Transcriber’s Note

Larger versions of most illustrations may be seen by right-clicking them and selecting an option to view them separately, or by double-tapping and/or stretching them.

The original book's Table of Contents only listed three "Parts", not the chapters within them. Here are Transcriber-added links to the chapters as well as the parts:

[PART I]
[INTRODUCTION]
[CHAPTER I]
[CHAPTER II]
[CHAPTER III]
[CHAPTER IV]
[CHAPTER V]
[CHAPTER VI]
[CHAPTER VII]
[CHAPTER VIII]
[CHAPTER IX]
[PART II]
[CHAPTER I]
[CHAPTER II]
[CHAPTER III]
[CHAPTER IV]
[CHAPTER V]
[PART III]
[CONCLUSION]

RASPUTIN AND THE
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Photo by Paul Thompson

Gregory Rasputin
“The Black Monk of Russia”

RASPUTIN
AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

BY

PRINCESS CATHERINE RADZIWILL
(COUNT PAUL VASSILI)

AUTHOR OF
“BEHIND THE VEIL AT THE RUSSIAN COURT,”
“GERMANY UNDER THREE EMPERORS,”
ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
MCMXVIII

Copyright, 1917,
By Public Ledger Company
Copyright, 1918,
By John Lane Company

Press of
J.J. Little & Ives Company
New York, U. S. A.

TO
MONSIEUR JEAN FINOT
Editor of the “Revue”

My dear Mr. Finot:—

Allow me to offer you this little book, which may remind you of the many conversations we have had together, and of the many letters which we have exchanged. In doing so, I am fulfilling one of the pleasantest of duties and trying to express to you all the gratitude which I feel towards you. Without your kind help, and without your advice, I would never have had the courage to take a pen in my hand, and all the small success I may have had in my literary career is entirely due to you, and to the constant encouragement which you have always given to me, and which I shall never forget, just as I shall always remember that it was in the “Revue” that the first article I ever published appeared. Permit me to-day to thank you from the bottom of my heart, and believe me to be,

Always yours most affectionately,
Catherine Radziwill
(Catherine Kolb-Danvin)

PUBLISHERS FOREWORD

When the book called “Behind the Veil at the Russian Court” was published the Romanoff’s were reigning and, considering the fact that she was living in Russia at the time, the author of it, had her identity become known, would have risked being subjected to grave annoyances, and even being sent to that distant Siberia where Nicholas II is at present exiled. It was therefore deemed advisable to produce that work as a posthumous one, and “Count Paul Vassili” was represented as having died before the publication of “his” Memoirs. This however was not the case, because on the contrary “he” went on collecting information as to all that was taking place at the Russian Court as well as in the whole of Russia, and, consigning this information to a diary, “he” went on writing. If one remembers, “Count Vassili” distinctly foresaw and prophesied in “his” book most of the things that have occurred since it was published. This fact will perhaps give added interest to the present account of the Russian Revolution which now sees the light of day for the first time. Though devoid of everything sensational or scandalous it will prove interesting to those who have cared for the other books of “Count Vassili,” for it contains nothing but the truth, and has been compiled chiefly out of the narrations of the principal personages connected in some way or other with the Russian Revolution. The facts concerning Rasputin, and the details of this man’s extraordinary career, are, we believe, given out now for the first time to the American public, which, up to the present moment, has been fed on more or less untrue and improbable stories or, rather, “fairy tales,” in regard to this famous adventurer. The truth is far simpler, but far more human, though humanity does not shine in the best colours in its description.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

PART I
RASPUTIN

INTRODUCTION

This exposé, based on facts which have come to my knowledge, though probably far from being complete, aims at depicting the recent state of things in Russia, and thus to explain how the great changes which have taken place in my country have been rendered possible. A lot of exaggerated tales have been put into circulation concerning the Empress Alexandra, the part she has played in the perturbations that have shaken Russia from one end to another and the extraordinary influence which, thanks to her and to her efforts in his behalf, the sinister personage called Rasputin came to acquire over public affairs in the vast empire reigned over by Nicholas II. for twenty-two years. A good many of these tales repose on nothing but imagination, but nevertheless it is unfortunately too true that it is to the conduct of the Empress, and to the part she attempted to play in the politics of the world, that the Romanoffs owe the loss of their throne.

Alexandra Feodorovna has been the evil genius of the dynasty whose head she married. Without her it is probable that most of the disasters that have overtaken the Russian armies would not have happened, and it is certain that the crown which had been worn by Peter the Great and by Catherine II. would not have been disgraced. She was totally unfit for the position to which chance had raised her, and she never was able to understand the character or the needs of the people over which she ruled.

Monstrously selfish, she never looked beyond matters purely personal to her or to her son, whom she idolized in an absurd manner. She, who had been reared in principles of true liberalism, who had had in her grandmother, the late Queen Victoria, a perfect example of a constitutional sovereign, became from the very first day of her arrival in Russia the enemy of every progress, of every attempt to civilise the nation which owned her for its Empress. She gave her confidence to the most ferocious reactionaries the country possessed. She tried, and in a certain degree succeeded, in inspiring in her husband the disdain of his people and the determination to uphold an autocratic system of government that ought to have been overturned and replaced by an enlightened one. Haughty by nature and by temperament, she had an unlimited confidence in her own abilities, and especially after she had become the mother of the son she had longed for during so many years, she came to believe that everything she wished or wanted to do had to be done and that her subjects were but her slaves. She had a strong will and much imperiousness in her character, and understood admirably the weak points in her husband, who became but a puppet in her hands.

* * * * *

She herself was but a plaything in the game of a few unscrupulous adventurers who used her for the furtherance of their own ambitious, money-grubbing schemes, and who, but for the unexpected events that led to the overthrow of the house of Romanoff, would in time have betrayed Russia into sullying her fair fame as well as her reputation in history.

* * * * *

Rasputin, about whom so much has been said, was but an incident in the course of a whole series of facts, all of them more or less disgraceful, and none of which had a single extenuating circumstance to put forward as an excuse for their perpetration.

* * * * *

He himself was far from being the remarkable individual he has been represented by some people, and had he been left alone it is likely that even if one had heard about him it would not have been for any length of time.

* * * * *

Those who hated him did so chiefly because they had not been able to obtain from him what they had wanted, and they applied themselves to paint him as much more dangerous than he really was. They did not know that he was but the mouthpiece of other people far cleverer and far more unscrupulous even than himself, who hid themselves behind him and who moved him as they would have done pawns in a game of chess according to their personal aims and wants. These people it was who nearly brought Russia to the verge of absolute ruin, and they would never have been able to rise to the power which they wielded had not the Empress lent herself to their schemes. Her absolute belief in the merits of the wandering preacher, thanks to his undoubted magnetic influence, contrived to get hold of her mind and to persuade her that so long as he was at her side nothing evil could befall her or her family.

It is not generally known outside of Russia that Alexandra Feodorovna despised her husband, and that she made no secret of the fact. She considered him as a weak individual, unable to give himself an account of what was going on around him, who had to be guided and never left to himself. Her flatterers, of whom she had many at a time, had persuaded her that she possessed all the genius and most of the qualities of Catherine II., and that she ought to follow the example of the latter by rallying around her a sufficient number of friends to effect a palace revolution which would transform her into the reigning sovereign of that Russia which she did not know and whose character she was unable to understand. Love for Nicholas II. she had never had, nor esteem for him, and from the very first moment of her marriage she had affected to treat him as a negligible quantity. But influence over him she had taken good care to acquire. She had jealously kept away from him all the people from whom he could have heard the truth or who could have signalled to him the dangers which his dynasty was running by the furtherance of a policy which had become loathsome to the country and on account of which the war with Germany had taken such an unexpected and dangerous course.

The Empress, like all stupid people, and her stupidity has not been denied, even by her best friends, believed that one could rule a nation by terror. She, therefore, always interposed herself whenever Nicholas II. was induced to adopt a more liberal system of government and urged him to subdue by force aspirations it would have been far better for him to have encouraged. She had listened to all the representatives of that detestable old bureaucratic system which gave to the police the sole right to dispose of people’s lives and which relied on Siberia and the knout to keep in order an aggrieved country eager to be admitted to the circle of civilised European nations.

Without her and without her absurd fears, it is likely that the first Duma would not have been dissolved. Without her entreaties, it is probable that the troops composing the garrison at St. Petersburg would not have been commanded to fire at the peaceful population of the capital on that January day when, headed by the priest Gapone, it had repaired to the Winter Palace to lay its wrongs before the Czar, whom it still worshipped at that time. She was at the bottom of every tyrannical action which took place during the reign of Nicholas II. And lately she was the moving spirit in the campaign, engineered by the friends of Rasputin, to conclude a separate peace with Germany.

In the long intrigue which came to an end by the publication of the Manifesto of Pskov, Rasputin undoubtedly played a considerable part, but all unconsciously. Those who used him, together with his influence, were very careful not to initiate him into their different schemes. But they paid him, they fed him, they gave him champagne to drink and pretty women to make love to in order to induce him to represent them to the Empress as being the only men capable of saving Russia, about which she did not care, and her crown, to which she was so attached. With Rasputin she never discussed politics, nor did the Emperor. But with his friends she talked over every political subject of importance to the welfare of the nation, and being convinced that they were the men best capable of upholding her interests, she forced them upon her husband and compelled him to follow the advice which they gave. She could not bear contradiction, and she loved flattery. She was convinced that no one was more clever than herself, and she wished to impose her views everywhere and upon every occasion.

Few sovereigns have been hated as she has been. In every class of society her name was mentioned with execration, and following the introduction of Rasputin into her household this aversion which she inspired grew to a phenomenal extent. She was openly accused of degrading the position which she held and the crown which she wore. In every town and village of the empire her conduct came to be discussed and her person to be cursed. She was held responsible for all the mistakes that were made, for all the blunders which were committed, for all the omissions which had been deplored. And when the plot against Rasputin came to be engineered it was as much directed against the person of Alexandra Feodorovna as against that of her favourite, and it was she whom the people aimed to strike through him.

Had she shown some common sense after the murder of a man whom she well knew was considered the most dangerous enemy of the Romanoff dynasty things might have taken a different course. Though every one was agreed as to the necessity of a change in the system of government of Russia, though a revolution was considered inevitable, yet no one wished it to happen at the moment when it did, and all political parties were agreed as to the necessity of postponing it until after the war. But the exasperation of the Empress against those who had removed her favourite led her to trust even more in those whom he had introduced and recommended to her attention. She threw herself with a renewed vigour into their schemes, urging her husband to dishonour himself, together with his signature, by turning traitor to his allies and to his promises. She wanted him to conclude a peace with Germany that would have allowed her a free hand in her desires to punish all the people who had conspired against her and against the man upon whom she had looked as a saviour and a saint. Once this fact was recognised the revolution became inevitable. It is to the credit of Russia that it took place with the dignity that has marked its development and success.

