Chapter 549: The Last Toast
Tsar’s Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 1931. Elsa sat by the window, painting the landscape below. And her children playing in its grass. Life had been extremely peaceful and pleasant since her marriage and move to the Russian Empire.
Alexei was being groomed to become his father’s successor. A failure Nicholas did not intend to replicate from his own upbringing. And the Tsar had even asked Bruno for a list of material that he would recommend.
Bruno having compiled a large curriculum on necessary readings to rule a nation, and run a war campaign, all of which was more philosophical and instructive than actually doctrinal based, had sent the list he used as the material for the education of his own children.
As well as the way he handled discussions with them, teaching them how to think, not what to think. Sure Alexei was now an adult, and had begun learning the basis for rulership many years ago.
But his father was getting older, much like Wilhelm in Germany, and extending his preparations to become a more suitable future monarch was a necessary step towards the continued prosperity of the Russian Empire and its people.
As for Elsa, she didn’t play politics, at least not to the extent her elder sister Eva did in Berlin. She was more like her mother in that regard. The peace that her husband needed when he came home from war, and councils regarding national policy.
In her free time, she continued painting masterpieces that would make the likes of Monet and Van Gaugh cry with envy. Today, however, an unexpected visitor arrived. Or I guess you could say, a host of them.
While her children were out playing in the yard, and she was in the midst of completing her latest project. A familiar voice erupted from behind her.
"Well, well, well, if it isn’t my dear little sister Elsa. Long time no see...."
Elsa looked over and saw Eva standing smugly in the doorway, prompting the woman to immediately put her paints aside and walk over to her older sister, staring her in the eyes with an ice cold façade.
"Princess Eva, I was not expecting your encounter? I thought at this hour you would still be nursing your sickness from last night’s festivities."
Eva glared at her sister sternly, and then the two broke out laughing as they hugged one another.