In peacetime two ordinary trains left daily from the Nicholas station in St Petersburg to Perm, covering the looo miles south-eastwards in two days; there was also a twice-weekly Siberian express which could do the trip in thirty-seven hours. The train on which Michael andJohnson left at 4. a.m. on Saturday, March 11, took more than eight days for the same journey. By Tuesday, and after some 80 hours, they had got only as far as Vologda,  371 miles from the capital, crawling along at an average of less than five miles an hour; it would be like that all the way. The weather was bitter and they were housed in a battered carriage attached to a freight train, sitting in a grubby, unheated compartment, grandly marked 'First Class', but which had all its windows broken or missing.

The armed six-man escort - Latvians commanded by a Russian - treated them with indifference for the first day but by Sunday evening, impressed by finding that their imperial prisoner made no complaint, their attitude towards him changed. 'As we were getting ready to settle down to sleep, Johnson later reported, two of the escort even took off their coats and hung them over the windows to keep out the draughts. They began to address Michael as Michael Aleksandrovich and after that they did their best to take care of us.

Two days later, as the freight train reached Vologda, the guards made no objection when Michael asked for permission to send a telegram. He drafted it out, in terms as reassuring as possible, and Johnson took it for despatch to a frantic Natasha. Everybody well. Fellow-travellers are nice. Moving extremely slowly by freight train. In his farewell letter, Michael had told her, Uritsky assured me that you and the family will have no difficulty in following me whenever you like. In his cable, he added: It will be quite impossible to travel with children . . . but taking a direct passenger train will be considerably quicker. Must take food for entire journey . . . That said much about what might be expected at restaurants at the stopping stations en route, so far Michael andJohnson had been given barely enough to sustain them.

The order that Michael and Johnson should be separated on arrival and obliged to live in separate areas continued to vex Michael, and on the next evening, when the train stopped at the small station of Sharya, he fired off a protest telegram to Lenin, but sent it under Johnsons name. Using Michaels poor health as justification, the telegram asked Lenin to revoke the order. It was.

Finally, on Sunday, March 19, Michael andJohnson — unshaven, filthy, exhausted, and ravenous - arrived in Perm, almost grateful to find themselves being taken to a small room in the Hermitage Hotel where they could at least wash and look forward to sleeping in a bed.

Perm, with a population then of 62,000, was the capital of a government of the same name, which also included Ekaterinburg, 235 miles to the south-east. The gateway to Siberia, and situated above the broad River Kama, it was normally a thriving and even attractive town with nineteen churches, a new university and, fittingly as the birthplace of Diaghilev, boasted the largest theatre outside St Petersburg and Moscow, with the third-largest bailee company in Russia. There were worse places to be in exile; Michael was resolved to make the best of it.

Their first shock, two days after their arrival, was to find that they were not to be left in peace, as promised. The local authorities, having no instructions about Michael, decided to put him in prison. In Petrograd, a Bolshevik newspaper explained that away by saying that he has become insane. The story was republished worldwide, and even The Times in London reported the claim.

Upon his arrest, Michael was allowed to send a telegram to Natasha telling her that he was to be kept until further notice in solitary confinement."" He also sent telegrams to three of the Petrograd Commissars, Bonch-Bruevich, Lunacharsky and Uritsky, demanding that the local Soviet be instructed to release him at once. Urgently request issue of directives immediately, he wrote.

Five days later Michaels valet, Vasily Chelyshev, who with the chauffeur Borunov had arrived in Perm just as Michael was being arrested on March 21, reported to Natasha that there had been no reply to the telegrams of our "boss" . . . very important that the local authorities receive directions . . . Uritsky was being evasive, Chelyshev also told her. He and Borunov had brought clothes, books, and a variety of toilet and medical supplies packed by Natasha, but they were not allowed to see Michael.

Natasha was busy hanging on doors, demanding Michaels release. It was frustrating work, but her persistence eventually paid off; early in April, some two weeks after Michael was imprisoned, she heard that orders had been given for his release. Robert Wilton, The Times man, lobbied perhaps by Natasha, helpfully filed the story of his release, making it difficult for the Commissars to retract their decision. Even so, Michael was still in prison while the outside world was reading on Saturday, April 6, that he was at liberty. The local Perm Soviet stubbornly dragged its heels over the next four days, as if determined to show its independence. Michaels valet Chelyshev badgered the Perm Bolsheviks until they eventually gave way. In the late evening of Monday, April 9, the prison doors opened and Michael walked out.