This, in broad lines, is the summary of the causes that have brought about the fall of the Romanoff dynasty, and they must never be lost sight of when one is trying to describe it. It is, however, far too early to judge the Russian revolution in its effects because, for one thing, it is far from being at an end, and may yet take quite an unexpected turn. For another, the events connected with it are still too fresh to be considered from an objective point of view. I have, therefore, refrained from expressing an opinion in this narrative. My aim has been to present to my readers a description of the personality of Rasputin, together with the part, such as I know it, that he has played in the development of Russian history during the last five years or so, and afterward to describe the course of the revolution and the reasons that have led to its explosion in such an unexpected manner.

CHAPTER I

We live in strange times, when strange things happen which at first sight seem unintelligible and the reason for which we fail to grasp. Even in Russia, where Rasputin had become the most talked-of person in the whole empire, few people fully realised what he was and what had been the part which he had played in Russia’s modern history. Yet during the last ten years his name had become a familiar one in the palaces of the great nobles whose names were written down in the Golden Book of the aristocracy of the country, as well as in the huts of the poorest peasants in the land. At a time when incredulity was attacking the heart and the intelligence of the Russian nation the appearance of this vagrant preacher and adept of one of the most persecuted sects in the empire was almost as great an event as was that of Cagliostro during the years which preceded the fall of the old French monarchy.

There was, however, a great difference between the two personages. One was a courtier and a refined man of the world, while the other was only an uncouth peasant, with a crude cunning which made him discover soon in what direction his bread could be buttered and what advantages he might reap out of the extraordinary positions to which events, together with the ambitions of a few, had carried him. He was a perfect impersonation of the kind of individual known in the annals of Russian history as “Wremienschtchik,” literally “the Man of the Day,” an appellation which since the times of Peter the Great had clung to all the different favourites of Russian sovereigns. There was one difference, however, and this a most essential one. He had never been the favourite of the present Czar, who perhaps did not feel as sorry as might have been expected by his sudden disappearance from the scene of the world.

I shall say a thing which perhaps will surprise my readers. Personally, Rasputin was never the omnipotent man he was believed to be, and more than once most of the things which were attributed to him were not at all his own work. But he liked the public to think that he had a finger in every pie that was being baked. And he contrived to imbue Russian society at large with such a profound conviction that he could do absolutely everything he chose in regard to the placing or displacing of people in high places, obtaining money grants and government contracts for his various “protégés,” that very often the persons upon whom certain things depended hastened to grant them to those who asked in the name of Rasputin, out of sheer fright of finding this terrible being in their way. They feared to refuse compliance with any request preferred to them either by himself or by one who could recommend himself on the strength of his good offices on their behalf. But Rasputin was the tool of a man far more clever than himself, Count Witte. It was partly due to the latter’s influence and directions that he tried to mix himself up in affairs of state and to give advice to people whom he thought to be in need of it. He was an illiterate brute, but he had all the instincts of a domineering mind which circumstances and the station of life in which he had been born had prevented from developing. He had also something else—an undoubted magnetic force, which allowed him to add auto-suggestion to all his words and which made even unbelieving people succumb sometimes to the hypnotic practices which he most undoubtedly exercised to a considerable extent during the last years of his adventurous existence.

Amidst the discontent which, it would be idle to deny, had existed in the Russian empire during the period which immediately preceded the great war the personality of Rasputin had played a great part in giving to certain people the opportunity to exploit his almost constant presence at the side of the sovereign as a means to foment public opinion against the Emperor and to throw discredit upon him by representing him as being entirely under the influence of the cunning peasant who, by a strange freak of destiny, had suddenly become far more powerful than the strongest ministers themselves. The press belonging to the opposition parties had got into the habit of attacking him and calling his attendance on the imperial court an open scandal, which ought in the interest of the dynasty to be put an end to by every means available.

In the Duma his name had been mentioned more than once, and always with contempt. Every kind of reproach had been hurled at him, and others had not been spared. He had become at last a fantastic kind of creature, more exploited than exploiting, more destroyable than destructive, one whose real “rôle” will never be known to its full extent, who might in other countries than Russia and at another time have become the founder of some religious order or secret association. His actions when examined in detail do not differ very much from those of the fanatics which in Paris under the reign of Louis XV. were called the “Convulsionnaires,” and who gave way to all kind of excesses under the pretext that these were acceptable to God by reason of the personality of the people who inspired them. In civilised, intelligent, well-educated Europe such an apparition would have been impossible, but in Russia, that land of mysteries and of deep faiths, where there still exist religious sects given to all kinds of excesses and to attacks of pious madness (for it can hardly be called by any other name), he acquired within a relatively short time the affections of a whole lot of people. They were inclined to see in him a prophet whose prayers were capable of winning for them the Divine Paradise for which their hungry souls were longing. There was nothing at all phenomenal about it. It was even in a certain sense quite a natural manifestation of this large Russian nature, which is capable of so many good or bad excesses and which has deeply incrusted at the bottom of its heart a tendency to seek the supernatural in default of the religious convictions which, thanks to circumstances, it has come to lose.

The American public is perhaps not generally aware of the character of certain religious sects in Russia, which is considered to be a country of orthodoxy, with the Czar at its head, and where people think there is no room left for any other religion than the official one to develop itself. In reality, things are very different, and to this day, outside of the recognised nonconformists, who have their own bishops and priests, and whose faith is recognised and acknowledged by the State, there are any number of sects, each more superstitious and each more powerful than the other in regard to the influence which they exercise over their adherents. These, though not numerous by any means, yet are actuated by such fanaticism that they are apt at certain moments to become subjects of considerable embarrassment to the authorities. Some are inspired by the conviction that the only means to escape from the clutches of the devil consists in suicide or in the murder of other people.

For instance, the Baby Killers, or Dietooubitsy, as they are called, think it a duty to send to Heaven the souls of new-born infants, which they destroy as soon as they see the light of day, thinking thus to render themselves agreeable to the Almighty by snatching children away from the power of the evil one. Another sect, which goes by the name of Stranglers, fully believes that the doors of Heaven are only opened before those who have died a violent death, and whenever a relative or friend is dangerously ill they proceed to smother him under the weight of many pillows so as to hasten the end. The Philipovtsy preach salvation through suicide, and the voluntary death of several people in common is considered by them as a most meritorious action. Sometimes whole villages decide to unite themselves in one immense holocaust and barricade themselves in a house, which is afterward set on fire.

An incident that occurred during the reign of Alexander II. is remembered to this day in Russia. A peasant called Khodkine persuaded twenty people to retire together with him into a grotto hidden in the vast forests of the government of Perm, where he compelled them to die of hunger. Two women having contrived to escape, the fanatics, fearing that they might be denounced, killed themselves with the first weapons which fell under their hand. It was their terror that they might find themselves compelled to renounce their sinister design, and thus fall again into the clutches of that Satan for fear of whom they had made up their minds to encounter an awful death. Even as late as the end of the last century such acts of fanaticism could be met with here and there in the east and centre of Russia. In 1883, under the reign of the father of the last Czar, a peasant in the government of Riazan, called Joukoff, burnt himself to death by setting fire to his clothes, which he had previously soaked in paraffin, and expired under the most awful torments, singing hymns of praise to the Lord.

Among all these heresies there are two which have attracted more than the others the attention of the authorities, thanks to their secret rites and to their immoral tendencies. They are the Skoptsy, or Voluntary Eunuchs, about which it is useless to say anything here, and the Khlysty, or Flagellants, which to this day has a considerable number of adepts and to which Rasputin undoubtedly belonged, to which, in fact, he openly owed allegiance. This sect, which calls itself “Men of God,” has the strangest rites which human imagination can invent. According to its precepts, a human creature should try to raise its soul toward the Divinity with the help of sexual excesses of all kinds. During their assemblies they indulge in a kind of waltz around and around the room, which reminds one of nothing so much as the rounds of the Dancing Dervishes in the East. They dance and dance until their strength fails them, when they drop to the floor in a kind of trance or ecstasy, during which, being hardly accountable for their actions, they imagine that they see Christ and the Virgin Mary among them. They then threw themselves into the embrace of the supposed divinities.

As a rule the general public knows very little concerning these sects, but I shall quote here a passage out of a book on Russia by Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, which is considered to this day as a standard work in regard to its subject. “Among the ‘Khlysty,’” he writes, “there are men and women who take upon themselves the calling of teachers and prophets, and in this character they lead a strict, ascetic life, refrain from the most ordinary and innocent pleasures, exhaust themselves by long fasting and wild ecstatic religious exercises and abhor marriage. Under the excitement caused by their supposed holiness and inspiration, they call themselves not only teachers and prophets, but also Saviours, Redeemers, Christs, Mothers of God. Generally speaking, they call themselves simply gods and pray to each other as to real gods and living Christs and Madonnas. When several of these teachers come together at a meeting they dispute with each other in a vain, boasting way as to which of them possesses most grace and power. In this rivalry they sometimes give each other lusty blows on the ear, and he who bears the blows the most patiently, turning the other cheek to the smiter, acquires the reputation of having the most holiness.

“Another sect belonging to the same category and which indeed claims close kindred with it is the Jumpers, among whom the erotic element is disagreeably prominent. Here is a description of their religious meetings, which are held during summer in a forest and during winter in some outhouse or barn. After due preparation prayers are read by the chief teacher, dressed in a white robe and standing in the midst of the congregation. At first he reads in an ordinary tone of voice and then passes gradually into a merry chant. When he remarks that the chanting has sufficiently acted on the hearers he begins to jump. The hearers, singing likewise, follow his example. Their ever-increasing excitement finds expression in the highest possible jumps. This they continue as long as they can—men and women alike yelling like enraged savages. When all are thoroughly exhausted the leader declares that he hears the angels singing, and then begins a scene which cannot be here described.”

I have quoted this passage in full because it may give to the reader who is not versed in the details of Russian existence and Russian psychology the key to the circumstances that helped Rasputin to absorb for such a considerable number of years the attention of the public in Russia, and which, in fact, made him possible as a great ruling, though not governing, force in the country. In some ways he had appealed to the two great features of the human character in general and of the Russian character in particular—mysticism and influence of the senses. It is not so surprising as it might seem at first sight that he contrived to ascend to a position which no one who knew him at first ever supposed he would or could attain.

