Part 2: Chapter 14 Summary and Analysis

By the summer of 1912, three of the girls were teenagers with Anastasia 11 and Alexis 8. The Romanov family was ready to leave for Spala in Poland where Alexis became quite ill. This was at their annual hunting lodge. Alexis was injured during a fall in a boat and experienced a serious hemorrhage in the groin and thigh while they were in Spala. The doctors, Ostrogorsky, Rauchfuss, Federov and Derevenko, arrived from St. Petersburg. The Empress stayed by the child's side throughout the crisis, which lasted for two weeks. The first eleven days were so strenuous on Alexandra that her hair began to turn gray. The child was in so much pain that he hoped he was dying so his ordeal would end.

The child's illness did not alter the household routine. Visitors continued to arrive at the lodge and to...