[Illustration: THE CZAREVITCH CUTTING CORN HE HAD SOWN IN THE PARK AT PETERHOF. SUMMER OF 1913. {_Facing page_ 40.] not in agreement. I considered that the perpetual presence of the sailor Derevenko and his assistant Nagorny was harmful to the child. The external power which intervened whenever danger threatened seemed to me to hinder the development of will-power and the faculty of observation. What the child gained--possibly--in safety he lost in real discipline. I thought it would have been better to give him more freedom and accustom him to look to himself for the energy to resist the impulses of his own motion. Besides, accidents continued to happen. It was impossible to guard against everything, and the closer the supervision became, the more irritating and humiliating it seemed to the boy, and the greater the risk that it would develop his skill at evasion and make him cunning and deceitful. It was the best way of turning an already physically delicate child into a characterless individual, without self-control and backbone, even in the moral sense. I spoke in that sense to Dr. Derevenko, but he was so obsessed by fears of a fatal attack, and so conscious of the terrible load of responsibility that devolved upon him as the doctor, that I could not bring him round to share my view. It was for the parents, and the parents alone, in the last resort, to take a decision which might have serious consequences for their child. To my great astonishment, they entirely agreed with me, and said they were ready to accept all the risks of an experiment on which I did not enter myself without terrible anxiety. No doubt they realised how much harm the existing system was doing to all that was best in their son, and if they loved him to distraction their love itself gave them the strength to let him run the risk of an accident which might prove fatal rather than see him grow up a man without strength of character or moral fibre. Alexis Nicolaïevitch was delighted at this decision. In his relations with his playmates he was always suffering from the incessant supervision to which he was subject. He promised me to repay the confidence reposed in him. Yet, sure though I was of the soundness of my view, the moment the parents’ consent was obtained my fears were greater than ever. I seemed to have a presentiment of what was to come....