As soon as it had become an accomplished fact, she was given the title of a Russian Grand Duchess and of an Imperial Highness. Her name appeared in the liturgy, and she was treated with all the honors pertaining to a future Empress. But she found herself lonely and forsaken amid her newly acquired grandeur. The Dowager Empress was too entirely taken up by her grief to pay any attention to the haughty girl, who, already during those first few days of her new life, showed herself resentful when she thought that she was not awarded sufficient importance. The young Czar was so absorbed by the many duties and obligations which fell upon his shoulders that he had no time to remain with her as long as she would have wished, perhaps, and his family simply ignored her. Her days were spent in attending the many funeral services which, according to etiquette, took place twice, and sometimes thrice, daily beside the bier of the deceased Monarch. She found herself placed not only in an awkward, but also in an absurd, position, and if she did not realize other things, she understood this one but too well.
When the body of Alexander III. was brought back to St. Petersburg, the Princess Alix accompanied it, together with the other members of the Imperial Family, and one could see her, deeply veiled, during the funeral ceremonies which took place at the fortress, standing beside the Dowager Empress, silent and attentive to all that was going on around her, and making mental notes as to everything that was taking place. She began to assume a Sovereign’s attitude, and she tried to take, as if accidentally, precedence over the Grand Duchesses. One of them, the Princess Marie Pawlowna, soon perceived the game, and one afternoon as the future bride was keeping close to her prospective mother-in-law, seeming to dance attendance upon the latter, the Grand Duchess pushed her aside most unceremoniously, saying as she did so:
“Not yet, not yet, Alix; this place belongs still to me.”
Affronted, the young girl withdrew; but when she got home to the Palace belonging to her sister, where she had taken up her abode, she declared that she wished to return to Darmstadt because her position was too false in Russia.