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deepening of the feeling she had cherished for five years, while Nicky’s desire for his beautiful cousin grew ‘stronger and
more tender’, he afterwards wrote, during their winter in St Petersburg. The fact that both were being strongly influenced to choose other marriage partners must have intensified their bond,
and made it more romantic.
    On the last Sunday of the carnival season, a small end-of-season party was held at Tsarskoe Selo, the imperial estate some thirteen miles south of St Petersburg, for Nicky’s family and
close friends. The dancing began in the afternoon, followed by a dinner of blinis with fresh caviar, then a cotillion, with gifts for all the guests and more dancing until late into the evening.
Most likely Alix was not able to dance all evening, her legs were not strong enough, andknowing that she would soon be leaving Russia may have saddened her.
    Carnival was in its last waning hours and Lent, the long season of austerity, was about to begin. At midnight a signal was given and immediately the musicians stopped playing and the dance floor
cleared. The mood in the ballroom turned solemn. The dancers sat down to a Fasting Meal of mushrooms, cabbage and potatoes, their minds adjusting to the swift change of atmosphere.
    For Alix and Nicky, who had spent so many intense hours in each other’s company, it was almost their last evening together. A long season of deprivation had begun.

4

    S hortly after she returned home to Darmstadt, in April or May of 1890, Alix sat down to write a letter to her cousin Eddy. She knew that she had to
give him a final, definitive answer. In her own mind, there was nothing but certainty that Nicky was the one she wanted to marry – though after her disapproving reception by his parents
during her stay in St Petersburg, she must have wondered if her hopes were futile.
    Alix told Eddy, in kind but firm language, that although it ‘pained her to pain him’, she had to say once and for all that she could not marry him. She was sure that they would not
be happy together. She urged him to put her out of his mind, assured him of her cousinly affection, and closed her letter. 1
    To her grandmother she put her case somewhat differently, saying that if she were ‘forced’ by the family to go against her inclinations and her better judgment, she would do her duty
and marry Eddy, but that if she did, in the end both of them would be miserable.
    The queen, who was after all humane and reasonable, was apparently convinced that Alix was right, or at least that she was unshakable in her feelings and opinions, and gave in, though her
disappointment and that of Eddy’s parents was considerable, and Eddy himself was crushed. She decided that Alix had shown ‘great strength of character’ in holding firm against so
much family persuasion, though she thought it a shame that her stubborn granddaughter was refusing what she considered ‘the greatest position there is’. 2
    Alix was headstrong, Ella was very eager for her to marry in Russia, Nicky was lovesick: it was all but inevitable that Alix would return to Russia, and soon.
    As for Alix’s father Louis, although Queen Victoria admonished him to be ‘strong and firm’ in directing his daughter’s future, he was at best passive; he had become an
unhappy man, and was unwell. After his disastrous marriage to Alexandrine von Kolemine (a marriage quickly annulled, with Madame von Kolemine given a large cheque and sent away), Louis was scorned
by all his in-laws and lonely in Darmstadt. He took refuge with Queen Victoria in England for a while, but even there he was harassed by his former mistress, and could find no peace. 3 Russia was one of the few places where he was beyond the reach of the vengeful Alexandrine von Kolemine, and was not made to feel a pariah. Thus when Ella
invited him to return there, to stay with her and Serge at their country estate of Illinsky near Moscow, he was only too glad to accept her