For weeks Mother had been suffering from neuralgia. Now her teeth caused her a great deal of pain. Everyday she waited patiently for her dentist, who was to come all the way from the Crimea. I never knew of anyone who suffered so much and still had so much patience and never complained. On the arrival of Dr. Kostritsky, he repaired Mother’s false tooth and one of my front teeth which had been damaged. He brought us news from Granny and both our aunts who were in the Crimea. From a previous letter we had learned that Grandmother was ill and was complaining about the shortage of food and the fact that her belongings had been taken away from her, news which distressed us considerably, especially my Father. We had also received a charming letter concerning Aunt Olga telling us about her baby son being driven in a carriage drawn by a small donkey. I remembered when I was a little girl I rode in a small wicker chair strapped on the side of a pony. The news brought by Dr. Kostritsky was cheerful on the whole. Finally Dr. Botkin’s children, Tatiana and Gleb, arrived in Tobolsk. We hoped that they would join us in our class work, but even that was denied us and we could only see them from the second floor window. The situation was gradually getting worse. Nikolsky was stirring up more hatred among the soldiers and poisoning their minds with false doctrines. Dr. Botkin spent several hours with Father, telling him of the conditions in Tsarskoe Selo and Petrograd. We now had a fairly good idea of the existing situation in our country. We heard that Pravosudovich, head engineer of the Imperial personal train, had been shot; also that Kerensky, his relatives and his friends were splurging at the Catherine Palace, indulging in all kinds of luxuries, of which we had deprived ourselves at all times, especially during the war. Kerensky and his friends were driving in our cars and carriages, and even some servants lay at his feet. Within a short time this man who not long ago had appeared on our threshold in Tsarskoe Selo, with men whose past was steeped in crime, was now enjoying all the luxuries of which he deprived the original owners. We had several letters from Anna Vyrubova and even some packages. We gathered from her letters that Anna was having a terrible time, though her language was cryptic. She was forced to assume her maiden name in order to avoid persecution. All our mail that came through the regular channels was censored and the contents were known to Colonel Kobylinsky. Father tried to discourage the sending or receiving of mail secretly. He even asked his own relatives to address their letters to Commissar Pankratov, in order to avoid any misunderstanding. Father wrote only a few letters, primarily to his mother and to his sister Xenia.