At the same time I must, in giving a brief sketch of the career of this extraordinary individual, protest against the many calumnies which have associated him with names which I will not mention here out of respect and feelings of patriotism. It is sufficiently painful to have to say so, but German calumny, which spares no one, has used its poisoned arrows also where Rasputin came to be discussed. It has tried to travesty maternal love and anxiety into something quite different, and it has attempted to sully what it could not touch. There have been many sad episodes in this whole story of Rasputin, but some of the people who have been mentioned in connection with them were completely innocent of the things for which they have been reproached. Finally, the indignation which these vile and unfounded accusations roused in the hearts of the true friends and servants of the people led to the drama which removed forever from the surface of Russian society the sectarian who unfortunately had contrived to glide into its midst.

The one extraordinary thing about Rasputin is that he was not murdered sooner. He was so entirely despised and so universally detested all over Russia that it was really a miracle that he could remain alive so long a time after it had been found impossible to remove him from the scene of the world by other than violent means. It was a recognised fact that he had had a hand in all kinds of dirty money matters and that no business of a financial character connected with military expenditure could be brought to a close without his being mixed in it. About this, however, I shall speak later on in trying to explain how the Rasputin legend spread and how it was exploited by all kinds of individuals of a shady character, who used his name for purposes of their own. The scandal connected with the shameless manner in which he became associated with innumerable transactions more or less disreputable was so enormous that unfortunately it extended to people and to names that should never have been mentioned together with him.

* * * * *

It must never be forgotten, and I cannot repeat this sufficiently, that Rasputin was a common peasant of the worst class of the Russian moujiks, devoid of every kind of education, without any manners and in his outward appearance more disgusting than anything else. It would be impossible to explain the influence which he undoubtedly contrived to acquire upon some persons belonging to the highest social circles if one did not take into account this mysticism and superstition which lie at the bottom of the Slav nature and the tendency which the Russian character has to accept as a manifestation of the power of the divinity all things that touch upon the marvellous or the unexplainable. Rasputin in a certain sense appeared on the scene of Russian social life at the very moment when his teachings could become acceptable, at the time when Russian society had been shaken to its deepest depths by the revolution which had followed upon the Japanese war and when it was looking everywhere for a safe harbour in which to find a refuge.

* * * * *

At the beginning of his career and when he was introduced into the most select circles of the Russian capital, thanks to the caprices and the fancies of two or three fanatic orthodox ladies who had imagined that they had found in him a second Savonarola and that his sermons and teachings could provoke a renewal of religious fervour, people laughed at him and at his feminine disciples, and made all kinds of jokes, good and bad, about him and them. But this kind of thing did not last long and Rasputin, who, though utterly devoid of culture, had a good deal of the cunning which is one of the distinctive features of the Russian peasant, was the first to guess all the possibilities which this sudden “engouement” of influential people for his person opened out before him and to what use it could be put for his ambition as well as his inordinate love of money. He began by exacting a considerable salary for all the prayers which he was supposed to say at the request of his worshippers, and of all the ladies, fair or unfair, who had canonised him in their enthusiasm for all the wonderful things which he was continually telling them. He was eloquent in a way and at the beginning of his extraordinary thaumaturgic existence had not yet adopted the attitude which he was to assume later on—of an idol, whom every one had to adore.

Photograph, International Film Service, Inc.

The Ex-Czar and His Family

* * * * *

He was preaching the necessity of repenting of one’s sins, making due penance for them after a particular manner, which he described as being the most agreeable to God, and praying constantly and with unusual fervour for the salvation of orthodox Russia. He contrived most cleverly to play upon the chord of patriotism which is always so developed in Russians, and to speak to them of the welfare of their beloved fatherland whenever he thought it advantageous to his personal interests to do so. He succeeded in inspiring in his adepts a faith in his own person and in his power to save their souls akin to that which is to be met with in England and in America among the sect of the Christian Scientists, and he very rapidly became a kind of Russian Mrs. Eddy. A few hysterical ladies, who were addicted to neuralgia or headaches, suddenly found themselves better after having conversed or prayed with him, and they spread his fame outside the small circle which had adopted him at the beginning of his career. One fine day a personal friend of the reigning Empress, Madame Wyroubourg, introduced him at Tsarskoie Selo, under the pretext of praying for the health of the small heir to the Russian throne, who was occasioning some anxiety to his parents. It was from that day that he became a personage.

* * * * *

His success at court was due to the superstitious dread with which he contrived to inspire the Empress in regard to her son. She was constantly trembling for him, and being very religiously inclined, with strong leanings toward mysticism, she allowed herself to be persuaded more by the people who surrounded her than by Rasputin himself. She believed that the man of whose holiness she was absolutely persuaded, could by his prayers alone obtain the protection of the Almighty for her beloved child. An accidental occurrence contributed to strengthen her in this conviction. There were persons who were of the opinion that the presence of Rasputin at Tsarskoie Selo was not advantageous for many reasons. Among them was Mr. Stolypine, then Minister of the Interior, and he it was who made such strong representations that at last Rasputin himself deemed it advisable to return to his native village of Pokrovskoie, in Siberia. A few days after his departure the little Grand Duke fell seriously ill and his mother became persuaded that this was a punishment for her having allowed the vagrant preacher to be sent away. Rasputin was recalled, and after this no one ever spoke again of his being removed anywhere. From that time all kinds of adventurers began to lay siege to him and to do their utmost to gain an introduction.

Russia was still the land where a court favourite was all-powerful, and Rasputin was held as such, especially by those who had some personal interest in representing him as the successor to Menschikoff under Peter the Great, Biren under the Empress Anne and Orloff under Catherine II. He acquired a far greater influence outside Tsarskoie Selo than he ever enjoyed in the imperial residence itself, and he made the best of it, boasting of a position which in reality he did not possess. The innumerable state functionaries, who in Russia unfortunately always have the last word to say everywhere and in everything and whose rapacity is proverbial, hastened to put themselves at the service of Rasputin and to grant him everything which he asked, in the hope that in return he would make himself useful to them.

A kind of bargaining established itself between people desirous of making a career and Rasputin, eager to enrich himself no matter by what means. He began by playing the intermediary in different financial transactions for a substantial consideration, and at last he thought himself entitled to give his attention to matters of state. This was the saddest side of his remarkable career as a pseudo-Cagliostro. He had a good deal of natural intelligence, and while being the first to laugh at fair ladies who clustered around him, he understood at once that he could make use of them. This he did not fail to do. He adopted toward them the manners of a stern master, and treated them like his humble slaves. At last he ended by leading the existence of a man of pleasure, denying himself nothing, especially his fondness for liquor of every kind. At that time there was no prohibition in Russia and, like all Russian peasants, Rasputin was very fond of vodka, to which he never missed adding a substantial quantity of champagne whenever he found the opportunity.

I shall abstain from touching upon the delicate point of the orgies to which it is related that Rasputin was in the habit of addicting himself, the more so because I do not really believe these ever took place in those higher circles of society where it was said they regularly occurred. That strange things may have happened among the common people, who in far greater numbers than it has ever been known, used to attend the religious meetings which he held, I shall not deny. It must always be remembered that Rasputin belonged to the religious sect of the Khlysty, of whose assemblies we have read the description, and it is quite likely, and even probable, that the assemblies of these sectarians at which he presided were not different from the others to which these heretics crowded. But I feel absolutely convinced that as regards the relations of the adventurer with the numerous ladies of society silly enough to believe in him and in his gifts of prophecy, these consisted only of superstitious reverence on one side and exploitation of human stupidity on the other.

I must once more insist on the point that the apparition of Rasputin in Russian society had nothing wonderful about it, and that the only strange thing is that such a fuss was made. Before his time people belonging to the highest social circles had become afflicted with religious manias of one kind or another out of that natural longing for something to believe in and to worship which lies hidden at the bottom of the character of every Russian who has the leisure, or the craving, to examine seriously the difficult and complicated problems of a future life and of the faith one ought to follow and to believe in.

In 1817 there was discovered in the very heart of St. Petersburg, holding its meetings in an imperial residence (the Michael Palace), a religious sect of most pronounced mystical tendencies, presided over by a lady belonging to the best circles of the capital—the widow of a colonel, Madame Tatarinoff. In her apartments used to gather officers, State functionaries, women and girls of good family and excellent education who, with slight variations, practised all the religious rites of the Khlystys. One of the Ministers of Alexander I., Prince Galitzyne, was suspected of having honoured these assemblies with his presence. Thanks to a letter which accidentally fell into the hands of the police, the Government became aware of what was going on, and Madame Tatarinoff, this Russian Madame Guyon, expiated in exile in a distant province of Siberia the ecstasies which she had practised and which she had allowed others to practise under her roof. Some of her disciples were prosecuted, but the greater number escaped scot free. The authorities did not care to increase the scandal which this affair had aroused in the capital.

Much later, in 1878, after the Russo-Turkish war, which, like the Japanese affair, had been followed by a strong revolutionary movement in the country that culminated in the assassination of the Czar, Alexander II., another prophet, this time of foreign origin, appeared on the social horizon of St. Petersburg society, where he made a considerable number of converts. This was the famous Lord Radstock, whose doctrines were taken up by a gentleman who up to that time had been known as one of the gayest among the gay, a colonel in the Guards—Mr. Basil Paschkoff. He was enormously rich, and put all his vast fortune at the service of the religious craze which had seized him. He used his best efforts to convert to the doctrine of salvation through faith only not alone his friends and relatives, but also the poorer classes of the population of the capital, devoting in particular his attention to the cab drivers. All these people used to meet at his house, where they mingled with persons of the highest rank and standing, such as Count Korff, and a former Minister, Count Alexis Bobrinsky. Later on the whole Tchertkoff family, to which belonged the famous friend of Count Leo Tolstoy, associated itself with them, and, indeed, displayed the greatest fanaticism in regard to its participation in the doctrines of the new sect.

