she had been endowed with before, in the hopeless struggle she was fighting against forces which were bound to overcome her in the long run. All her former vivacity had left her. She had become sweeter than she had ever been, even during her first years of married life, and she accepted with gratitude every small service one rendered her. The haughty pride with which she had in former times met any unpleasantness that occurred to her had disappeared. She had become resigned to everything that might befall her, but her great anxiety was for her husband and children, especially the former, against whom she dreaded an attempt at assassination whenever he was at the Front. During the sleepless nights which had become her portion she fancied all kinds of evils, and then she would proceed to the telephone which put her in direct communication with head-quarters and speak with the aide-de-camp on duty, asking for news of the Emperor. I do not think that she ever obtained more than an hour or two of repose in the twenty-four, and sometimes, when considering this, I did not, as I had previously, blame the Princess Dondoukoff for administering to her opiates destined to give her some rest. All this constituted a terrible state of things, but still it was nothing in comparison with what was to follow, and the unfortunate Czarina was soon to drink to the very dregs the cup of sorrow that had been destined for her. CHAPTER XVIII DISASTERS AND THE SECOND REVOLUTION The last days of the year 1916 were sad ones for my poor Empress. First came the assassination of Rasputin, which was a terrible source of grief for her, because she firmly believed that so long as he was at her side no harm could befall her, and certainly as events turned out she had not been so far wrong in her superstitious fears. During the first days which followed upon the murder of her favourite she would sit motionless for hours in her boudoir, doing nothing, absorbed in thoughts which must have been most painful. Christmas—the last to be passed by the Imperial family in their beloved Czarskoi Selo—was a sad one, and the Czarina did not even attempt to shake off the melancholy forebodings with which she was troubled. She was preoccupied with the idea of avenging the destruction of the man whose existence she had considered in the light of a fetich. It is a well-known fact that she caused the young Grand Duke Dmitry to be exiled in Persia, as a punishment for his share in the conspiracy that had deprived her of her favourite. She who had always been so kind turned cruel and merciless, and I once heard her exclaim that henceforward she would no longer listen to her heart, but follow only the dictates of her reason.