The Last Grand Duchess

In 1896, Princess Charles of Denmark took it upon himself to read the horoscope of Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, Tsar Nicholas II's infant daughter. Based on the relative positions of Jupiter and Neptune at the moment of Olga's birth, Prince Charles felt confident that the child would grow to be a woman of medium height, with a round face and chestnut hair. He predicted several "critical periods" in Olga's childhood, noting that if she reached the age of eight, she would enjoy "twelve years of peace." This period of happiness was to be cherished, Prince Charles concluded... "for it is certain that she will never live to be thirty.

If I could have lived, it would have been with you.

He’d lived with her long enough to know that the ghosts that haunted her would never leave. How could they?

For a moment though, Olga allowed the life she desired to blossom in her mind: Mitya by her side; two sons in her arms. She would give up the trappings of her position if doing so allowed her to remain in Russia, with Mitya. They would live in a farmhouse, tending to their small flock of animals; Olga would learn how to boil water, how to bake bread. Every evening, she would fall asleep in the arms of the man she loved. She reached the bottom of the staircase, allowing herself to feel the heaviness of the tears she couldn’t afford to shed. Whatever else, it was a lovely dream.

You must harden your heart,” she continued. “You must take all of the feelings you wish you could feel—grief, rage, love, despair—and push them deep into the core of yourself. Harden your heart. There’s nothing else to do. No other way to stop yourself from falling into the tide.

My darling girl. Courage does not mean a lack of fear,” she said. “It means meeting whatever the future may hold with grace.

Courage does not mean a lack of fear....It means meeting whatever the future may hold with grace. [Grandmamma (Dowager Tsarina Maria Feodorovna), to Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna]