(Con't)
I visited the Warehouse regularly, gradually got used to it, rolled bandages no worse than other girls, met someone there and chatted pleasantly, but more and more in Russian - it seemed to me that during such a difficult war it was more decent ... Tea ceremony I really liked it: after all, we could not have been treated to this tea - they say, come home and have a drink! It was both tasty and, at the same time, exotic - drinking tea in the Catherine Palace! Like everyone else, at exactly five o'clock I fell silent, got up, did the already familiar "curtsey" and sat down comfortably so that I would hardly move for an hour. It was difficult for me to examine my neighbors, the Grand Duchesses Maria and Anastasia, due to the most primitive politeness - I could not turn my head and look at them ... But as soon as I raised my eyes, my gaze immediately met the Grand Duchess Tatiana, and it was difficult to break away from her, she was so attractive and pretty! A strict principle, instilled in us from childhood by the English miss: "Child, don't stare!" (do not look at anyone at close range!) I used it badly, although, of course, I did not "stare at close range", but dodged, looked as if I was looking for a bandage or scissors. I will not describe her, and any portrait is usually unsatisfactory - after all, there are many photographs of this particular period ... Best of all, I saw her hands on the table, and these hands were beautiful: on her right hand there was a heavy gold bracelet with a large Ural sapphire in the middle and the same ring - in winter I just gave the same bracelet and ring to my sister, she loved them very much and wore them all the time. Such golden things then became very fashionable and were quite decorative; the young lady was not supposed to wear real diamonds, but semi-precious stones were quite possible. In short, if much remained incomprehensible, then this bracelet and ring were familiar and understandable, and I really wanted to tell the Grand Duchess that my sister also had such a bracelet and ring ...
In two months, the silent ritual of rolling the bandages was broken only once: on that day a door suddenly opened in the opposite corner, behind another table, at the head of which was Grand Duchess Olga, and Alik Putyatin wheeled in a large wheelchair - the maid of honor Orbeliani was sitting in it. All four Grand Duchesses jumped from their chairs; we, of course, also got up, and the princesses approached the maid of honor Orbeliani, one after another made her a deep courtesy curtsy and kissed her hand; Olga and Tatiana said a few words in response to some questions asked by the maid of honor; they spoke French and, although it was at a certain distance from me, for the first time I heard their voices. The conversation was very quiet. Two or three minutes, and Alik, having rolled up a wheelchair, took the maid of honor Orbeliani inside the Catherine Palace; there were no living quarters, which means [
not sure why this cuts off? ]
Well, and there was one more time: Grand Duchess Anastasia (and she looked then still quite a girl: her hair was loose on her back, bangs on her forehead) accidentally touched me with her foot under the table, all flushed from such awkwardness and very sweetly, turning to me, said -French: "Oh! je vous en prie, excusez-moi" - to which I mechanically replied, without adding "Your Highness": "Oh! mais ce n'est vraiment rien".
I knew that the Empress sometimes visited the Warehouse in the Catherine Palace, but two months have already passed since I went there daily. From the fact that I seemed to be used to everything there, the unnatural silence did not seem more understandable, on the contrary, the questions became more and more intrusive: why can't you talk to us? Well, at least about the most ordinary things ... I sometimes wanted to talk about this with one of the young ladies around me - and what do they think, is this normal? But I never dared to do it, and I still regret it. Sometimes it seemed to me that they understood something here, but I didn't ... In a word, some kind of resentment was accumulating, and, as I learned much later, not with me alone.
On that day, which became the last day of my presence in the Warehouse of the Catherine Palace, a friend of my girl Katya (forgot her last name) informed me that tomorrow the Empress would visit the Warehouse, who hadn’t been for a long time ... "Well, how can you do a deep curtsy and kissing the hand near the chair? It's not very clever. " - "No, said Katya, you just need to move a little away from the chair, and great."
I returned home, and on the way my decision was firmly made. In the evening, as soon as my mother returned from her infirmary, I went to her room and said that I would not go to the Warehouse tomorrow, since the Empress would be there, and I would have to kiss her hand, but I’m not going to do that, I just won’t. And after that it will be awkward for me to return to the Warehouse ... Well, that's why I won't go there again. It was so unexpected that my mother was dumbfounded; she tried to persuade me, and, most importantly, she kept asking one question: why? why? I was silent, looked sullenly and finally exclaimed: "She is German! I do not want and will not kiss her hand!"
......
During this troubled time, perhaps at the end of October, not long before the murder of Rasputin, a lady came to visit my mother; she rarely visited us, although she was with us, if not in kinship, then in property. She was from my mother's Yekaterinoslav family of Malam, also from the impoverished, not from the rich, and she was married to some high-ranking, besides a court husband, and they lived very modestly; their mother said about them: "Very decent people and, moreover, decent people." However, according to the court report, the husband of this relative was ahead of many others who were considered more important than him, and she always visited the Court.
During the war, my mother did not have "foster days", as before the second and fourth Wednesday of the month; it means that the lady called on the phone and agreed: they did not come to St. Petersburg, there was Europe!
And I remember her very well, I saw her with us when I was still a girl; she changed little - one of those women who are without age; she usually wore tailleur suits of strict color, in winter with a black muff in her hands and, though modest, was very graceful. She came, and the young maid Marfusha, who in those years opened the doors to visitors, took her directly to her mother in a small living room, served tea there, and the visit lasted a long time. Where have I been? Probably downstairs, in my room - but I saw this lady come, and even greeted her.
When the lady left, my mother went to her room and, calling me, immediately said: "Just think what I have just found out, but this, of course, is a secret, and Maria Nikolaevna (let her name was that) is horrified and upset." But it turned out this: at the end of September 1916, Princess Putyatina ceased to be the head of the warehouse in the Catherine Palace - why? I think, and even almost sure, that her husband was no longer the palace commandant, and they moved from Tsarskoye to Petersburg. It was then that the post of head of the warehouse was offered to Maria Nikolaevna - she immediately agreed and accepted this job with zeal and great joy.
