I’ll pretend, I tell myself. Pretending is safer than believing.

My sisters and I sit together on a pair of suitcases. If we’ve forgotten anything, it’s already too late — our rooms have all been sealed and photographed. Anyway, Tatiana would say it’s bad luck...

It’s different now, like pushing the stop lever on my camera until nothing except the war can squeeze through the lens.

It was partly the war, the revolution did the rest. The war was an artificial break in life– as if life could be put off for a time– what nonsense! The revolution broke out willy-nilly...

Maria cries unashamedly on my shoulder while I whisper and pet her cheek, but Anastasia grips my other hand and stares fiercely back at our Alexander Palace with her wet blue eyes until it is...

God save us from seeing a Russian revolt, senseless and merciless. Those who plot impossible upheavals among us, are either young and do not know our people, or are hard-hearted men who do not care...

I wish I wasn’t an imperial highness or an ex-grand duchess. I’m sick of people doing things to me because of what I am. Girl-in-white-dress. Short-one-with-fringe. Daughter-of-the-tsar. Child-of-the-ex-tyrant. I want people to look and see...

The degeneration of the revolution in Russia does not pass from the revolution for communism to the revolution for a developed kind of capitalism, but to a pure capitalist revo­lution. It runs in parallel with...

A Provincial Tale”)

TWO AND TWO MAKES FIVE

For twenty-five years I’ve been speaking and writing in defense of your right to happiness in this world, condemning your inability to take what is your due, to secure what you won in bloody battles...

Processions, meetings, military parades, lectures, waxwork displays, film shows, telescreen programs all had to be organized; stands had to be erected, effigies built, slogans coined, songs written, rumours circulated, photographs faked.

…some men say get them crying on your shoulder and you have the sheets half-unfurled already. Other fellows say get them laughing. I say get them drunk. I ordered up more Riesling…

We have conquered everything, and everything has slipped out of our grasp.

During the night two delegates of the railwaymen were arrested. The strikers immediately demanded their release, and as this was not conceded, they decided not to allow trains leave the town. At the station all...