The Paschkovites, as they came to be called, had nothing at all in common with the Khlystys. Their morals were absolutely unimpeachable, and what they preached was simply the necessity to conform one’s morals were absolutely unimpeachable, and what they explained and commented upon, each person according to his own light. They were Protestants in a certain sense, inasmuch as their views were distinctly Protestant ones. But they had much more in common with the nonconformists than the real followers of Luther or of Calvin. They were a kind of refined Salvation Army, if this expression can be forgiven me; though they never acquired the importance, nor did the good which the latter has done, perhaps because they could never make any practical application of the principles and of the ideas which animated them. But at one time the Paschkovist craze was just as strong as the Rasputin one became later on, and Lord Radstock and Mr. Paschkoff were considered just as much prophets among their own particular circle as was Rasputin among the fanatical ladies who had taken him up.

These crises of religious mania are regular occurrences in Russian higher social circles when unusually grave circumstances arrive to shake their equanimity. Seen from this particular point of view, the apparition of Rasputin and the importance which his personality acquired in the life of the Russian upper classes present nothing very wonderful. Before him other so-called prophets had kept the attention of the public riveted upon their doings and their actions.

What distinguished his short passage was the fact that it was made the occasion by the natural enemies of the empire, consisting of the discontented at home, and of the Germans outside the frontier, to discredit the dynasty as well as those whose life was spent in its immediate vicinity and to present this figure of the vagrant half-monk and half-layman, who preached a new relation to those foolish enough to listen to him, as being one of almost gigantic importance, who could at his will and fancy direct the course of public affairs and lead them wherever he wanted.

My object in this study will be to show Rasputin for what he really was, and in retracing the different vicissitudes of his strange career, not to give way to the many exaggerations, which, in familiarising people abroad with his person and with his name, have made out of him something quite wonderful, and almost equal in power with the Czar himself. It is time to do away with such legends and to bring Rasputin back to his proper level—a very able and cunning, half-cultured peasant, who owed his successes only to the fanaticism of the few, and to the interest which many had in dissimulating themselves behind him, in order to bring their personal wishes to a successful end. It is not Rasputin who performed most of the actions put to his credit. It was those who influenced him, who pushed him forward and who, thanks to him, became both rich and powerful. He has disappeared. I wish we could be as sure that they have disappeared along with him.

CHAPTER II

The beginning of the career of Gregory Rasputin is shrouded with a veil of deep mystery. He was a native of Siberia, of a small village in the government of Tobolsk, called Pokrovskoie. Some people relate that when quite a youth he was compromised in a crime which attracted some attention at the time—the murder of a rich merchant who was travelling from Omsk to Tobolsk to acquire from an inhabitant of the latter town some gold diggings, of which he wished to dispose. This merchant was known to carry a large sum of money, and as he never reached his destination inquiries were started. At last his body was found, with the head battered by blows, hidden in a ditch by the high road, together with that of the coachman who had driven him. The murderers were never discovered, but dark rumours concerning the participation of the youth Rasputin in the deed spread all over the village.

Whether it was the desire to put an end to them, or remorse for an action of which he knew himself to be guilty, it is difficult to say, but the fact remains that suddenly Gricha, as he was called, developed mystical tendencies and took to attending some religious meetings at which a certain wandering pilgrim used to preach. The latter used to go from place to place in Siberia predicting the end of the world and the advent of the dreaded day of Judgment when Christ would once again appear to demand from humanity an account of its various good or bad actions. For something like two years Rasputin followed him, until at last he began himself to assume the character of a lay preacher, to apply himself to the study of the Scriptures and to try to establish a sect of his own, the principles of which he exposed to his followers in these terms:

I am possessed of the Holy Spirit, and it is only through me that one can be saved. In order to do so, one must unite oneself with me in body and soul. Everything which proceeds from me is holy, and cleanses one from sin.

On the strength of this theory, Rasputin declared that he could do whatever he liked or wished. He surrounded himself with worshippers of both sexes, who believed that by a close union with him they could obtain their eternal salvation, together with divine forgiveness for any sins they might have committed during their previous existence.

Strange tales began to be related concerning the religious assemblies at which the new prophet presided. But, nevertheless, the whole village of Pokrovskoie, whither he had returned after his few years’ wanderings, accepted his teachings and submitted to his decrees with scarcely any exceptions. These unbelievers were looked upon askance by the majority of the inhabitants, who had succumbed to the “monk’s” power of fascination and hypnotism. It was with nothing else that Rasputin kept his “flock” subjugated. He introduced among them the cult of his own person, together with certain rites which he called “sacrifice with prayer.”

According to the narratives of some people, who out of curiosity had attended these ceremonies, this is how they proceeded: In the night, as soon as the first stars had become visible in the sky, Rasputin, with the help of his disciples, dragged some wood into a deep ditch dug for the purpose and lighted a huge bonfire. On a tripod placed in the midst of this fire was put a cup full of incense and different herbs, around which people began to dance, holding themselves by the hand all the while, and singing in a voice which became louder and louder as the wild exercise became more and more accelerated different hymns which always ended with the phrase: “Forgive us our sins, O Lord, forgive us our sins.”

* * * * *

The dance went on until people fell exhausted to the ground and groans and tears replaced the former singing. The fire died out slowly and, when darkness had become complete, the voice of Rasputin was heard calling upon his disciples to proceed to the sacrifice which God required them to perform. Then followed a scene of general orgy.

* * * * *

As one can see by this tale, the strange practices introduced by the seer, about whom people were already beginning to talk, differed in no way from those generally in use among the Khlysty, and, indeed, Rasputin made no secret of his allegiance to this particular form of heresy, in which, however, he had introduced a few alterations. For instance, he did not admit that the souls of his followers could be saved by a general prayer, but only thanks to one uttered in common with him, and by a complete submission to his will. Some persons have alleged that during the early wanderings of Rasputin he had gone as far as China and Thibet, and there learned some Buddhist practices, but this is hardly probable, as in that case his instruction would have been more developed than it was. It is far more likely that during his travels he had met with exiled sectarians belonging to the different persecuted religious Russian communities, of which there exist so many in the whole Oural region, and that they initiated him into some of their rites and customs. They also made him attentive to the hypnotic powers, which he most undoubtedly possessed, teaching him how to use them for his own benefit and advantage.

Very soon Rasputin found that Pokrovskoie was not a field wide enough for his energies, and he took to travelling, together with a crowd of disciples that followed him everywhere over the eastern and central Russian provinces. There he contrived to win every day new adherents to the doctrines in which free love figured so prominently. Among the towns where he obtained the most success can be mentioned those of Kazan, Saratoff, Kieff and Samara.

Concerning his doings in Kazan, people became informed through a letter which one of his victims addressed to the bishop of that diocese, Monsignor Feofane, who had shown at the beginning of Rasputin’s career a considerable interest in him and who had protected him with great success. In this letter, which later on found its way into the press, the following was said among other things:

“Your Reverence, I absolutely fail to understand how it is possible that you continue to this day to know and see Gregory Rasputin. He is Satan in person and the things which he does are worthy of those that the Antichrist alone is supposed to perform, and prove that the latter’s advent is at hand.”

The writer then proceeded to explain that Rasputin had completely subjugated the mind of her two daughters, one of whom was aged twenty, whilst the second had not yet attained her sixteenth year.

“One afternoon,” writes this unfortunate mother, “I met in the street, coming out of a bathhouse, Rasputin, together with my two girls. One must be a mother to understand the feelings which overpowered me at this sight. I could find no words to say, but remained standing motionless and silent before them. The prophet turned to me and slowly said: ‘Now you may feel at peace, the day of salvation has dawned for your daughters!’”

Another woman, who had also fallen under the spell of Rasputin, wrote as follows about him:

“I left my parents, to whom I was tenderly attached, to follow the prophet. One day when we were travelling together in a reserved first-class carriage, talking about the salvation of souls and the means to become a true child of God, he suddenly got up, approached me, and * * * proceeded to cleanse me of all my sins. Towards evening I became anxious and asked him: ‘Perhaps what we have been doing to-day was a sin, Gregory Efimitsch?’ ‘No, my daughter,’ he replied, ‘it was not a sin. Our affections are a gift from God, which we may use as freely as we like.’”

Bishop Feofane finally was obliged to recognise the evil which Rasputin was constantly doing, and he bitterly repented having been taken in by him and by his hypocrisy. He reproached himself especially for having given him a letter of recommendation to the famous Father John of Cronstadt, through whom Rasputin was to become acquainted with some of the people who were later on to pilot him in the society of St. Petersburg. The bishop was not a clever man by any means, but he had been sincere in his admiration for Rasputin, a fact which added to the consternation that overpowered him when the truth about the famous sectarian became known to him. He assembled a kind of judicial court, composed of one bishop, one monk and three well-known and highly respected civil functionaries, and called upon the prophet to come and explain himself before this court as to the actions which were imputed to him. Among these figured his general conduct in regard to the women who had enrolled themselves in the ranks of his disciples. But somehow the adventurer succeeded in dispelling the suspicions that had become attached to his name and conduct, and he explained in a more or less plausible manner the things which had been told about him. His leanings towards feminine society, and his invariable custom of bathing with women, he declared to be quite innocent things, and only a proof of his desire to show that it was quite possible for human beings to rise above every kind of carnal temptation.

In spite of this episode, which would have interfered with the career of any one but Rasputin, the fame of the latter grew with every day that passed. He established himself at last in the town of Tiumen in Siberia, where he hired the whole of a large house for himself and some of his most favoured disciples, and he began to turn his activity into another and more profitable channel. He established reception hours every day, when all his followers, admirers and friends could come to speak with him about any business they liked. Hundreds of people used to attend those receptions, among them some very influential persons curious to see and speak with the modern Peter the Hermit, who declared that he had been called by God to save Holy Russia. In some mysterious manner he acquired the reputation of having great influence in high quarters, where (this must be noticed) he was at the time still quite unknown. Governors fearing dismissal, rapacious functionaries whose exactions had become too flagrant, as well as business men in quest of some good “geschaft,” to use the German expression employed before the war among financial circles in Russia, crowded round him, waiting sometimes hours for an opportunity to speak with him, and fully believing in his capacities for obtaining what they required.

Rasputin soon became a kind of business agent and surrounded himself with a number of secretaries of both sexes, whose occupation consisted in attending to his correspondence—he could himself hardly read or write—and in receiving the numerous offerings which were being brought to him daily. These secretaries, among whom figured a sister of the Bishop of Saratoff, Warnava, made an immense amount of money themselves because no one was ever admitted into the presence of Rasputin without having previously paid dearly for this favour. Very soon they established a tax in regard to the audiences granted by their master.

