ce. In this way she seems to flatter his decisions,
which makes him smile quite indulgently at her, and hold her
ascendency over his apparently veering mind. I can notice this in so
many little things: She oozes delicate flattery and he likes it;
she plays upon his _prejudices_, and he seems to have a lot of them
submerged beneath his inalienable urbanity and instinctive grace of
manner that even this misery and abysmal gloom have not relieved of
polish. Beneath it all I get the impression that he is very much in
love with every member of his family.... that he would like to
be _alone_ with 'Alice,' whom he addresses as 'my darling' and
experiences a shell-shock if she stubs her toe. His final words are:
'Now it is ALL OVER and I WILL WELCOME THE OBLIVION that will release
us all from the memory of our devoted bondage!'... While my prisoner
conversed Alexis assisted his stately mother and his four beautiful
sisters while putting on their superannuated wraps.... One by one they
filed out the door leading into the open yard.... My prisoner stood
up and stretched himself.... He was about to resume his seat when the
report of a revolver resounded in our ears.... The brute on the
floor, wallowing in his blood, was raised upon his elbows and firing
recklessly.... After he had fired six rounds without apparent injury
I drew my own revolver and fired deliberately INTO THE WALL.... The
fellow slunk back to silence.... My prisoner and I followed
the ladies out into the night, _forgetting_ a jewel or two in our
leisurely departure.... Out in the open WE DESCENDED into the old
abandoned tunnel that formerly led from Ipatievs to the medical office
of a foreign consulate a thousand feet away...."

[Footnote A: Nicholas used "Petrograd," not the German nomenclature.]

IX

WHAT IS LEARNED IN A SECRET TUNNEL

26. The next entry is mystifying:

"We are between the devil and the deep sea!... which gives me time to
write.... The beastly tunnel has caved in midway in our passage....
It seems, from the roar overhead, that we are somewhere beneath the
railroad tracks. Yet there must be a vent somewhere, as there seems to
be a draft of air through this passage.... The family are congregated
off to the right, in a kind of stoping where the dirt has been
removed, leaving a small room like one meets with in the Gogebic iron
mines in Wisconsin and Michigan, back in the United States....
Our little electric bull's-eyes come in handy