Anastasia: A Century's Mystery

contact with the subject of her laughter, instead peering at them out of the corner of her eyes. And though she was taught, along all her sisters, to walk and bow with a stack of encyclopedias on her head, she had a peculiar gait, all her own, somehow tripping along in tiny, bouncing movements. With age, relatives suspected that she would become the object of some man’s fervent and inexplicable adoration.

As a child, Anastasia was very short and stocky, with stubby little legs and arms that gave her an additional measure of cuteness. However, she suffered greatly from her insignificant height, and was pained to see anyone taller to whom she held superior rank. Nina, daughter of Grand Duke George and Anastasia’s cousin, suffered a great deal at little Anastasia’s hands because, though younger than Anastasia by two days, she was significantly taller -- a situation that struck Anastasia as a form of lèse majesté. Her father was the only one permitted to call her by the nickname he himself had invented -- Malenkaya, which technically meant Little One in reference to her being his youngest daughter, but to her, in any but her father’s voice, meant Small, and thus short. Proud and stubborn, Anastasia was known to defend herself fiercely if she felt anyone was trying to put her down, and some great triumphs she had along the way, too.

Pierre Gilliard gives what is, perhaps, the best description we have of the little girl today. Here, he describes his first meeting with her, when she was but four and a half:

I have just finished a lesson with Olga Nikolaievna; by myself again, I am expecting her sister Tatiana. The door opens and instead I see a very small girl coming towards me. She is carrying under her arm a big picture-book, which she ceremoniously put down on the table in front of me; then she gives me her hand and says in Russian: "I would like to learn French too."

And without waiting for my answer, she climbs on to a chair, kneels on it, opens her book, and asks me, putting her tiny forefinger on a huge elephant: "What's this called in French?"

Then I am confronted with a whole succession of lions, tigers, and well, almost all the creatures in the Ark. I join her in the game, very pleased with

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