Imperial Dancer: Mathilde Kschessinska and the Romanovs (55 page)

When Anna Anderson arrived at a friend’s home for the meeting she encountered not Mathilde but Vova. Deeply apologetic, he said the doctors had forbidden his mother to attend as they did not want anything to upset her. The truth was that Vova was afraid of his cousin Vladimir and had done everything in his power to prevent the encounter. Vova needed Vladimir’s continued goodwill. Vladimir and
Leonida were now based in Paris for part of each year. Not only did Vova owe to him the continued use of his title, but they were giving Mathilde financial help to the tune of £225 a year. Vova could ill afford for this to be withdrawn. Mathilde’s motives are not so clear. A relative claimed to have seen a private family letter in which she maintained that the whole thing was ‘bunkum’, while Andrei spoke of questions that ‘Anastasia’ could not answer correctly.
⁴⁰

A fortnight later, in September 1967, the French film director Gilbert Prouteau arrived at Villa Molitor. For one afternoon Mathilde’s first floor room was turned into a film studio as Prouteau interviewed her for a documentary about the Anastasia affair, provisionally entitled
Le dossier Anastasia
. Bernard Lesueur of
Le Figaro
was also present.

In her house at Auteuil, among souvenirs of Andrei and faded portraits of the Imperial family,
Le Figaro
reported, Mathilde sat on a sofa facing the camera. Her hands were crossed nervously on her knees, her white hair caught up in a net, a shawl wrapped around her feet. After much negotiation, it had been agreed with Vova that Mathilde would merely give a cautious statement based on her ‘feeling’ and saying that she had noticed ‘a certain resemblance’ between Mrs Anderson’s eyes and those of the Tsar. Grand Duke Andrei had also been struck by the resemblance but this must not be taken as an endorsement of Mrs Anderson’s claim. As the cameras rolled Prouteau put his first question:

‘Princess, in Paris in 1928 you met the woman who at that time was called “the Unknown Woman of Berlin”?’

‘I saw her once.’

‘And what did you think?’

‘That it was she …’ Mathilde answered, in a voice calm, assured and lucid.

At that point Vova interrupted angrily. ‘
Nyet! Nyet
! Cut! You’ve got to cut!’ Then he continued speaking to Mathilde in Russian. ‘You must answer only what is written!’

The interview was resumed and Mathilde read the statement as agreed. When the cameras stopped running Prouteau left the sound machine on and enquired whether she was tired.

‘Not at all, not at all, everyone has been so kind,’ she replied.

‘You were great, Madame,’ Prouteau said, thanking her for helping to establish the truth. Yet Mathilde interrupted.

‘Now, I am still certain that it is she. When she looked at me, you understand, with those eyes … that was it, it was the Emperor. … It isn’t that I have to say anything, you know. No, it’s just what I think.
… It was the exact same look. It was the Emperor’s look. And anyone who saw the Emperor’s eyes will never forget them.’

‘And you, you knew those eyes well?’ Prouteau prompted.

‘Very well, very well,’ and gripping Prouteau’s hands feverishly, Mathilde became quite agitated as she insisted the woman
was
Anastasia.
⁴¹

Prouteau then asked if she had known the Tsar’s daughters well. Mathilde explained that she had only seen them when they came to matinees at the theatre, although it had been difficult to see them clearly. ‘One saw them only in their box.’
⁴²

The programme was never screened. In 1969 the project was scrapped ‘when investors’ funds dried up’. Nevertheless in private Mathilde repeated her impressions of Mrs Anderson to friends. ‘Yes, I met her in the past.
She had the Tsar’s eyes
.’
⁴³

Mathilde’s health continued to fluctuate. In March 1968 she was able to move around her two upstairs rooms almost alone, consequently her morale was better and she was more alert. When she was ill during the summer Barbara Gregory sent flowers. Despite moments of feebleness, Mathilde soon recommenced massage on her legs. Meanwhile Vova was having treatment for his eyes, which hurt if he read and wrote a lot.

