1914 Prince Ilarion twenty. Nothing changed for him by the war. Being of noble birth, had no obligation to serve, or alter habits of extravagant indolence. Social life of capital continued, if somewhat altered by absence of those who felt morally compelled to try to alleviate Russia’s misfortunes.
1916 Autumn, Prince Ilarion married girl of mother’s choice, Irina Shcherbinina, youngest daughter of a general, delicate docile blonde.
1917 Outbreak of March Revolution and abdication of Tsar were events which not even a Karukhin could disregard. Prince Ilarion shocked and horrified, but no idea of leaving Petersburg, where engaged with dancer of Imperial Ballet. Went round saying ‘revolt’ would soon be quashed and autocracy restored. Concluded that, since he’d taken not the smallest part in conduct of the war, provisional Govt. could have no quarrel with him (apparently never thought that as they were intent on a more vigorous prosecution of the war effort, he might have to do something). Princess Olga less sanguine but indomitable, so Karukhins stayed precariously on through worsening situation till Bolsheviks seized power in November.
Princess Olga foresaw irrevocable end of Tsarism and imminent catastrophe for them and their kind. Prince Ilarion, on the other hand, refused to accept this, and was moreover too infatuated with his dancer to think of leaving. He and his mother in major conflict for first and last time. He disregarded her dire warnings. Furious at his blind obduracy, she left him and contrived her own escape to the Finnish border, travelling by road in weather and conditions that would have daunted a less determined mind. She took son’s wife with her, but Princess Irina had neither will nor constitution of her mother-in-law, and was also seven months pregnant. Within a week of reaching Finland she died in giving birth prematurely to a son, who survived and was christened Ivan.
From Finland Princess Olga arrived in Sweden in the summer of 1918, with the child. For the next two years she lived there in close retirement, apparently making no attempt to communicate with her son or with anyone she had known in Russia. During that time was published news of the shooting of the Imperial Family at Ekaterinburg; and, as a mere incident in the savage course of the Civil War, of the shooting at Petersburg, in reprisal for some White atrocity, of three hundred class enemies, among them Prince Ilarion Karukhin.
* * *
Nightingale pushed the papers aside and sipped his fast-cooling tea. The only person in that story whose plight moved him was Princess Irina, the delicate docile blonde. He smiled at the detail, and the brief covering message from Runciman.
“The general stuff I knew,” he read, “but the tittle-tattle is father’s. I’ve put it all in on the chance of its being usable. You can rely on its accuracy. The old man’s eighty, but his memory’s as clear as a bell. His authority for the Swedish episode was a friend who was at Stockholm at the time. She worked up quite an acquaintance with the Brit. Col. there, then seems to have faded out. Let me know what happened to the Karukhin remnant if you find out—and if it’s O.K. for private release, the old man would be interested!”