– You're scaring me. Is Madame Kshesinskaya really so withdrawn that I won’t be able to arrange a sincere conversation with her?
– Why so pessimistic? Your respectable appearance and professional skill will play the right role, and it will open up to you. After all, at one time your grandfather managed to talk to the Russian Emperor Alexander III himself.
– Do you know how this interview ended?
– Yes, the emperor died by the end of it. But don't worry, Mali's health won't let you down. If she lived to be a hundred years old, then the interview with you will somehow survive too.
For many years, this incident with the Russian Tsar hung like a sword of Damocles over the reputation of the Jackson publishing house. However, the glory of Robert Jackson, Sr., as an interviewer of the Russian emperor, did not fade because of this accident.
– I have this question. In what language will our communication with Mrs. Kshesinskaya be? Robert asked.
– For her, Polish and Russian are native, but of course she will communicate with you in French, but I warn you – her French is different from Parisian. It is a salon, it was used by the Russian nobility in St. Petersburg.
Robert shook his head placatingly.
– Well, if there are no more questions, gentlemen, then I will order the servants to roll out the carriage with our ward here into the living room, closer to the fireplace.
Soon a carriage with a thin, withered old woman drove into the room. Having managed to live up to the 70s of the twentieth century, Kshesinskaya saw and talked live with the great Tchaikovsky, the legendary Petipa, the father of the heir to the throne, Emperor Alexander III, visited the bed of the last Russian tsar, his brother and uncle, survived two of the bloodiest wars of mankind and now as a living history appeared before those who had not yet managed to live even a third of her life path.
Despite her advanced age, she looked alive. A lot of wrinkles on the face, sagging skin on the neck and senile hands could not spoil the impression that small penetrating eyes and neatly styled hair, woven at the back of the head into a narrow long pigtail, made.
The old age of the woman was also hidden by skillfully applied cosmetics, which did not disfigure her face at all. But Kshesinskaya did not like to smile. The reason for this was the crooked bite of her teeth from a young age. The dentistry of those and subsequent years could not cope with this task, and therefore in all the photographs the ballet prima was captured with her mouth closed, without a dazzling Hollywood smile.