By December Julie’s health was causing concern. Early in January 1969 she fell ill and her body suddenly began to give up. On 6 January they celebrated the Russian Christmas Eve by lighting the candles on the tree and inviting a couple of friends to share the occasion. The following night, between 7 and 8 January, Julie died peacefully in her sleep. After the funeral service in Paris her body was taken to the cemetery at Cap d’Ail for burial beside Ali in the vault she had purchased over forty years earlier.

Julie, at nearly 103, was the last link with Mathilde’s past and her childhood. Nevertheless at first Mathilde bore up well. ‘For Mama it was a shock,’ Vova wrote to Howard Rothschild,

but after she admitted that she is religious. … The doctor saw her yesterday. Everything is quite well but the sclerosis is, if you like, progressively killing her. Especially the head. She forgets very often, sometimes she is very down and says it is the end but at the same time is quite well and she foresees the future with hope. … Sometimes she realises she is not the same as she was (I mean the head) and that makes her suffer.
⁴⁴

After the funeral Mathilde suffered a breakdown, becoming feeble and tired. The doctors prescribed tranquillisers so that she would sleep. They wanted to avoid any more shocks. Meanwhile, Vova worried about how to pay for his aunt’s funeral. Friends again helped but the expense had made a large hole in their budget. Although he never gave up, the struggle was wearing Vova out. ‘He needs rest, he is so tired,’ Mathilde frequently told Rothschild.
⁴⁵

Mathilde was now ninety-six. ‘My sister’s death has caused me very great sorrow,’ she told Georgia Hiden in February. ‘More than fifty years we lived together and I loved her a lot. I am not able to adjust to the idea that she is no longer near me.’
⁴⁶

With her usual fortitude Mathilde recovered from the shock and in April was looking forward to the warm weather so that she could go into the garden.

By August Vova was able to report that his mother’s health was splendid.

Mathilde seemed indestructible. The doctor came regularly, she was cheered by letters and gifts and had the unconditional love of her son. In early 1970 Vova went into hospital for an operation, after which he was only able to walk with a stick. ‘As for my dear Mama, it is always the same thing,’ he told Rothschild. ‘Her general state is very good but sometimes she does not realise what has happened and forgets, but sometimes she is entirely normal.’
⁴⁷
Mathilde was able to go outside that summer and in August Vova took his annual holiday, during which time Mathilde was always ‘nervous and anxious’.
⁴⁸

As winter approached the main worry was heating the house. The heating was in a very bad state, the price of coal was simply beyond their means and Mathilde was often in tears from the cold and damp. Margot Fonteyn heard of their plight and sent £1,500 to fix the heating. She also wrote to Commander Paul-Louis Weiller, a much-decorated hero of the First World War and member of the Academy of Fine Arts, who was dedicating his own declining years to artistic and literary patronage. A fervent balletomane and a friend of Serge Lifar, he had amassed a large collection of documents and photographs relating to Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Commander Weiller immediately sent Mathilde £600. In November Mathilde was upset by the unexpected death of her former partner and old friend Pierre Vladimiroff but Vova complained, ‘why was it not mentioned [in the obituary] that he danced in Russia with Mama?’
⁴⁹

Mathilde continued to receive visitors from Russia. In 1964 the
principal artists of the Ballet de Kiev came, and in 1969 she was visited by Ekaterina Maximova and Vladimir Vasiliev of the Bolshoi Ballet, who told her what was happening in Russia and said her name was still remembered.

In 1970 Serge Lifar brought Natalia Makarova to Villa Molitor. Makarova had graduated from the Leningrad Ballet School (now the Vaganova Institute) in 1959, becoming one of the leading artists of the Kirov Ballet – the old Imperial Ballet. While the company was on tour in London in the autumn of 1970 she defected to the West.

Madame Makarova recalled her visit to Kschessinska’s house and Mathilde’s former reputation as a ‘wicked woman’.

