Alexei asked Father to request that M. Gilliard be returned to us. This too was denied. Alexei also asked Father how long we would have to stay in this place. Father could not help but tell the truth, “It might be long.” Alexei never brought up that question again. Sometimes at night shots would be heard; an agonized cry, then quiet. They searched our house again. We sisters were still without beds. They told us to set our clocks ahead by two hours. We had our breakfast at 12:30 noon. Kharitonov had to work not only for us and our staff but also for these terrible men. The odors of fish and other good-smelling things would drift to our rooms, but they were not for us. These foods were for the Commandant and the guards. We were given a thin fish soup or half-cooked veal cutlet at noon and a cold one at night. Father could not eat these things, so he went frequently without food. Mother’s meals consisted usually of spaghetti and tea, which little Leonid prepared for her over a small kerosene burner, because she refused to sit at the same table with those vulgar men. The guards ate at the same table with the family. For us, it was a question of eating the revolting stuff or starving while the guards lived off the fat of the land at our expense. XXIII DEPRIVATION AND COURAGE Every week Father was questioned in the Commissar’s room, while the guards stood by at the doorway of our rooms. One day Father returned very upset after being questioned for two hours. They showed him a war document, the “Orange Book” as it was called, from which a number of documents were missing and accused Father of destroying these documents and substituting a letter from the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, in which he wrote to Father that he did not wish to acquire any territory, but to die in peace in his old age. They ignored the fact that these documents had been held at the Ministry of War after they had been read by Father and the General Staff. Their suspicions were based on the assumption that it was impossible for the Emperor Francis Joseph to have written such a letter.