Chelyshev had arranged accommodation for him in the Korolev Rooms at 3 Siberia Street,  not far from the embankment of the Kama river. The handsome three-storey hotel had opened eleven years earlier in 1907, and prided itself on providing the most luxurious accommodation in town. Though it was now administered by the local Soviet - and renamed Hotel No. i — a guest was entitled to a three-course dinner every day, with tea or milk. The hotel was a long, flat-fronted building painted yellow ochre, with tall arched windows; inside there were elegant columns and stucco mouldings. Michael was given a large room, number 21, with a wrought-iron balcony on the first floor, immediately above the main entrance, and overlooking the busy street outside. It was the very best on offer and, after what had gone before, a joy to behold. Johnson, Chelyshev, and Borunov also found rooms in the same hotel. Michael wrote at once to Natasha.

My very own, dearest Natasha, At last I can write to you openly, as up to now, i.e. up to last night, we were under arrest and all my correspondence was being checked by the local Soviet. I did not want to write letters, knowing that they would be read by all and sundry . . . Yesterday morning we were told that we would be released and we have spent a wearisome day awaiting the results. Thanks to the insistence of Vasily, we were at last released at ii p.m. and went straight away to the rooms we have rented in the Korolev Rooms . . . My head is going round and round - so much I want to tell you, as I have lived through so much in the last five weeks of my arrest.

My dearest Natashechka, I thank you from all my heart for the lovely letters and alsofor all the trouble you have taken to help me. Thank Cod, the first step was successful, and we are free. This is already a great relief. The second step would be to get away from here and go home, but I am afraid that this wont be soon. i am terribly lonely without you, my darling, come here as soon as possible. As from today, I will start looking for some lodgings for us and as soon as I find something suitable, will send you a wire . . .

May God keep you and bless you. I embrace and kiss you tenderly with all my love. Adoring you, all yours. Misha.

After the tumult of the past five weeks it was a letter that made the best of the position he now faced. There was hope that somehow the worst was really over.

The arrest of Michael was alarming enough for Natasha, but it was also a reminder that the Bolsheviks could not be trusted to leave any Romanov alone, including the children. Nicholass family had been taken, and it could be assumed therefore that little George was also at risk. He was only seven years of age, but would that matter to the ruthless men who now wielded such arbitrary power? Natasha was not prepared to wonder. Somehow, George had to be sent to safety.

She was also worried about Tata, now approaching her fifteenth birthday. The risk in her case was not as great, since she was still legally a Mamontov by name, and without any title or Romanov connection other than the fact that she was Michaels stepdaughter. It would be best if both could be sent out of the country, but if that jeopardised the chances for George then Tata would have to stay behind.

But how could George escape? Natasha could not go too, not only because that in itself would greatly increase the odds against him, but because she would not leave Michael behind, and no less could she leave Tata. Princess Putyatinas husband suggested an approach to the Danes. After all, Michael was a cousin and friend of King Christian; George was family. The Danish embassy was next door to the Putyatin apartment in Millionnaya Street. The senior diplomat there, George Scavenius, agreed to seek permission from Copenhagen to help; he also put Prince Putyatin in touch with Colonel Cramer, the Danish official in charge of prisoner-of-war exchange, who was living in the former Austrian embassy on Sergeyevskaya Street. Colonel Cramer volunteered to take George into his care until there was news from Denmark.

On March 16 Miss Neame and George moved to Sergeyevskaya Street, and were hidden there for the next forty days. On April 25 they were ready to move, though the only route was through Germany, with no assurance that they would get any further. They would travel on a train taking prisoners of war back home. For Miss Neame it was a daunting prospect; she was to pose as the wife of a repatriated Austrian officer, with a false passport made out in the name of SilldorfF. Although she would be accompanied all the way by a Danish officer. Captain Sorensen, neither she nor George spoke German; if she was stopped in Germany she could be arrested as an enemy alien, even as a spy. There was no knowing what would then happen to the boy.

Nervously, she and George boarded the packed Red Cross train which would take them first to Pskov, where she would pass into German-controlled territory. To her immense relief, the Bolsheviks took no special notice other as they stamped her passport and that of her son*. A few days later they were in Berlin, and went at once to the Danish embassy, where the American-born wife of the ambassador Count Carl Moltke took them into her care. They were there for a week, as Count Moltke carefully broached with the German foreign ministry the question of getting them across the border into Denmark. Their identities were disclosed - a delicate decision given that Miss Neame was British and properly faced internment.

