19 December 1916/1 January 1917

Father Grigory is dead. His body was found under the ice of the Neva River in Petrograd. Papa has come home from Stavka, and Mama is nearly hysterical with grief. I know her greatest fear: now there is no one who can help Alexei with his illness. The assassin is Prince Felix Yussupov, who is married to Papa’s niece, Princess Irina, the sister of all those horrid boy cousins. The prince is so handsome, I can hardly believe that he could have done such a horrible thing, even though he claims he killed Rasputin for the good of Russia. He was helped by one of Papa’s favourite cousins, Dmitri Pavlovitch. And there were others, too. Papa intends to banish them from Petrograd forever.

I feel sorry for every bad thing I ever said or even thought about Father Grigory.