She was already quite old, around ninety [she was ninety-eight that year] and still beautiful. Serge Lifar introduced me to her and brought me to her home for dinner. It is a custom you know with dinner that we drink a lot of vodka. There were many
zakuskee
on the table. I was talking to Serge Lifar who sat on my right and Matilda Felixovna was just to the left of me. As I was talking to Lifar, I turned to my left to drink my vodka since there was a toast, but my glass was empty. So I thought to myself, I don’t remember, perhaps I drank it already. Our glasses were refilled. Our conversation continued. We raised our glasses for another toast, but mine was empty again. Afterwards I realised it was Matilda Felixovna quietly drinking my vodka as well as her own. She was tipsy in the end but with a gleam in her eye and still a bit ‘wicked’ I think.
⁵⁰

In 1971 it was suggested that something should be done to mark Kschessinska’s 99th birthday in September. Diana Menuhin, Margaret Rawlings and Zelia Raye immediately wrote to the
Dancing Times
. Under the heading ‘Kschessinska Tribute’ the
Dancing Times
published the suggestion that ‘friends and well-wishers will want to celebrate this rather special birthday with a gift to provide her with comforts, as her health becomes frailer’.
⁵¹
Eric Johns wrote a similar appeal for
The Stage
, and Clement Crisp agreed to do a feature for the
Financial Times
to coincide with Kschessinska’s birthday. Tamara Karsavina was among the many who contributed gifts of money, in gratitude for the help Mathilde had given early in her career.

By this time Mathilde was very weak and according to the housekeeper’s daughter no longer left her room. When the film
Nicholas and Alexandra
had its première Mathilde was invited to the first-night party but was too frail to attend.
⁵²

On 1 September Mathilde celebrated her 99th birthday. ‘She understood that it was her birthday and reacted when she was congratulated,’ Vova reported. ‘There were in all four people. But in general,
she is giving up
.’
⁵³
Doctors and nurses were now coming in several times a day. Everything in France was more expensive and Mathilde required more and more medical treatment. Meanwhile their income remained the same. Margot Fonteyn had sent £180, Diana Menuhin sent £70 and in October a welcome payment of £385 arrived from the
Dancing Times
‘Birthday Fund’. Yet at least Mathilde did not suffer the fate of Olga Preobrajenska, whose belongings were sold (without her agreement or even consultation) during her lifetime.

Vova was slowly recovering from an accident to his foot but the infirmity prevented him from working. ‘What about my dear Mama. Alas, it is so sad and harrowing to see – her head gives up more and more,’ he lamented to Rothschild. ‘She recognises me, but not her close friends. She says only a few words. Nearly all the time she sleeps. But her heart is very good and she eats well.’
⁵⁴

In the early days of December 1971 Mathilde went into a coma and it was obvious that the end was near. One of the last visitors was Serge Lifar.

On 5 December Diana Menuhin and Mstislav Rostropovich called at Villa Molitor. Diana had brought money from the
Dancing Times
Fund, plus some money of her own. Vova told her that he expected his mother to die within the next twenty-four hours. Then he would be left with nothing.

Around 2.30 in the morning of 6 December 1971 Mathilde’s heart failed. Later that day Vova sat down and wrote a sad note to Howard Rothschild. ‘My mother died during the night without suffering. I am overwhelmed with sadness.’
⁵⁵

Tributes poured in. ‘And so, at the age of nearly 100 the fabled Mathilde Kschessinska has died at last,’ wrote Richard Buckle in the
Sunday Telegraph
. ‘A dancer of virtuosity, brio and charm … she captivated at the end of the last century not only the balletomanes of St Petersburg but Nicholas II himself.’
⁵⁶

Her dancing, said the
New York Times
, was allegedly ‘as hard and brilliant as the diamonds around her neck’.
⁵⁷
Many newspapers wrote about her achievements in being the first Russian ballerina to master the Italian technique.

Yet it was not just her dancing that captivated the world. When the palaces, diamonds and the Imperial Ballet itself had disappeared Mathilde did not give up. When the chips were down, having lost everything, she played her trump card and married a Grand Duke. When financial disaster threatened she opened a successful ballet school. ‘Her gaiety and incredible willpower helped her endure many afflictions and she worked until it became physically impossible,’ wrote the
Dancing Times
.
⁵⁸