Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie Read Free Book Online Page A

butNicholas, to his immense chagrin, shot nothing. The heat was intense and the Tsarevich grew irritable. From Delhi he complained to his mother, "How stifling it is to be surrounded again by the English and to see red uniforms everywhere." Hurriedly, Marie wrote back:
    "I'd like to think you are very courteous to all the English who are taking such pains to give you the best possible reception, shoots, etc. I quite see that the balls and other official doings are not very amusing, especially in that heat, but you must understand that your position brings this with it. You have to set your personal comfort aside, be doubly polite and amiable, and above all, never show you are bored. You will do this, won't you, my dear Nicky? At balls you must consider it your duty to dance more and smoke less in the garden with officers just because it is more amusing. One simply cannot do this, my dear, but I know you understand all this so well and you know my
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    only wish is that nothing can be said against you and for you to leave a good impression with everybody everywhere."
    George suffered in the Indian heat. His cough persisted and he developed a constant fever. To his great disappointment, his father and mother ordered him to break off the tour. When the Pamiat Azova sailed from Bombay, George left on a destroyer in the opposite direction to return to his quiet life in the Caucasus.
    Nicholas continued eastward, stopping in Colombo, Singapore, Batavia and in Bangkok, where he called on the King of Siam. He went on to Saigon and Hong Kong, and arrived in Japan just as the cherry trees were blooming in Tokyo parks. He visited Nagasaki and Kyoto and he was passing through the town of Otsu when his tour— and his life—nearly came to an abrupt end. Suddenly on a street a Japanese jumped at him swinging a sword. The blade, aimed at his head, glanced off his forehead, bringing a gush of blood but failing to bite deep. The assassin swung a second time, but Prince George of Greece forcefully parried the blow with his cane.
    The assailant's motives have never been clear. Nicholas, although he bore a scar for the rest of his life and sometimes suffered headaches in that part of his skull gave no explanation. Two stories, both largely rumor, have been offered. One attributes the assault to a fanatic outraged by the supposedly disrespectful behavior of Nicholas and his companions in a Japanese temple. The other describes it as the jealous lunge of a Samurai whose wife had received the Tsarevich's attention. The episode terminated the visit, and Alexander III telegraphed his son to return home immediately. Thereafter, Nicholas never liked Japan and customarily referred to most Japanese as "monkeys." A subsequent entry in his diary reads, "I received the Swedish minister and the Japanese monkey, the chargé d'affaires, who brought me a letter, a portrait and an ancient armor from Her Majesty [the Empress of Japan]."
    On his way home, Nicholas stopped in Vladivostock long enough to lay the first stone of the eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway. He found Vladivostock a desolate frontier town of muddy, unpaved streets, open sewers, unpainted wooden houses and clusters of mud-plastered straw huts inhabited by Chinese and Koreans. On May 31, 1892, he attended an outdoor religious service swept by cold Siberian winds. He wielded a shovel to fill a wheelbarrow with dirt, trundled it along for several yards and emptied it down an embankment of the future railroad. Soon after, he grasped a trowel and cemented into place the first stone of the Vladivostock passenger station.
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    Upon his return to St. Petersburg, Nicholas again began to see Kschessinska. At first, they rendezvoused secretly in carriages on the bank of the Neva. Later, the Tsarevich began to call on Mathilde at her father's home. Usually, he brought with him three youthful cousins, Grand Dukes Serge, George and Alexander Mikhailovich. Kschessinska served the young men her