6/19 June 1914

Nothing happened. Nothing exciting happened. Maybe my exciting life will begin very gradually.

We did have a nice party – Aunt Olga and Anya Vyrubova came, and Dr Botkin and Gleb. All the usual people. And the usual gift from Mama and Papa: another diamond. They give me a diamond or a pearl on every birthday and name day, so that when I am sixteen I shall have a beautiful necklace with thirty-two beautiful gems, just like my sisters’.

As a special treat, Aunt Olga and I went for a walk with our easels and my new watercolours and sat under a tree and painted. When we came back to the palace for tea, there were special tiny cakes that Grandmother’s pastry chef made especially for me and sent along with Aunt Olga. Anya ate so many, I thought she would explode. But she did not. She resembles a little sofa, soft and puffy, all dressed up in a flowered slipcover and toddling along on pudgy feet.

Tatiana says I am not a good one to talk, because I’m getting fatter, too. She actually said such a mean thing on my birthday.