duchess was yet capable of transgressions; once she was caught attempting the theft of biscuits from the table of Alexandra, and the Empress, appalled over this breach of an impeccable conduct sternly declared that Marie be put to bed. The Tsar, however, intervened on behalf of the Grand Duchess, noting that, “It is rather pleasant to see that she is human after all.” Marie very early learnt of the partiality of her father and, when she sought to evade a punishment or penalty, the explosive patter of her feet would be heard upon the floors, as Marie quit the nursery in order to seek her Papa and obtain a certain pardon.
 As Marie grew older, she was revealed as tender-hearted and rather undistinguished in her tastes and this might tempt the derision of her sisters, at length gifting her with the title, little bow-wow. She shared a bedroom with her younger sister and familial hellion, the Grand Duchess Anastasia, and Marie was frequently the victim of Anastasia’s uproarious and energetic behaviour and when these exhibitions of tantrums and theatrics intruded upon others, Marie would apologise to the affronted and the offended  for the behaviour of her sibling. Growing retiring, Marie appealed to the usual agency and sought the aid of Tatiana to press a request before her parents, although once she composed a missive to the Empress on the behalf of Olga in order to ask that her elder sibling attain a bedroom of her own. It is also recalled that amongst her faults and her defects, was a pronounced streak towards and indolence and Marie might also be described as stubborn and moody at certain moments. Alexandra once drew a pen dipped in ink and concern as she expressed in a missive of the petulance of her daughter that barked disdain at all who irritated her. Marie also rapidly developed a passion for the handsome young soldier that ever populated the grounds of the palace, entered into various flirtations with the officers enjoying their company and regards, and Miss Eagar relates  this conduct at length. “One day,“ the Irishwoman recalled, “the Grand Duchess looked down from a window of the palace and remarked, ‘How I love pretty young soldiers! How I so wish I could kiss them all!’” Eagar sternly and severely corrected her charge, asserting that little princesses do not kiss soldiers; a few days thereafter, a party for children was held at the palace and Marie attended the festivities. Also appearing was the young son of a ducal relative of the Emperor, recently elevated to a military office and attired in the requisite uniform; he regarded Marie and expressed a wish to implant a kiss upon her cheek. Recalling the instruction offered by Miss Eagar, Marie drew away from the proffered affection, uttering, “Go away, sir! Little princesses do not kiss soldiers.” The young man, though momentarily chastened by the unexpected rebuff, at length was prevailed upon to be amused and even pleased, taken as both a man and a soldier in the estimation of one of the Imperial daughters. However, the inclinations of the developing girl could not be denied nor suppressed and at length, Marie developed a disabling crush over one young man; ever concerned with the maintenance of decorum, her mother Alexandra directed her daughter to conceal her feelings lest she be the prey of the malicious and their hurtful words. “When it is considered improper,“ she advised Marie, “one must not show one’s feelings…he might like you as a little sister, but no more, as he knows that you, a little Grand Duchess can not care for him so.” At length Marie, forayed beyond immediate impulse and at last directed her thoughts towards marriage and children and that topic might the one subject most frequently upon her lips, and it was surmised by the estimation of the age that if she had not been bestowed with an Imperial lot and station, the Grand Duchess Marie must have eagerly assented to and embraced matrimony, this burgeoning woman possessed of a plenty of domestic gifts and a genuine and unaffected warmth of heart that must have provided a man with amongst the most excellent of wives...
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Friday, October 30, 2009 

Current mood:  distractable
Category: Writing and Poetry
The second eldest daughter, the Grand Duchess Tatiana, was the favourite of Alexandra, basking in her attentions and regard and the Empress might relate that alone amongst her daughters, Tatiana understood her manner and her way in which the world was approached. Very early on Tatiana was regarded as the Venus of the sisters, of a lofty and slender build, an ivory face with steely blue inset near features that the chisel of Nature rendered with the utmost care and to this natural grace was joined the acquired charm and eloquence of a great princess of the Empire, possessed of a lively opinion Tatiana did not fear to express and endowed with stores of purpose and refinement that immediately impressed all with the plain and the clear fact that she was the daughter of an Empress. Tatiana dwelt with her sister Olga in their private bedroom, in a community referred to as the Big Pair and as must be expected, dwelt in a fondness and devotion to one another in the usual fashion that prevails amongst sisters and, in this artificial enclave, divorced from contact with others, elevate his fondness into a passionate devotion. Once when Olga contracted the malady of typhoid fever, she was removed from their bedchambers into a confinement above two weeks; at length the teary and earnest Tatiana was allowed to visit her sibling for but five minutes. Admitted, Tatiana chatted amiably and softly with Olga but was unaware that the thin and haggard girl was her sister; at length informed, Tatiana streamed tears and insisted that that poor child could not possibly be her sister and only with the utmost effort was Tatiana assured her sibling would recover from the affliction.
 The great qualities of Tatiana were founded upon a penchant for leadership and a soaring self-assurance that manifested very early in her days; rapidly she was elevated to a position of authority over her sisters, attaining the name of The Governess and looked upon as the inevitable representative that might approach their Imperial parents with the request for an especial favour. Though Olga was above eighteen months older than Tatiana she cheerfully submitted to the reign of her younger sister and saluted her superior capacity when a current situation must be addressed. The tutor Gilliard remarked that Tatiana was possessed of a lesser amount of the energy and openness of Olga and tended towards a countenance that was rather more reserved; yet this quality did not impede or hinder the public demeanour of Tatiana that with much greater facility achieved the popular esteem. Her greater assurance and possession of a certain pulchritude encouraged Tatiana to foray with greater enthusiasm into the realms of society; Tatiana was favoured with a lesser contact of the appreciation of the arts, although she attached herself to the piano project with devotion and determined that she would master the keyboard. It is suggested by contrary opinion that Tatiana was indeed possessed of a creative portion, demonstrating a talent with the selection and arrangement of clothing and attaining a stunning ability in hairdressing, frequently called upon the dress the hair of her mother; it is with a rare truth that Anna Vyrubova celebrates this craft of the Grand Duchess, hailing it as the equal of any of the greatest professionals of Petersburg.
 As Tatiana grew, honours and responsibilities descended upon the capable Grand Duchess; at length she was named an honorary colonel of the Vosnesensky Hussars and she eagerly sought opportunities to foray to the parade ground and inspect the Guard, even once begging her Imperial mother to permit her to quit her sickbed to which a momentarily severe ailment had confined her in order to join the soldiers.  Tatiana regarded the troops with a fond regard, although her upbringing, prim and partially puritanical, might be easily affronted by the behaviour of the soldiers and their conduct that ended towards the uproarious and the ribald. Tatiana encountered under the authority of her ceremonial titles. Once the Grand Duchess Olga was gifted by some sailors serving aboard the Imperial yacht with a nude portrait of Michelangelo’s David, cut out from a print in a journal of Petersburg and properly mounted. The more accessible and uninhibited Olga looked upon the image with amusement and was heard to bray genuine laughter. Tatiana, in accord with her greater rigidity, would address a missive to her aunt, the Grand Duchess Olga, the Imperial sister of Nicholas, and sourly and with an unaffected shock  relate the scene and the conduct of the sailors on her parent‘s private vessel. “Swine are they not?” Tatiana asks of her aunt. “Not a one of them will admit to it.”...
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