With all this weighing on Sergei’s mind, and fearful, too, that the government had lost its way, it came as no surprise that after fourteen years of service my husband submitted his resignation as Governor-General of Moscow. The two of us quite looked forward to retiring to our country estate, Ilyinskoye, where I planned to paint and read and host entertainments such as concerts and tableaux vivants.

Then we were hit by a terrible lightning bolt, two bolts, actually. First came the horrible news of the surrender of Port Arthur to the Japanese-imagine, and we had all firmly believed that Russians never surrendered!-and then in January came the awful strikes in Peterburg, which grew and grew by the moment, spreading all the way down to us in Moscow.

Lord, how painful it all was.

After we arrived in the capital my Shura found work within a few days, which was of course good, even though the pay was so low, some 16 rubles a month, though that depended on her output. She found a job at a textile factory, not the big Stieglitz Works but a smaller one, and the trouble started when on her first morning there the manager, this fancy Mister Foreman with his squeaky big leather boots-and I was sure he’d paid extra for that squeak just to impress us with their newness-insisted that she live at the factory. The normal working day for her was supposed to be eleven and a half hours, but the factory had received government permission to work fourteen, even fifteen, hours each weekday and ten on Saturday. There was to be only one day off-Sunday, of course. And that’s why Mister Foreman wanted Shura to spend the night at the factory-to be more efficient. He said she would make more money too because she was paid by the piece and the rate was very low, so he said that if she slept on a plank bed by her workbench she would be able to work more and make more, too. And at first Shura agreed to that. After all, she was a good girl from the countryside, devoted to Tsar and Motherland, submissive, and without a political thought in her dear, sweet head. Da, da, da, she wanted to obey her manager, but I said no.

“You are my wife!” I said to her. “I will not be separated from you! I will not agree to meet you just one day a week!”

And I won, and so we became “corner” dwellers. We found a place way out in the Narva District in the cellar of a building that cost us 4 rubles each a month, which seemed like a lot, particularly since all we got was a bed in one part of the cellar, a corner that was partitioned off by a dirty curtain. Three other families lived down there, all of whom, like us, had just arrived from the countryside. Children in makeshift cradles hung everywhere from beams, and it was all so uncomfortable and smelly, but that was all we could afford. Rents were very high… why, an apartment with its own bedroom in a sensible neighborhood cost 25 rubles a month, which of course was more than Shura would make in a month. So there we were in that dark cellar, packed like herring in a barrel. There were armies of cockroaches running this way and that, and the plaster was peeling from the ceiling in great scabs. And it was so cold, so incredibly cold. We shared the kitchen with seven other families, and the toilet, too, which was so dangerous that children weren’t allowed to go there by themselves. Frankly, the stench of the toilet was so thick you could cut it with an axe.

It took me several weeks to find a job.

Every morning I went to the gates of the great Putilov Works, which was one of the largest metalworking plants in the entire world, making locomotives, tractors, railcars, artilleries, and employing some 13,000 hands. It was located in the south-west part of the Narva District, not too far from that nasty place where we were living, and each day I stood at the big gates and called out for a job, and finally one of the foremen came over and examined my hands, tops and bottoms. When he saw that my fingers were thick and calloused from the farm, he knew I was a good worker and so he took me as a smith, placing me at the very lowest rung and giving me 21 rubles a month. Even though the conditions of the factory were a kind of living hell, I was thankful for the start. Our incomes were just enough for food and rent each month and we were together, my Shura and I. And even though each night we were nearly dead from exhaustion, even though we had no privacy in our little corner of that cellar, somehow it happened.

My Shurochka became with child, much to our joy.

Yes, before long she even began to show, perhaps, I suppose, because she was no longer a plump country girl but had become so thin from working so hard.

For the Christmas holiday we had been staying at the Neskuchnoye Palace, which belonged to the Crown and was nestled in the suburbs along the Moscow River. But one night our good rest was broken in the late, late hours by heavy pounding on our bedroom door.

“Your Imperial Highness!” came a gruff voice.

Before I knew what to make of this, Sergei was up and out of bed, slipping on his silk dressing gown.

“What is it… what’s happening, Sergei?” I mumbled.

“Remain in bed-let me handle this!” he snapped as he made his way to the door.

He stepped into the hallway, shutting the door behind him. Sitting up in bed, I listened, for just outside I could hear two or three heavy voices, none of which sounded calm. Something serious had happened, of course, for Sergei was awakened only in dire emergency. So what was it now, had the strikers seized an official building? Had another minister been killed by the subversives? Or, dear Lord, had something happened to Nicky or Alix or, God forbid, to the children?

Suddenly Sergei started yelling, and I wanted to rush out there but didn’t dare. Of such things, I was allowed to know next to nothing. It was true, my husband showered me with jewels and gowns, but I understood this was my job to him, an adornment.

The door was flung wide, and my husband, his stern face flushed red, boldly strode across our bedroom. The fury burned on his face as brightly as a lamp.

“Sergei, what-”

“Get dressed, my dear!”

I looked at him-what did he just say?-and said, “But-”

“Don’t argue with me! Put on some clothes! We’re leaving!”

This made no sense, and yet I had never disobeyed, let alone rarely questioned, my husband. I rose from our bed and made for my dressing room. Immediately my thoughts turned to Maria and Dmitri, our young niece and nephew, whom God had seen fit to send to us and watch over as guardian parents.

“What about the children?” I asked.

“They’re being wakened and dressed by Mademoiselle Elena,” he said, referring to their governess. “They’ll join us in the hall downstairs.”

Sensing the gravity of the situation, I asked, “But where are we going?”

“The Kremlin. Now just do as I say, get dressed at once! And take nothing, our belongings will be brought later!”

One of my maids came in, and as she quickly dressed me my mind leaped at all the possibilities. It took no imagination. The Neskuchnoye was nestled not just in a beautiful park but near the factories and the neighborhoods of the poorest workers. Had the general uprising, which we had so feared, finally broken out? Was a band of revolutionaries ready to attack us here? For a few days now extra cavalry had been camped in the Palace yards, but I took small comfort in them, for I feared even their loyalty.

Dressed in plain walk-about clothing, I was downstairs within minutes, where Sergei and the children were already waiting. A fur cloak was thrown over my shoulders, and without word to us or farewell to our staff Sergei rushed us outside and into the cold. His big closed carriage stood out front with our ever-faithful Coachman Rudinkin perched atop the coach-box in a heavy blue coat. Four large black horses had already been harnessed, and Sergei hustled the children and me into the pale-gray silk interior. We were off at once, traveling full speed, the curtains drawn, the lamps mounted on the front of the carriage oddly darkened. Ahead and behind us I could hear the many horses of our escort charging along.