Happily, the Kaiser was told about the situation. He not only kindly allowed us to go on, but we had a reserved first-class carriage, said Miss Neame. Orders were sent ahead that on the frontier we were to be passed and neither we nor our luggage were to be searched. " They left Berlin in style. Arriving in Copenhagen they were met at the station by a court official, taken to the palace and invited to stay with the king and queen. You and the boy must settle down and be happy with us, King Christian told Miss Neame. 1 admire you for undertaking such a dangerous journey.

Danish help did not stop there. In Petrograd the embassy also took steps to secure the house at Gatchina from the attentions of the mob. The embassy rented part of 24 Nikolaevskaya Street and every day, to keep up the pretence, two Danish officials would arrive there to make it appear that they were actually in residence. To add further protection, a Danish flag fluttered above the house.

Once in the Korolev Rooms Michaels position began to look tolerable. The latest orders to Perm from Petrograd, signed by both Uritsky and Bonch-Bruevich, were that Michael Romanov and Johnson are entitled to live in freedom under the surveillance of the local Soviet authorities. The surveillance amounted only to a requirement that Michael report every day to the militia headquarters next to the hotel; otherwise he was at liberty. He tagged himself as the Prisoner of Perm on a photograph of him and Johnson, taken in a muddy street just after his release from prison. He had grown a beard which he vowed not to remove until he was freed, but he was more cheerful than he had been for weeks. Michaels obvious popularity, among the townspeople at large did not endear him to the more fervent members of the Perm Soviet, but for the moment they did no more than grumble about it.

There would always be some people who avoided Michael for fear of offending the Soviet, and on one occasion, when Michael went to a bootmakers, the door was shut in our faces. One refugee from nearby Ekaterinburg who also booked into the Korolev Rooms remembered that at first I was afraid of staying there because the presence of Michael would attract the attention of the Soviet authorities but he quickly discovered that Michael was at complete liberty and walked around the town without anyone following him. Even the Soviet commissar who ran the hotel as if he owned it was careful to treat Michael quite correctly.

Sometimes in a shabby raincoat, tweed cap and boots, and on fine days in a grey suit, soft hat and carrying a stick, Michael became a familiar figure as he strolled around the town. Princess Putyatina in Petrograd would hear that people meeting him in the street treated him with great respect and that they brought him all sorts of delicacies. Robert Wilton, who was in Perm some months later, would report that his rooms were always full of provisions. Wilton also learned that Michael, when out walking, found himself running the gauntlet of popular ovations.

Michael, reviewing his position in those first days of relative freedom, could afford a degree of optimism. Apart from Johnson he had his valet Chelyshev and his chauffeur Borunov with him — though ex-chauffeur was possibly a more apt description since the last of Michaels cars had been seized at Gatchina - and despite the loss of his income, he still had enough cash to meet his immediate needs.

With Natasha pressing for a permit to join him, Michaels main problem in the last two weeks of April was of finding an apartment where they could live out their exile. It proved more difficult than he expected, and indeed he cabled her to say that it is not practical to rent a flat. We can live in our hotel. Waiting impatiently.

The waiting was to last three weeks, for it was not until the beginning of May that Natasha received her travel permit. With Good Friday falling on May io, Michael was particularly delighted that Natasha would be in Perm by then: My darling, beloved, and very dearest Natasha, thank God that we, nevertheless, are able to celebrate Easter together, if not at home. Shall we hope that we will return to our beloved Gatchina very soon. Wishing you all that you wish yourself most, and kissing you three times and very tenderly embracing you. Misha.

With Tata being looked after at home by Princess Vyazemskaya, Natasha arrived with her friend Maggie Abakanovich and Prince Putyatin after a two-day journey aboard the Siberian express. There was never greater joy than at the moment when Michael saw Natasha stepping down on to the platform at Perm. Everything else was forgotten as they fell into each others arms, and only the present mattered.

Natasha intended to stay in Perm indefinitely and accordingly she and Michael started to look for a home. It was not easy. However, shortly after Michaels arrest, Colonel Peter Znamerovsky — former commandant of the Gatchina railway gendarmerie — had also been exiled to Perm; his wife had joined him, and they were living together in an apartment at 8 Kungurskaya Street. Natasha was encouraged by that example.