Besides this sister of Bishop Warnava, Rasputin had another female secretary, and they both accompanied him in all his travels, calling themselves his spiritual sisters. They constituted, so to say, his bodyguard, and wherever he went, even in St. Petersburg, they never left off attending him and seeing to all his wants. They were the channel through which everything had to go, and without their consent no one was ever admitted into the presence of the “Saint,” as they already had begun to call him.

Gregory Rasputin very often used to visit Tobolsk, where he was always received with great ceremony and pomp, as if he had been really the important personage he believed himself. The policeman in the streets saluted him as he passed; the carriage in which he drove was escorted or preceded by a high police functionary, and the governor asked him to dinner. The same kind of thing used to take place in other Siberian cities. In one of them the staterooms reserved at the railway station for any high authority on a visit to the place were thrown open to him. In another triumphal arches were erected in his honour, while in a third he was met by deputations in the midst of which could be seen civil functionaries and religious dignitaries.

How all this happened no one knew or could explain. In what consisted the fame of Rasputin and what he had done to deserve all these honours nobody could tell. But fame he had acquired, honours he had obtained, and where another person gifted with a smaller amount of impudence than he was possessed of, would have been put into prison or sent to a madhouse, Gricha had it all his own way, and defied governors and judges with an equal indifference, sure that none among them would be daring enough to try to put a stop to his progress or to his avidity.

Most friendly, not to say intimate, relations were established between Rasputin and Bishop Warnava, especially after the latter’s elevation to the Episcopal See of Tobolsk. The first sermon which Warnava preached in that town he dedicated to the wife of Rasputin. One need not say that the whole clergy of the town and of the diocese trembled before Rasputin, who did not fail to exact from it large sums of money, which he extorted, thanks to the promises which he made but never meant in the least to keep.

During the course of the year 1909 complaints about Rasputin’s behaviour increased to a considerable extent. He was once more called before an ecclesiastical court to give explanations in regard to his general conduct. Among his judges figured again Bishop Feofane. This time Rasputin could not clear himself of the charges preferred against him, and he was invited to retire for one year into a monastery by way of penance. But Rasputin refused to submit to this sentence and categorically declined to do as he had been told. He gave as a reason for his disobedience to the commands of his ecclesiastical superiors that his conscience obliged him to resist because it would be impossible for his “spiritual sisters and daughters” to accompany him in his retreat and live together with him in the monastery they wished him to enter.

At the time this incident took place Rasputin was already living in St. Petersburg, whither he had repaired on the invitation of some of his admirers and protectors, who had the opportunity to listen to his preachings in Kieff and other Russian towns. Among them figured the Countess Sophy Ignatieff, a woman of high standing, irreproachable reputation and great influence in some circles of the capital, where her salon was considered the centre of the conservative orthodox party. Bishops and priests figured among her daily visitors, and it was among her habitués that the most important ecclesiastical appointments in the Empire were discussed. Often it was the candidates whom she honoured with her protection who were chosen for a bishop’s place or for that of a superior to one of those rich monasteries the heads of which are quite personages in the state.

The Countess was already an old woman, widow of a man who had been murdered during the revolution of 1905, and, incapable of being even suspected of any frailties of conduct. She was the mother of a large family, and though by no means brilliant, was yet clever in her way, with a slight propensity to intrigue. She was extremely devout, with a strong tendency to exaltation where religious matters came into question, and was continually lamenting what she called the relaxation of modern society in those practices of strict church discipline which Russians belonging to the higher classes have lately taken to forgetting. She would not have missed attending any of the long Church services, sometimes so tiring in the Orthodox faith, which are celebrated on Sundays and many feast days, and she strictly fasted at prescribed times. Indeed, her whole existence was, as regards its daily routine, more that of a nun than of a woman of the world. But for all that, she liked to keep herself well informed as to all that was going on around her, and politics was her especial hobby.

Among those who frequented her house were Mr. Sabler, then Procurator of the Holy Synod, together with his future successor, Mr. Loukianoff; a good sprinkling of ministers—she was distantly related to Mr. Stolypine, a fact that had considerably added to her importance during the latter’s lifetime—and a few influential dames belonging to the immediate circle of friends of the imperial family. All this constituted a coterie that had gradually assumed perhaps more importance than it really deserved, but that brought into St. Petersburg society an element with which it would not have been wise to trifle and which it was impossible to overlook, for any one caring to concern himself or herself with the course that public affairs were taking and assuming.

A few years before the time I am referring to, that is about 1908 or 1909, a good deal of interest was excited not only in St. Petersburg, but in the whole of Russia, by a monk called Illiodore, who also preached a new gospel to those willing to listen. There was, however, about him none of the peculiarities which distinguished Rasputin, and no one had ever found one word to say against his morals. But he tried also to found a religion of his own in the sense that he attempted to develop on a higher scale, and with certain Protestant leanings, the feelings of fervour of the people. At Saratoff, where he lived, he did a great deal of good, and he had built there a large church, Orthodox, of course, which soon became a centre of pilgrimage to which flocked thousands and thousands of people desirous of hearing him and of listening to his inflamed speeches. They reminded one of those crusades that in the Middle Ages had stirred whole nations to rise and rush to deliver the Holy Sepulchre from the yoke of the infidels. He was far more a Peter the Hermit than Rasputin, and had, moreover, education, which the other lacked.

But ecclesiastical authorities in St. Petersburg did not approve of his teachings, and he soon came into conflict with them, together with the Bishop of Saratoff, who had all along supported him and who considered him as being really a good and pious man. This conflict led to a quarrel, the result of which was that Illiodore was confined in a monastery, whence, however, with the help of his disciples and adherents, he contrived to make his escape. There was also a whole series of lawsuits, into the details of which it is useless to enter here. At last the monk was unfrocked for rebellion to his superiors, by a decree issued from the Holy Synod, and compelled to take back his secular name of Trufanoff. He became fearful of further annoyance and managed to get hold of a false passport, with the help of which he made his way into Norway, where we shall find him presently mixed up in a most extraordinary adventure with which Rasputin was concerned. But before all this had occurred there was a brief period when Illiodore was quite an important personage in Russia, and the salons of the Countess Ignatieff and of other ultra-devout ladies used to see a lot of him whenever he happened to be in St. Petersburg. These feminine listeners were very fond of him, and did their best to spread his reputation all over the capital.

During Rasputin’s wanderings he had come across Illiodore at Saratoff, and the latter, like so many others before and after him, had succumbed to the hypnotic spell which “Gricha” was casting around him. He had believed him to be a real servant of God, and he had engaged him to come to St. Petersburg and to preach there before some of the people who had already listened to his (Illiodore’s) sermons. He had introduced him to the celebrated Father John of Cronstadt, this saintly priest who was so famous for his virtues and his good deeds. And, strange though this may appear, Father John also had been struck by Rasputin’s eloquence and had believed him to be really inspired by the Lord. In order to explain the state of mind prevalent at the time among the orthodox clergy one must say that the clergy, or at least some of their important members, were trying to bring about a revival of religious fervour in the Orthodox Church, especially among persons belonging to the upper classes, who had, during the last twenty-five years or so, become more than indifferent in regard to spiritual matters, and who had considered religion more a question of “convenience” than anything else. Since the religious censorship had been suppressed and books to any amount treating of every conceivable subject had been allowed to circulate freely in the country, the former attachment to the Mother Church had waxed fainter and fainter, until this Church appeared in the eyes of many as simply a question of good breeding, to which it was necessary to conform when one belonged to good society, but which, beyond this, was treated entirely as a matter devoid of importance.

In view of this fact, those Prelates and Dignitaries who lamented over this state of things were not sorry to find that there were still in the world people capable of arousing in the minds of others an interest in religion and religious matters. This explains partly why the craze which seized some persons in regard to Illiodore at first, and to Rasputin later on, was not viewed with the dissatisfaction one might have expected by the Russian ecclesiastical authorities. They argued that surely it was better for people to pray in the way these two so-called “saints” told them to do than not to pray at all. It was only much later, after Illiodore’s rebellion to the orders of his superiors, and Rasputin’s ever-growing personal influence had begun to alarm them, that there were found some bishops in Russia who made a stand against both, until at last a catastrophe removed these two men from the scene of their previous labours and successes.

Rasputin and Illiodore were in time to become mortal enemies, but at first a great friendship united them, and when Rasputin was sentenced to enter a convent in the manner already related, Illiodore took up his cause most warmly and telegraphed to one of the former’s admirers, an ecclesiastic of high rank in St. Petersburg, in the following terms: “Neither Bishop Feofane nor Archimandrite Serge has behaved fairly in regard to the ‘Blessed Grigory.’” Illiodore’s efforts, however, did not avail and Rasputin was ordered to leave the capital immediately. But instead of being compelled to enter the convent whither they had wished to confine him at first, he was allowed to return to his native village of Pokrovskoie. Before doing so he bethought himself of calling on his former patron, Bishop Feofane, but the latter met him with the exclamation, “Don’t approach me, Satan! Thou art not a blessed thing, but only a vulgar deceiver!” At Pokrovskoie Rasputin surrounded himself with twelve sisters, of whom the oldest was barely twenty-nine years of age. They all lived in his house, which was extremely well arranged and richly furnished. Rasputin’s wife, together with her children, was also there and occupied a suite of five rooms, whilst each of the sisters had a separate room to herself.

People wondered that the woman who ought to have been the sole mistress in the place had consented to share her authority with all these girls, and some even thought that she was just as bad as her husband. In reality, the “Prophet’s” consort had done all that she could to persuade her husband to give up the “mission” which he declared had been imposed upon him by the Almighty and to return to his former life of a simple peasant. Her efforts had remained fruitless, and Rasputin had replied to all her entreaties that his past existence had come forever to an end, and that he knew his star was about to shine in a wonderful way within a short time. He commanded his wife not to attempt to interfere in the matter of his own personal relations with the “Sisters” living under their roof. Though she tried to submit to his will, yet there were occasions when terrible scenes occurred between husband and wife. Then the latter would attack violently the girls, whom she accused of all kinds of dreadful things, and would then fall on the ground in attacks of strong hysterics, screaming so dreadfully that people heard her from the street. But tears and submission were equally of no avail and Rasputin did not trouble about his wife’s rage or grief any more than he had troubled in general with any other impediment he had found in his way. As concerns the kind of life which the “Sisters” were leading at Pokrovskoie this is how one of them describes it:

It is now already six months since I am here, living in a kind of nightmare. I do not know to this day whether the “Blessed” Gricha is a saint or the greatest sinner the earth has ever known. I cannot find a quiet place in this miserable village. I would like to run away, to return to St. Petersburg, but I dare not do so. I am so afraid, so terribly afraid of the “Blessed” one. His large, grey, piercing eyes crush me, enter into my very soul and absolutely terrify me. At a distance of 5,000 versts I feel his presence near me. I feel that he has got extraordinary powers, that he can do everything that he wishes with me.

