Mashka (Marie) had the most wonderful disposition, but I often got her into trouble. We used to practice on the piano in a room above Mother’s boudoir where she could hear us. When the instructor, Mr. Konrad, happened to step out for a minute, we began to roughhouse. Soon the telephone rang and we knew it was Mother to remind us to attend to our practice and not to fool around. Mother realized that we missed having friends of our age, and she made up for it by forming a closer knit family of our own. Occasionally we saw the Tolstoy girls or the children of General Hesse, once Father’s aide-de-camp. We took some lessons, danced and played with them: two boys and a girl about the age of my sister Olga. But no intimacy whatever was allowed. We also enjoyed our cousins, Aunt Xenia’s children, when they were at home. When Alexei was about seven years old, he had a nurse named Maria Vishniakova. She disturbed Olga and made her cry. Vishniakova told Mother that the muzhik Rasputin had been upstairs in our apartments and conducted himself improperly. According to the tradition of the Russian court, no men were allowed in the girls’ rooms except the two Negro doormen, Apty and Jim. Father became so upset by the report that he personally questioned Vishniakova. She was evasive, and gave one date, then another. When Father told her that Rasputin according to the report was nowhere near St. Petersburg during those dates, she admitted her whole story was a fabrication and that it was a malicious relative of the Imperial family who had had her say what she did. She then burst out crying and of course she was discharged. It was then that the attack on Rasputin began. Another incident which caused a great deal of confusion some years before the war involved our governess, Mlle. Tutcheva, a native of Moscow. She spoke various languages, but no English. Aunt Ella (the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna), Mother’s sister, had recommended her for this important position. Tutcheva was a cultured woman and came from a fine family, but at the same time was unpleasantly outspoken and domineering. She hated the English so that she would not allow the English language to be spoken in her presence, and often criticized the English, especially when we went through our albums of our trips. She even complained to us about our own Mother, that she was English and not a Russian, and constantly exchanged sharp words with Mlle. Butsova, Mother’s favorite lady-in-waiting, addressing her in an abusive manner, but Mlle. Butsova spared no words for her either. All this made us children excited and nervous. Mlle. Tutcheva was also in continual conflict with others in the palace. To our dismay she also spoke unkindly of Princess Maria Bariatinsky. Later she told Aunt Ella that Rasputin visited our apartments although at no time had any of us sisters seen the man in the upper quarters.