On Michaels and Natashas first weekend together in Perm they looked at an apartment and a nice house on Siberia Street. On Saturday evening they went to the Perm ioo-seat opera house where the French actress Beauregard was playing in Dream of Love. Michaels party included two of Perms best-known society figures, Sergei and Olga Tupitsin, neither of whom had any love for the Bolsheviks; afterwards Beauregard joined them in their crimson-and-gold box, with the ever-elegant Natasha holding court, as obhvious to the sullen stares of the new Bolshevik aristocracy as previously she had been to the disapproving eyes of imperial society.

Michael and Natasha returned to the theatre twice in the following week, to a piano recital, and to a concert given by a group of artists from the Maryinski in Petrograd. The bottom left-side box became Michaels regular place at the theatre. On other evenings they gave small dinner parties, for the Tupitsins and the Znamerovskys, and during the day they went for walks along the river bank, or strolled into the marketplace on the Mon-astyrskaya and to the shops still open for business.

Michaels diary for the period was so full of ordinary events that it might have been written at Gatchina in happier times. Theirs was a simple enough routine, remarkable in the circumstances, and it might have gone on like that had not the Bolsheviks suddenly found themselves threatened by an unexpected new enemy: a large armed force of Czechs who had taken control of Chelyabinsk, a town 390 miles to the south.

Chelyabinsk was the junction for the Trans-Siberian railway from Moscow to Vladivostok; the Czechs were former prisoners of war who had opted to change sides and fight their old masters, the Austro-Hungarians. Under the terms of the peace treaty between Russia and Germany they had been released from their camps and were travelling to Vladivostok, with the intention that they would then be shipped out to join the Allied armies. Under the same treaty, Austrian prisoners of war were being transferred westwards to rejoin their army. At Chelyabinsk, when a Czech and an Austrian train met at the station, an Austrian ex-prisoner threw a slab of concrete at the jeering Czechs, injuring one of them. The Czechs lynched the offender, and when the local Bolsheviks intervened the Czechs took over the town. Shortly, the entire Czech Legion, strung out along the railway line to Vladivostok, would turn and decide to fight the Bolsheviks, adding a new and dangerous dimension to the civil war being waged elsewhere in Russia.

The news alarmed Perm, located as it was within a days journey from Chelyabinsk and an armed force whose future moves were unpredictable. Michael, warned by Colonel Znamerovsky that the nervous local Bolsheviks might react harshly, decided that it would be best ifNatasha left and returned to Petrograd immediately. Natasha would leave on the first available train, expected in Perm on Saturday morning, May 18. No one knew when there would be another.

On their last full day together, Friday May 17, they took an afternoon walk, and then had a quiet dinner in the hotel, after which Natasha spent the rest of the evening packing. It is very sad to be left alone again, Michael wrote in his diary that night.

Next morning, miserable at parting, they left the hotel at 9.30 and took a cab to the station. We waited a long time for the train on the platform there because the Siberian Express was late by approximately 36 hours . . . Natasha found a seat in a small compartment of the international carriage, sharing with another lady. The train left at 12.10.* As he had done on their first parting nine years earlier at the railway station in Copenhagen, he stood and watched the train pull away, until it was out of sight. Then he took a cab back to the hotel and that night he wrote in his diary that it has become so sad and so empty now that Natasha has gone, everything seems different and even the rooms have changed. . .

In Perm Natasha had made it clear that she would go to Moscow and once again confront Lenin, demanding Michaels release and, she hoped, secure permission for him to leave the country.

After his move to Moscow on March io, Lenin made the Kremlin the seat of his government, choosing for himself one of the buildings of the old Court of Chancellery, opposite the Arsenal, taking a five-roomed apartment on the second floor, with offices on the same floor.

The Kremlin bells now played the Internationale instead of*God Save the Tsar and the double-headed Romanov eagles mounted on the gates had been stripped of their crowns, but otherwise it was the same Kremlin Natasha knew well from her childhood. She stayed at her parents apartment at 6 Vozdvizhenka, only a few hundred yards from the Troitsky Gate and the Kremlin beyond.

With guards at the Troitsky Gate and on every building within the Kremlin, entry without authority or permit was near impossible. Near impossible was not a term which Natasha recognised, however, and somehow she talked her way in and — as she had done in Petrograd - yet again into Lenins office.

