The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1908-12-30

ally in st. Petersburg" said small,
swarthy, wrinkled peasant woman
standing in her field, one day last
summer when l was in the province
of Kaluga. "Now, when the English
King and the French President visit
us, they are received in the hallway
somewhere In Revel. They are not
admitted to the parlor-into St.
Petersburg, because the Gar and
Tsaritsa and their children are them
selves afraid to enter the parlor. If
the Car is afraid-well, he has rea-
son to be-the people have not yet
forgotten Red Sunday. But my heart
aches for the Tsaritsa, who has done
no harm to any one. My life is mis-
cradle enough, but she, poor soul,
cries her eyes out-a bird in golden
cage. And even there she is forever
in fear that bomb will destroy the
cage and all. -" And the little
peasant woman, who had left off rsii-
ing her hay for while, wiped her
eyes with her apron awkwardly.
When Princess Alix, daughter Of
Ludwig w., the Grand Duke of
Hesse, became Alexandra Feodorovna
by marrying Nicholas H., the EN-
peror of Russia, who was then the
Crown Prince, she probably did not
know that she was destined to be-
come one of the most miserable
women on the face of the globe. The
palaces of emperors and Kings have
often enough in history harbored
heartrending tragedies and domestic
dramas, but the tragedy of the woman
who is "the first lady" of the Russian
land, the mother of the Tsarevich, is
so pathetic that even the peasant
women in God-forsaken Russian vii
lagos are touched with pity for her.
The marriage between Nicholas
and Alexandra was by no means a
love match. Neither the successor
to the Russian throne, nor the quiet,
well-bred young Duchess, reared in
Anglo-Saxon environments, student
of Renan, of the German philoso-
piers and the English poets, desired
the match. The young Crown Prince
was attached to the beautiful Polish
dancer, Ksheshinskaya, and it was for
the purpose of putting an end to that
love affair that Alexander III. de-
cided to marry his son to the Duchess
of Hesse.
Immediately after her marriage, in
1894 (which took place on the birth
day of the Dowager Empress), the
young princess learned that the
whlms of her mother-in-law, Maria
Feodorovna, were to be law to her.
At first she made an effort to intro
duce the influence of European cul-
ture into the life of the Court, but
she soon discovered strong oppo-
sition in the "real Russian" influence
which was forced upon young Mich
olas by his mother. To counteract
whatever influence the young princess
might exert, the Dowager. Empress
called the reactionary advisers to her
aid, thus dominating the weak will
of the Emperor.
Little by little Alexandra became
convinced that her modern ideals and
her finer views of life had to be sup
pressed. In fact, she soon lost her in
terest in matters that had once stirred
her mind; she ceased reading her
favorite writer's, and devoted her time
to the study of the Russian language
and even became absorbed in the in
forests of the Synod. Still, she at
tempted from time to time to reform
the Court life, but to no avail. Some
time after the coronation of Nicholas,
Alexandra forbade the ladies-in-wait-
ing at Court to smoke cigarettes.
The new edict raised storm of dis
satisfied criticism in the Imperial pal
aces which served to make the Tsar-
lisa more wretched.
The shocking tragedy that marked
the coronation of the present Czar of
Russia, on the field of Kkodinka,
which resulted in the death of 4S00
people, was painful blow to the
young Queens sensitive nature; 1t is
believed that the impression has
never been effaced from her mind,
especially as she saw her husband
and the Dowager Empress remain
calm while so many people lost their
lives, and that, without paying the
slightest attention to the catastrophe,
they ordered the festivities to be re-
sumed.
There were times when the weak
willed, dreamy-eyed young Emperor
yielded to the influence of his wife,
who Intellectually is far his superior,
but they were only brief moments
which were followed by long lapses of
reaction. She was particularly
grieved to see that he was enmeshed
in the wiles of charlatans, fortune
tellers, and spiritualists, such as Phil
ippe, the hairdresser of Marseilles,
Demchinsky, and Father John of
Kronstadt.
But the tragedy in the life of the
Empress grew most acute when she
was humiliated by the Dowager EN-
press because she did not give birth
to successor to the throne. In Rus
sia, the first lady of the land is not
the Tsaritsa, the wife of the Emperor,
but the mother of the Tsarevich, the
II