For two whole years Rasputin was not allowed to show himself in the Russian capital, but the influential friends he had there never left off trying to get the decree of banishment rescinded. Among others, the Archbishop of Saratoff, Hermogene, and Illiodore worked most actively in his favour, and the latter in one of his sermons did not hesitate to call Rasputin the “greatest saint which the modern Russian Church had ever known.” At last the efforts of his friends proved successful and Rasputin, toward the end of the year 1912, reappeared in St. Petersburg, where this time his progress was far more rapid than it had been formerly, and here his reputation of a latter-day saint grew with every hour, until at last he came to be looked upon as a real manifestation of the Divinity upon earth.

It was about that time that he was seen more frequently at Tsarskoie Selo, where the poor Empress was eating her heart away in anxiety over the health of her only son, the little heir to the throne, whose days seemed to be numbered. Rasputin, who had been introduced to her as a pious, good man, whose prayers had already worked miracles, was very quickly able to influence her in the sense that he persuaded her that the small Grand Duke could only be cured if constant prayers were said for him by people who were agreeable to the Lord. It is not to be denied that the pseudo-saint had cultivated to a considerable extent the science of hypnotism and that he used it in regard to the consort of the sovereign in the sense that she grew really to believe that the presence of the “Prophet” by the side of her sick child might cure the latter. There was nothing else in their relations to each other, which remained always, in spite of all that has been said, purely official ones.

Rasputin was far too clever ever to say one word capable of offending the Empress, whose proud temperament would never have forgiven him any familiarity had he dared to venture upon it. Whenever he was in her presence he kept a most humble attitude, and certainly never discussed with her any matters of state and never dared entertain her with aught else than religious questions. He was far less guarded with regard to what he told the Emperor, with whom it is unfortunately true that he sometimes allowed himself remarks he would have done better to keep to himself. But the Czar never looked upon him in any other light than in that of a jester whose sayings were absolutely devoid of any importance whatever, but who could amuse him at times by the daring manner in which he would touch upon things and criticise people whose names no one else would ever have dared to mention in a disparaging tone before Nicholas II. But between that and the possession of any real power and influence, there was an abyss which, unfortunately, in view of the turn that events were to take, no one noticed among all those who lamented over the almost constant presence of Rasputin at Tsarskoie Selo.

All that I have said, however, refers only to the Emperor and Empress. In regard to some people who surrounded them it was not quite the same. It is certain that from the first day that the “Prophet” was introduced at Tsarskoie Selo some intriguing persons applied themselves to make use of him for their own special benefit and advantage, and tried to create around him a legend that had hardly anything in common with the real truth. It is useless to mention the names of these people, whose influence it must be hoped is now at an end. But it is impossible not to speak of their activity in regard to the spreading of these rumours which attributed to Rasputin an importance he was never really in possession of. This caused no small damage to the prestige of the dynasty. Rasputin ought to have been considered for what he was—that is, a kind of jester, “un fou du roi,” who, like Chicot in Dumas’ famous novels, allowed himself to say all that he thought to his sovereign and whose words or actions no one could take seriously into account. Instead of this some ambitious men and women, mostly belonging to that special class of Tchinovnikis or civil functionaries that has always been the curse of Russia and that, happily, is losing every day something of its former power, profited by the circumstance that the solitary existence led by the Imperial Court in its various residences did not allow any outside rumours to penetrate to the ears of the rulers of the country. They intentionally transformed Rasputin into a kind of deus ex machina, whose hand could be traced in every event of importance which occurred and who could at will remove and appoint Ministers, generals, ladies in waiting, court officials and at last induce the Czar himself to deprive his uncle, the Grand Duke Nicholas, of the supreme command of the army and to assume it himself.

These different tales were repeated and carried about all over Russia with alacrity, and all the enemies of the reigning house rejoiced in hearing them. They were untrue nine times out of ten, and generally invented for a purpose. Rasputin did not influence the Czar, who is far too intelligent to have ever allowed this uneducated peasant to guide or to advise him, but unfortunately he influenced other people, who really believed him to be all powerful. A kind of camarilla formed itself around Rasputin that clung to him and used him for its own purposes, and that went about saying that he was the only man in the whole of Russia capable of obtaining what one wanted, provided it pleased him to do so. One declared that he could persuade the Empress, always trembling for the health of her only son, to discuss with her imperial spouse any subject that he might suggest. In reality no such thing ever took place. Alexandra Feodorovna always kept Rasputin at arms’ length, and for one thing had far too much faith in his absolute disinterestedness even to imagine offering him any reward or gratification. But it is a fact that he was often called by her to pray at the bedside of the little boy, who represented the best hope of Russia. This circumstance was cleverly exploited. No one was ever present at his interviews with the Czar or with the Empress; it was therefore easy for him to say what he liked about them, certain that no one could ever contradict him, with the exception of the interested persons themselves, and these could never get to hear or to learn anything about the wild tales which it pleased him, together with his friends, to put into circulation regarding the position which he occupied at the court. Thanks to his persuasive powers and to the undoubted magnetic force he was possessed of, he contrived to imbue even earnest and serious people with the conviction that he was at times the echo of the voices of those placed far above him, and that they had called upon him to say to others what it embarrassed them to mention themselves.

In Russia, as a general rule, the people in power were all cringing before the Czar, whom they never dared to contradict. There were at the time I am writing about some Ministers who believed, or affected to believe, in all the extraordinary tales which it pleased Rasputin to repeat, and who thought it useful to follow the indications which it pleased him to give to them. He was only too delighted to be considered the most powerful personage in the whole of the Russian Empire. He helped as much as he could to accredit all the legends going about among the public in regard to his own person, and he imagined that the best way to add to his reputation as a man who did not care for the opinions of the world was to treat this world with disdain and with contempt, and to transform into his humble slaves ladies belonging to the highest social ranks, just as he had transformed into his hand-maidens the peasant girls who had fallen under his spell.

That he magnetised most of the people with whom he prayed seems but too true. Perhaps they did not notice it, and perhaps this was done with the consent of those on whom he exercised his hypnotic strength—it is difficult to know exactly—but that his prayer meetings were the scene of spiritist and magnetic experiences all who have ever been present agree in saying. He made no secret about the fact, and openly acknowledged the use which he made of the state of trance in which he liked to throw his disciples, especially those belonging to the weaker sex. He practiced to the full all the customs of the “Khlystys,” but he added to them a cunning such as is but rarely found in a human being, and a rough knowledge of human nature which gave him the facility to exploit the passions of the many vile people who thought that he was their instrument while in reality it was they who were playing fiddle to his tune.

After his return to St. Petersburg he applied himself to the task of setting aside all his former patrons, such as Illiodore, against whom he contrived to irritate several important members of the Holy Synod with false reports about remarks which the now disgraced monk was supposed to have made. He contrived also to bring about the exile of the Archbishop of Saratoff, Hermogene, from whom he feared disagreeable revelations concerning his own past life and certain episodes connected with the days when he had preached his so-called doctrine in the town and government of Saratoff. On the other hand, he toadied to other ecclesiastical dignitaries eager for promotion, and in that way obtained their support in the Synod. Very soon he turned his thoughts to more practical subjects than religious fervour or religious reforms, and sought the society of business and financial people. Among these he soon obtained the opportunities he longed for and established a kind of large shop or concern where everything in the world could be bought or sold, from a pound of butter to a minister’s portfolio.

It is no exaggeration to say that there was a time when nothing of importance ever occurred in the political, social and administrative life of the Russian capital that was not attributed to Rasputin, and the result of this was that there crowded about him all kinds of dark personalities, who hoped, thanks to his support and influence, to obtain this or that favour. Everything interested him, everything attracted his attention; railway concessions, bank emissions, stock exchange speculations, purchase of properties, acquisition of shares in industrial concerns, arranging of loans for persons in need of them—nothing seemed too small or too important for his activity. He liked to think himself necessary to all these high-born people, whom he compelled to wait for hours in his ante-chambers, just as if he had been a sovereign. And for every favour he granted, for every word which he promised to say, he exacted payment in the shape of a pound of flesh, which consisted, according to circumstances, in a more or less important commission.

Ministers and functionaries feared him. They knew that he could do them an infinitude of harm by causing to be circulated against them rumours of a damaging character, the result of which would have undoubtedly been their disgrace or removal to another sphere of action very probably not at all desirable. He was credited for an infinitude of things he had never thought of performing, and he was supposed to have been privy to all kinds of governmental changes that either pleased or displeased those who criticised them. As time went on one accused him among other things of the dismissal of the procurator of the Holy Synod, Mr. Loukianoff, with whom he had for a long period been at daggers drawn and who had openly expressed his disapproval of the “Prophet” and his disbelief in his miraculous powers. The elevation of the Archimandrite Warnava, one of his warmest patrons in the past, to the Episcopal See of Tobolsk was also said to have been Rasputin’s work, and the public persisted so entirely in seeing his hand everywhere and in everything that it was even rumoured that it was he who was answerable for the decision of the censor forbidding the representation of a drama by the celebrated author Leonide Andreieff called, “Anathema,” on the eve of the day when it was to be produced—a decision which caused an immense sensation in the society of the Russian capital.

It was natural that among the many people who crowded around Rasputin some secret police agents found their way. One of these who was later to become the hero of more than one scandal, a certain Mr. Manassevitsch Maniuloff, bethought himself of becoming the mentor of the “Prophet.” He was in close relation with Count Witte, always eager for his own return to power, and desirous of overturning every individual in possession of the posts which he had formerly occupied himself. The two men tried to imbue Rasputin with the idea that he had great political talents, and that it was a pity he had not yet turned these into account for the good and the welfare of Holy Russia. Rasputin did not believe in the sincerity of his newly acquired advisers, but he was shrewd enough to see that their help would be of wonderful value to him. He willingly entered into the plans which they unfolded to him between two glasses of brandy or two cups of champagne as the occasion presented itself. Count Witte was very well aware of all the secret influences which were paramount at Tsarskoie Selo, and he contrived to turn them in favour of Rasputin, suggesting at the same time to the latter the things which he ought to say, when in presence of certain personages. It was easy to throw in a word now and then, either in the shape of a jest, or of a remark uttered inadvertently and unintentionally, but yet sure to bear fruit in the future. The great thing was to give to Rasputin the idea that he was a personage of importance. This was not a very difficult matter considering the very high opinion which he already had of his own capacities, coupled with his set resolution to make the most hay whilst the sun was shining, and never to miss an opportunity of asserting his personality no matter on what occasion or with what purpose.

