The Coronation Read Online Free Page A

Alexandrovich’s study and another to my room, since I would probably have to talk endlessly with the Alexandrovsky Palace, the governor general’s residence and the Court Department.
    But initially I had to decide which rooms to put people in, and that was a problem that really had me racking my brains.
    There were only eighteen rooms on the two floors of the house. I simply cannot imagine how everyone would have been accommodated if the grand duchess and the other children and the entire court had been with us. Somov told me that the family of Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich, including eight members of the royal family and a retinue of fourteen individuals, not counting servants, had been allocated a small mansion with fifteen rooms, so that the courtiers had been obliged to share a room between three or even four, and the servants had been accommodated over the stables. That was quite appalling, even though Nikolai Konstantinovich was two levels below Georgii Alexandrovich in seniority.
    It was also inopportune that His Highness had invited his friend Lord Banville to the coronation. His Lordship was expected to arrive on the Berlin train early in the evening. The Englishman was unmarried, thank goodness, but I still had to allocate him two rooms: one for the lord himself and one for his butler. And God forbid that I should make any slips here. I know these English butlers: they are even more lordly than their masters. Especially Mr Smiley, who served His Lordship. Pompous and snobbish – I had had more than enough time to observe him the previous month in Nice.
    And so I set aside the first floor for the royal household. The two rooms with windows facing towards the park and the tsar’s palace were for Georgii Alexandrovich – they would be his bedroom and study. An armchair would go on the balcony, with a small table and a box of cigars, while a spyglass would be placed at the window that looked towards the Alexandriisky Palace, to make it more convenient for His Highness to observe the windows of his nephew the emperor. Xenia Georgievna would have the bright room with a view of the river, she would like that. The maid Liza would be beside her. I would put Pavel Georgievich in the mezzanine – he liked to be apart from the other members of the family, and there was a separate staircase leading up there, which was convenient for returning late. Endlung would be next to him, in the former closet. He was not such an important individual. Move in a bed, put a carpet on the floor and hang a bearskin on the wall, and no one would be able to tell that it was a closet. Little Mikhail Georgievich would have the spacious room with windows facing east – just right for a nursery. And beside it there was a very fine room for Mademoiselle Declique. I gave instructions to put a bunch of bluebells in there (they are her favourite flowers). I set aside the last room on the first floor as a small drawing room for peaceful leisure activities in the family circle, in case at least one evening might be left free during the bewildering days ahead.
    The two largest rooms downstairs were naturally transformed into the main drawing room and the dining room; I prepared the two most decent bedrooms for the Englishmen, took one for myself (small but located in a strategically important position, under the stairs); and the rest of the servants had to be accommodated several to a room. A la guerre comme à la guerre , or, as we say in Russian, cramped but contented.
    All in all, it turned out better than could have been expected.
    Then began the troublesome business of unpacking the luggage: dresses, uniforms and suits, silver tableware, thousands of all sorts of small but absolutely essential items which make it possible to transform any shed into a decent and even comfortable refuge.
    While the Moscow servants were carrying in the trunks and boxes, I observed each of them carefully to determine what each of them was worth and in which