Finding Natasha at his desk once more was not the most welcome sight for Lenin, though as before she changed nothing. Yet Natasha did not take No for an answer, going on to badger other members of the Bolshevik regime as she had done earlier. Among them was Trotsky — who had been ill-tempered and answered rudely when tackled by Natasha in Petrograd; another was Yacob Sverdlov, styled the Red Tsar. She imagined that personal intercession with the Red chieftains would move them to let him go, the Times man Wilton would comment. Of course, it was an illusion excusable only in a distracted wife.

At ii a.m. on Tuesday, May 21, at almost the same time that Natasha arrived in Moscow, Michael andJohnson appeared by order at 33 Petropavlovskaya-Okhanskaya, the Perm offices of the sinister Cheka. Until then they had reported only to the local militia. However, in view of the growing Czech threat, the Perm Soviet decided that it could no longer be responsible for Michaels safety; responsibility was transferred to the provincial Cheka.

The change seems to have coincided with a resolution by the workers in nearby Motovilikha that if the Perm Soviet did not arrest Michael, they would settle with him themselves. The Bolsheviks at Motovilikha, some two and a half miles away, were largely employed in the huge government munitions factory, and were noticeably more militant than those in Perm. In his diary afterwards, Michael wrote that at the Cheka offices 1 was given a piece of paper ordering me to go there every day at 11 oclock (good people, tell me what this means) .

The switch to the Cheka seemed at first merely an irritation. They took a more officious approach, demanding that he appeared promptly at a fixed time, instead of at his convenience as had been the case at the militia. Telegrams from Natasha in Moscow were now delivered to the Cheka, and read there before being handed to him. It was an unpleasant reminder of his real position.

Nevertheless, Michael continued to go about the town without restriction. He listened to a string orchestra in the City Garden, saw a dreadful farce at the opera house, spent an evening at the Triumph Cinema, visited a waxworks exhibition and went in search of walking boots, buying a pair of simple soldiers lace-up boots. At one of the shops in Siberia Street the manager asked him why it was, in view of his comparative freedom, that he did not escape. Michael only laughed. Where would someone as tall as I am go. They would find me immediately.

The Cheka was not quite so sure. Perm was now more crowded, as thousands of people trying to make their way eastwards found themselves stranded there, with the railway line to Chelyabinsk cut. Among these unexpected newcomers were two Americans, who called on Michael after dinner on Saturday, May 25. Mr OBnen and Mr Hess were the kind of people the Cheka looked upon warily, as possible messengers for plotters intent on rescuing Michael; at the very least they were a reminder that Michael could meet anyone coming from anywhere, including members of monarchist organisations bent on saving him.

Colonel Znamerovsky certainly had plans for escape, and given the worsening position in Perm, it would be odd if he had not; he feared that the Motovilikha workmen might be goaded into violence. Curious messages also arrived at the Korolev Rooms, of which two survive, though their meaning is not known. The mignonette is not aflower ofbrilliant beauty, but itsfragrance is divine", says one, and Turkeys are yours is another.

A week after Michaels first visit to the Cheka the town of Perm was declared to be in a state of war. Next day he noted in his diary that it is difficult to work out what is going on, but something major is brewing. On Monday, June 3 he wrote to Natasha, telling her what he knew about the situation. My dearest sweetheart, my own darling Natasha . . . It is now 16 days since you went away. I cant describe how I feel - depressed and desperate from all the surroundings here, from this dreadful town, where I am in absolute uncertainty and living an aimless life. Why do I write all this when you know it so well yourself!

He went on to tell her of his efforts to find an apartment, for he was finding the Korolev Rooms increasingly expensive, and a drain on his reserves of cash. The price for the rooms is going up all the time and the cook serves us with enormous bills, he wrote. He had his eye on an apartment with a nice view from the balcony over the river." The apartment at 212 Ekaterinskaya Street was owned by the Tupitsins, and it would be free in the middle of the month.

The military situation made it impossible to know when they might meet again. It seems to me that everything is again delayed and we will not be able to see each other for another two months, which would be dreadful, but I will hope that you would be able to come here sooner, provided that there isnt any military coup.

He ended by writing: My dear soul, Natashechka, I will hope that God will allow us to be together again or that we would be able to return home soon! I embrace you and kiss you very tenderly. God bless you I am all yours. Your Boy.