The Balkan war gave Rasputin a golden opportunity for exercising his various talents, and it is pretty certain that he made at the time strenuous efforts in favour of peace, repeating to whomsoever wished to hear him that he had had visions which predicted that the greatest calamities were awaiting Russia, if she mixed herself up in it. This feeling was shared by a numerous party, and the sovereign himself was the most resolute adversary of any military intervention in this unfortunate affair. It is likely that even without Rasputin Russia would not have drawn her sword either for Bulgaria or for Serbia, but nevertheless it pleased his friends to say that without him this would have most undoubtedly occurred. And it also pleased him to assert that on this occasion he had proved to be the saviour of his native land. We shall see him repeat this legend with great relish during a conversation which I had with him personally just before the breaking out of the present war.

There was also another incident in which Rasputin most certainly was implicated. This was the dismissal of Mr. Kokovtsoff, then Prime Minister and President of the Council, followed by the appointment in his place of old and tottering Mr. Goremykine, to whom no one in the whole of Russia had ever given a thought as a possible candidate for this difficult post. Count Witte was the personal enemy of Mr. Kokovtsoff, whom he had never forgiven for his so-called treason in regard to himself, and he never missed any opportunity to attack him in the Council of State, of which they were both members, criticising his financial administration and making fun of the splendid budgets which were regularly presented to the Duma. These Witte declared to be entirely artificial, reposing on a clever manipulation of figures. In some ways it was easy to find fault with Mr. Kokovtsoff, whose name had been mixed up far too much for the good of his personal reputation in all kind of financial transactions and Stock Exchange operations. But, then, the same thing had been said about Count Witte with perhaps even more reason than about Mr. Kokovtsoff, whose wife, at least, had never been suspected of any manipulations with her banking account. Indeed, no finance minister in Russia had escaped accusations of the kind from his detractors or his adversaries, and it had never interfered with their administrative careers nor prevented them from sleeping soundly.

So far, so well; but then this was more the work of events as they had unfolded themselves naturally than the merit of Rasputin; yet he was openly congratulated by his friends, or so-called ones, on the success which he had obtained in driving Mr. Kokovtsoff away. The ultra-orthodox party which hailed the advent to power of one of its members—Mr. Goremykine having always been considered as one of the pillars of the conservative faction—not only cheered the “Prophet” with enthusiasm but also started to proclaim anew his genius and clear understanding of the needs of the Russian people. Thus a ministerial crisis culminated in the apotheosis of a man whose only appreciation of the qualities and of the duties of a Minister consisted in the knowledge of that Minister’s existence as a public functionary.

CHAPTER III

Among Rasputin’s adversaries was Mr. Stolypine, who, with strong common sense and great intelligence, had objected to the importance which certain social circles in St. Petersburg had tried to give to the soothsayer. At first he had regarded the whole matter as a kind of wild craze which was bound to subside in time, as other crazes of the same sort had dwindled into insignificance in the past. Later on, however, some reports that had reached him concerning the persons who frequented Rasputin’s society had given him reason to think that there might be something more than stupid, enthusiasm in the various tales which had come to his ears in regard to the Prophet of Pokrovskoie. He, therefore, expressed the wish to see him, so as to be able to form a personal judgment of the man, and a meeting was arranged in due course at the house of one of the ladies who patronised Rasputin. It is related that after he had cast his eyes upon him Mr. Stolypine, when asked to give his opinion on the personality of the individual about whom he had heard so many conflicting reports, had simply replied:

“The best thing to do with him is to send him to light the furnace; he is fit for nothing else.”

The words were repeated and circulated freely in St. Petersburg; they reached Rasputin, and enraged him the more, because, shortly afterwards, it was Mr. Stolypine who had insisted on having him expelled from the capital, and who for two whole years had refused to allow him to enter it again. When, therefore, in the early autumn of 1912 the “prophet” at last was allowed to return to St. Petersburg, it was with the feelings of the deepest enmity against the Minister who had exiled him. He had the satisfaction of finding that during his enforced absence the popularity of Mr. Stolypine had decreased, and that a considerable number were openly talking about overthrowing him. Rasputin very soon discovered the use which could be made of this state of things, which surpassed by far any hopes he might have nursed of being able to be revenged upon the President of the Cabinet for the injury which he imagined that the latter had done to him. He proceeded in all his sermons to compare him with the Antichrist, and to say that Russia would never be quiet so long as he remained one of its rulers.

The police agent, whose name I have already mentioned, Mr. Manassevitsch Maniuloff, who always had his eye on Rasputin, and who had hastened to call upon him as soon as he had seen him return to the capital, was not slow to notice the now outspoken animosity of the latter in regard to the Prime Minister, who was offensive to him as well as to the whole secret police. The latter, finding that it could no longer do what it pleased, and that it had to respect the private liberty and life of the peaceful Russian citizens, or else be called to account by Mr. Stolypine, who ever since his appointment had been working against the occult powers of the “Okhrana,” had but one idea; and this was to get rid by fair means or by foul of a master determined to control the police. It is known in Russia that Mr. Stolypine’s assassination was the work of the secret police itself, who had found the murderer in the person of one of its own agents, to whom it had furnished even the revolver with which to kill the unfortunate Stolypine. But few people dared relate all that they suspected in regard to this heinous crime, and fewer still were aware of all its details, and of the manner in which it had been planned.

The truth of the story is that Mr. Maniuloff secretly took to Rasputin’s house two or three police agents, to whom the latter said that God himself had revealed to him that Russia could never be saved from the perils of revolution until the removal of Mr. Stolypine. He even blessed the officers, together with a pistol with which he presented them. It turned out afterwards that this pistol was the very weapon which the Jew Bagroff fired at the Prime Minister in the theatre of Kieff during the gala performance given there in honour of the Emperor’s visit to the town. When Stolypine had succumbed to his wounds, Rasputin made no secret of the satisfaction which his death had occasioned to him, and exerted himself in favour of several people who were supposed to have been privy to the plot that had been hatched against the life of the Prime Minister. He told his disciples that the fate which had overtaken the unhappy Stolypine did not surprise him at all, and that every one of those who would venture to oppose him would meet with a similar one in the future.

In a certain sense, this threat had an effect on those before whom it was uttered. People began to dread Rasputin, not on account of any supernatural powers he might have been endowed with, but because they saw that he had managed to get into association with individuals utterly unscrupulous and ready to resort to every means, even to assassination, in order to come to their own ends. They thought it better and wiser, therefore, to get out of his way and not to attempt to thwart him. He became associated in the mind of Russian society with conspirators similar to the Italian carbonari or Camorrists. The conviction that, under the veil of religious fervour, he was able to persuade his satellites to do whatever he pleased, and to hesitate at nothing in the way of infamy and crime, gradually established itself everywhere until it was thought advisable to have nothing to do with him, or else to submit to him absolutely and in everything. It was very well known that he had had a hand in the murder of Mr. Stolypine, but not one single person could be found daring enough to say so, and an atmosphere of impunity enveloped him together with those who worshipped at his shrine or who had put themselves under his protection.

It was during this same winter of 1912–13 that the name of Rasputin became more and more familiar to the ears of the general public, which until that time had only heard about him vaguely and had not troubled about him at all. It was also then that rumours without number concerning the prayer meetings at which he presided began to circulate. Innumerable legends arose in regard to those meetings, which were compared to the worst assemblies ever held by Khlysty sectarians. In reality nothing unmentionable took place during their course. Rasputin was far too clever to apply to the fine ladies, whose help he considered essential to the progress of his future career, the same means by which he had subjugated the simple peasant women and provincial girls whom he had depraved. He remained strictly on the religious ground with his aristocratic followers, and he tried only to develop in them feelings of divine fervour verging upon an exaltation which was close to hysteria in its worst shape or form. In a word, it was with him and them a case like that of the nuns of Loudun in the sixteenth century. Had he lived in the middle ages it is certain that Rasputin would have been burnt at the first stake to be found for the purpose, which, perhaps, would not have been such a great misfortune.

Photograph, International Film Service, Inc.

Rasputin and His “Court”

I have seen a photograph representing the “Prophet” drinking tea with the ladies who composed the nucleus of the new church or sect, which he prided himself upon having founded. It is a curious production. Rasputin is seen sitting at a table before a samovar or tea urn slowly sipping out of a saucer the fragrant beverage so dear to Russian hearts. Around him are grouped the Countess I., Madame W., Madame T. and other of his feminine admirers, who, with fervent eyes, are watching him. The expression of these ladies is most curious, and makes one regret that one could not observe it otherwise than in a picture. Their faces are filled with an enthusiasm that bears the distinct stamp of magnetic influence, and it is easy to notice that they are plunged into that kind of trance when one is no longer accountable for one’s actions.

The method used by Rasputin was to humiliate all the women of the higher circles whom he had subjugated, and who had been silly enough to allow themselves to fall under his spell. Thus he liked to compell them to kiss his hands and feet, to lick the plates out of which he had been eating, or to drink out of the glass which he had just drained. He made them say long prayers in a most fatiguing posture, compelled them sometimes to remain for hours prostrate on the ground before some sacred image, or to stand for a whole day in one place without moving, as a penance for their sins; or again to go for hours without food. Once he commanded one of them to walk in one night to the village of Strelna, a distance of about twenty-five miles from St. Petersburg, and to return immediately, without giving herself any rest at all, with a twig from a certain tree he had designated to her.

In a word, Doctor Charcot would have found in him an invaluable assistant in the experiments he was so fond of making. But he did not go further than these eccentricities. Orgies did not take place during the prayer meetings in which Rasputin exerted to the utmost the magnetic powers which he undoubtedly possessed. While he had been preaching to the humble followers he had at the beginning of his career of thaumaturgy the theory of free love, to his St. Petersburg disciples he declared that sensuality was the one great crime which the Almighty never forgave to those who had rendered themselves guilty of it. It was in order to subdue the flesh and the devil that he commanded his victims to mortify themselves together with their senses, and that he submitted them to the most revolting practices of self-penitence before which they would have recoiled with horror had they been of sound mind.

