Dear Papula, how he suffered beyond measure for his loyalty to us. His face always brightened whenever he saw me. I always engaged him in a conversation. Somehow he felt closer to Alexei and to me than to our sisters. At the end this good man became bold, in spite of his frailty. He was somewhat older than my Father. At that time Father was fifty years old and Mother forty-six. There was a unity and peace among us. Father said, without bitterness, “A great crime is being committed, but I feel we have been true to ourselves and to Russia. The Russian people have been betrayed.” Olga, who could say things so beautifully, added from her tender heart, “The Russian people have been hypnotized and one must not judge them by the present. They are good people.” Dr. Botkin added, “Be true, do not fear, in a minute all will pass.” We were startled at his words, and we wondered afterwards whether he realized the full meaning of what he was saying. He must have known of our destiny. In spite of the hostile actions of Yurovsky and his accomplices throughout Father Storozhev’s service, we felt we had been enfolded by God and filled with power to ignore the brutality of the guards. When they came into the sitting room while Father was reading aloud, one of us stood up, so that they might see as little as possible. On Monday, July 15th two maids came to clean the rooms as usual. Obviously they were frightened and seemed anxious to deliver some message to us, but the guards’ presence everywhere prevented any communication. On the same day, Yurovsky brought his associates to the house. These included Voykov, Goloshchekin and Jacob Sverdlov who were comrades of Lenin, Trotsky, and other international conspirators. We saw these four and others in the house all day long; they followed us even into the garden, when we went out for a fifteen minute walk in the afternoon. Once Sverdlov said to Father that when the festivities of the Three Hundred Year rule of the Romanov Dynasty were celebrated in 1913, he was ready to blow up the whole Imperial family with a bomb. Father replied, “What kept you from doing it? I probably would not be here today nor would my family be.” On Tuesday July the 16th, the young kitchen boy, Leonid, who used to come to play with Alexei for an hour every day, had no sooner arrived than a guard announced that Leonid’s uncle, Ivan Sidniev (our former footman) had come to see the boy. The little fellow jumped to his feet and happily said, “Oh, please forgive me, I shall be back.” We knew right then, it was some sort of trick. When he did not return and Father inquired why, he was told, “Tomorrow he will come.”