Then he added a postscript, jokily headlining it as The Recent Political Review, and signing off as Correspondent-on-Tour.

workers are receiving military training, drill and similar body exercises . . . The town is full of rumours and disturbed by news that in the east - not very far away, in Katias Burg* there are activities of either Czecho-slovaks or Slovako-czechs\ it is rumoured that they have besieged Katia from three sides and even taken Chelyabinsk, thus cutting offsiberia. What their further plans are, nobody knows, but our town is now declared under military law. . .

Shortly after sending this letter Michael suffered a bout of his infamous stomach pains, the first for some time. Next day he went as usual to report to the Cheka and had a bit of a run in with one of the "comrades" there, who was very rude to me. The comrade was Gavriil Myasnikov, the former chairman of the nearby Motovilikha Soviet, who had been appointed just ten days earlier to the Perm Cheka, taking over the department dealing with counter-revolutionaries."

On Myasnikovs arrival the local Cheka changed from being officious to being menacing. Before the February revolution in 1917 Myasnikov had spent four years in a labour camp for terrorist acts. Aged nineteen when first arrested and imprisoned for crimes and violence, for the next five years his life had been an unending series of escapes, periods in hiding, and prison, until in 1913 he went to a labour camp. Myasnikov, now twenty-nine, hated what Michael represented and bitterly resented the freedom he was allowed in Perm.

Among the workers at Motovilikha there had been fierce criticism of the relatively benign treatment afforded Michael in Perm. The people of Perm did not realise that their attentions to the exile might arouse suspicion among his Red enemies, Wilton would comment. Znamerovsky warned that the Reds at the suburban Motovilikha arsenal were beginning to grow restive and openly agitating against the liberty allowed to the exiles.

At Easter the sight of Michael and Natasha going to Perms SS Peter and Paul Cathedral had been one trumpeted cause for Bolshevik fury. The blatantly monarchist ceremonies of the bourgeoisie and the new Tsar-Saviours almost daily processions to the cathedral along roads covered with carpets and fresh flowers angered the working class, claimed Cheka agent A. A. Shamarin. Bolshevik agitators at Motovilikha loved spouting this sort of story, and Myasnikov thought it incredible that nothing had been done to curb popular support for His Imperial Majesty, as he sneeringly called Michael.

A fellow Bolshevik, the secretary of the Perm Party Committee, thought Myasnikov to be a bloodthirsty and embittered man, and not altogether

* Ekaterinburg where Nicholas and Alexandra were now imprisoned. Michael carefully followed news of his brother and family, at one point cabling the moderate Bolshevik commissar Anatoli Lunacharsky in the hope ofimproving the conditions in which they were being held.

sane .. . Local Bolsheviks were also frightened of him, believing him capable of utter ruthlessness. Myasnikov suspected that some members of the Perm Soviet might try to protect Michael, and also that there is an organisation of officers attempting to liberate him.

There appears to have been some effort by the moderates to remove Myasnikov from the local Cheka, for a week after his appointment it was proposed that he be promoted to the Ural Regional Cheka. Myasnikov refused to go and the appointment went instead to E N. Lukoyanov, the local Cheka chairman, whose removal from Perm left Myasnikov in an even more powerful position. Lukoyanov was no saint; Myasnikov was a cold-blooded killer.

An unknowing Michael went on as before. After his first run in at what he called the Committee of Charms he shrugged off the row and went off on the Kama in a motor boat. In the afternoon he had wonderful coffee and cake with the landlady at the Korolev Rooms, and in the evening he walked to the City Garden to listen to the string orchestra.

Over the next three days he would spend much of his time in bed, suffering from stomach pains. On Saturday, June 8, I ate nothing after midday because I was in pain all the time. On Sunday he spent the whole day in bed by the window and in the evening Znamerovsky arrived and told me much of interest about rumours circulating in the city.

On Monday he was on his feet all day but felt very poorly; he also noted that he had received a telegram from Natasha in Gatchina. She arrived there last Wednesday. Next day, Tuesday, he felt much better, and the pains were not as intense and did not last long. Znamerovsky, with Michaels godson Nagorsky, came to tea; at io p.m. Nagorsky came back again to say goodbye, for as Michael wrote in his diary next morning, he is going to Petrograd today. It was Wednesday, June 12.