There is a curious account of an interview with him which was published in the Retsch, the organ of the Russian Liberal party, immediately after the death of Rasputin by Prince Lvoff, who had had the curiosity to speak with the “Prophet.” The Prince was one of the leaders of the progressive faction of the Duma. This is what he wrote, which I feel certain will interest my readers sufficiently for them to forgive me for quoting it in extenso:

“I have had personally twice in my life occasion to speak with Rasputin. The first time was toward the end of the year 1915, when I was invited by Prince I. W. Gouranoff to meet him.

When I arrived Rasputin was already there, sitting beside a large table, with a numerous company gathered around him, among which figured, in the same quality as myself, as a curious stranger, the present chief of the military censorship in Petrograd, General M. A. Adabasch, who was the whole time attentively watching the “Prophet” from the distant corner whither he had retired. Rasputin was dressed in his usual costume of a Russian peasant and was very silent, throwing only now and then a word or two into the general conversation or uttering a short sentence, after which he relapsed into his former silence. In his dress and in his manners he was absolutely uncouth, and when, for instance, he was offered an apple he cut a hole at its top with his own very dirty pocket knife, after which he put the knife aside and tore the fruit in two with his hands, eating it, peel and all, in the most primitive manner. After some time he got up and went to the next room, where he sat down on a large divan with a few ladies who had joined him, toward whom his manner left very much to be desired.

I had kept examining him the whole time with great attention, seeking for that extraordinary glance he was supposed to possess, to which was attributed his power over people, but I could not find any trace of it or notice anything remarkable about him. The expression of his face was that of a cunning mougik, such as one constantly meets with in our country, perfectly well aware of the conditions in which he found himself, and determined to make the best out of them. Everything in him, to begin with his common dress and to end with his long hair and his dirty nails, bore the character of the uncivilised peasant he was. He seemed to realise, better perhaps than those who surrounded him, that one of his trump cards was precisely this uncouthness, which ought to have been repelling, and that if he had put on different clothes and tried to assimilate the manners of his betters, half of the interest which he excited would have disappeared. I did not stay a long time, and went away thoroughly disappointed, and perhaps even slightly disgusted at the man.

A few months later, in February of the present year, 1916, I was asked again to meet Rasputin at Baron Miklos’s house. There I found a numerous and most motley company assembled. There were two members of the Duma, Messrs. Karaouloff and Souratchane; General Polivanoff; a great landowner of the government of Woronege, N. P. Alexieieff; Madame Svetchine; the Senator S. P. Bieletsky and other people. Ladies were in a majority. Rasputin remained talking for a long time with the Deputy Karaouloff in another room than the one in which I found myself. Then he came to join us in the large drawing room, where he kept walking up and down with a young girl on his arm—Mlle. D., a singer by profession—who was entreating him to arrange for her an engagement at the Russian Opera, which he promised her to do “for certain,” as he expressed himself.

Every five or ten minutes Rasputin went up to a table on which were standing several decanters with red wine and other spirits, and he poured himself a large glass out of one of them. He swallowed the contents at one gulp, wiping his mouth afterwards with his sleeve or with the back of his hand. During one of these excursions he came up to where I was sitting, and stopped before me exclaiming: “I remember thee. Thou art a gasser, who writes, and writes, and repeats nothing but calumnies.” I asked the “Prophet” why he did not say “you” to me, instead of addressing me with the vulgar appellation of “thou.”

“I speak in this way with everybody,” he replied. “I have got my own way in talking with people.”

I made him a remark concerning some words which he had pronounced badly, adding, “Surely you have learned during the ten years which you have lived in the capital that one does not use the expressions which you have employed. And how do you know that I have written or repeated calumnies. You cannot read yourself, so that everything you hear is from other people, and you cannot feel sure whether they tell you the truth.”

“This does not matter,” he replied. “Thou hast written that one is stealing, and thou knowest thyself how to do so.”

“I do not know how to steal,” I answered. “But I have written that one is doing so at present everywhere. This it was necessary to do for the public good.”

“Thou hast done wrong; one must only write the truth. Truth is everything,” he said.

The conversation was assuming an angry and sharp tone. Rasputin became enraged at my telling him that all he was saying was devoid of common sense, and he began shouting at me, at the top of his voice. “Be quiet, how darest thou say such things. Be quiet!”

I did not wish to remain quiet, and I began in my turn to shout at the “Prophet,” who became absolutely furious when I assured him that I was not a woman whom he could frighten, that I wanted nothing from him, and that he had better leave me alone, or it might be the worse for him.

He then howled at me, screaming as loud as he could: “It is an evil thing for everybody that thou art here!”

When in the following April it came to my knowledge that Mr. Sturmer wanted to expel me from the capital, I was surprised to have Baron Miklos come to me one day in the name of Rasputin, who had asked him to tell me that though I was a “proud man,” he did not bear me any grudge, that if I wished it, he would take steps to have the order for my expulsion revoked, and that at all events, he begged me not to think that he had taken any part in this whole affair. I categorically refused to avail myself of the help of Rasputin, and there ended the whole matter.”

I have reproduced this tale because it seems to me that it helps one to understand the personality of Rasputin, and because it describes to perfection the manner in which he used to treat the people with whom he dealt. Personally, when I interviewed the “Prophet,” I had the opportunity to convince myself that the impression which he had produced upon Prince Lvoff was absolutely a correct one, and I made the same remark which the latter had done in regard to the total absence of this magnetic strength which Rasputin was supposed to possess over those with whom he entered into conversation. The man was a fraud and nothing else. He had been deified by the group of foolish people whom he had persuaded that he was a messenger from Heaven, come to announce to Holy Russia that a new Christ had arisen. But his pretended fascination existed only in the imagination of the persons who asserted its existence. To the impartial observer he appeared what he was—an arrogant and insolent peasant, who, knowing admirably well on which side his bread was buttered, exploited with considerable ability to his personal advantage the stupidity of his neighbours.

I have already related that his house had become a kind of Stock Exchange in which everything could be bought or sold, where all kinds of shady transactions used to take place, and where the most disgusting bargaining for places and appointments was perpetually going on. Gifts innumerable were showered upon him, which he pretended he distributed to the poor, but which in reality he carefully put into his own pocket. This peasant, who when he had arrived in St. Petersburg for the first time, had hardly possessed a shirt to his back, had become a very rich man. He had bought several houses, gambled in stock shares and other securities, and had contrived to accumulate a banking account which, if one is to believe all that has been related, amounted to several millions. From time to time, however, he used to come out with some munificent offering to some charity or other, with which he threw dust in people’s eyes. They thought that it was in this manner that he employed all the money which was showered upon him by his numerous admirers. It was in this way that he built in St. Petersburg, not far from the spot where, by a strange coincidence, his murdered body was afterwards found, a church which was called the Salvation Church, which adjoined a school for girls. There he used to go often. Whenever he went he was always met by the clergy in charge with great pomp, as if he had been a bishop or some great ecclesiastical dignitary, and was awaited at the door with the cross and holy water. This church was placed under the special protection of the Metropolitan of Petrograd, Pitirim, who often celebrated divine service in it, at which Rasputin always made it a point to be present. But instead of meeting the Metropolitan, as he ought to have done, he was in the habit of arriving after him. Mgr. Pitirim, however, awaited his arrival just as he would have waited for the Emperor. Indeed the submission which the official head of the clergy of the capital affected in regard to Rasputin is one of the most extraordinary episodes in the latter’s wonderful career.

In fact, when one reviews all one has heard concerning this personage, one is tempted to ask the question whether his appearance in St. Petersburg had not brought along with it an epidemic of madness among all those who had come in contact with him. It hardly seems possible that bishops, priests, ministers, high dignitaries, statesmen, even, or at least men having the pretension to be considered as such, should have thought it necessary to go and seek the favour of this vulgar, ill-bred, dirty Russian mougik, devoid of honesty and of scruples, about whom the most disgraceful stories were being repeated everywhere, and whose presence in the houses where he was a daily visitor used to give rise to the worst kind of gossip. This gossip was of such a nature that decent persons hesitated before repeating it, let alone believing it. Like an insidious poison it defiled all whom it touched. One fails to realise by what kind of magic grave men like Mr. Sabler, for instance, who for some time had occupied the highly responsible and delicate function of Procurator of the Holy Synod, one of the most important posts in the whole Russian Empire, could be made so far to forget himself as to prostrate himself before Rasputin in his eagerness to become entitled to the latter’s good graces and protection. And that he did so is at least not a matter of doubt, if we are to believe the following letter which the monk Illiodore wrote from his exile on the fifth of May, 1914, to a personage very well known in the political circles of St. Petersburg.

“I swear to you with the word of honour of an honest man that the letter in which I called Sabler and Damansky the instruments of ‘Gricha’ (Rasputin) contained nothing but the solemn truth, and I repeat it once more, that according to what Rasputin told to me on the twenty-eighth of June, 1911, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon in my little cell, Sabler really kissed the feet of ‘Gricha,’ who, in relating this story to me, showed me with an expressive pantomime in what way he had done so. I consider as utterly false and as a barefaced lie the declaration of Mr. Sabler that he had never prostrated himself before any one, except before the sacred images. Respectfully yours,

S. M. TROUFANOFF,
formerly the monk Illiodore.”

It is difficult to say, of course, how much reliance can be placed on those assertions of Illiodore, and whether Mr. Sabler really thought it necessary to fall on the ground before Rasputin. But out of this letter one can infer that the influence of the latter was considered to be important enough for people to trouble themselves about relating stories of the kind to show it up. Altogether, one may safely conclude, out of the very spare material which so far has come to light in regard to the activity of Rasputin, that we have not yet heard the whole truth about all the circumstances which accompanied his sudden rise and fall, and that there must have been in both events things which perhaps will never come to light. But all of them point out to some dark intrigue in which he was but one of the pawns, whilst believing himself to be the principal actor. One must not forget that the Czar himself was at one time liberal in his ideas and opinions, and that it was entirely due to his personal initiative that the Constitution, such as it is, which Russia possessed before his fall was promulgated. This was not done without arousing terrible animosities, provoking awful discontent. From the first hour that its contents were published, there were found persons who began to work against it, and who by their efforts brought about the revolution of the year 1905, with the help of which they hoped to bring back the days of absolute government, when every public functionary was a small Czar in his own way, and when the caprice of the first police official could send away to distant Siberia innocent people. This abuse Nicholas II. had tried to put an end to, which was not forgiven by the crew of rapacious crocodiles, who up to that day had administered the affairs of the Russian Empire, and they it was who determined to take their revenge for this noble and disinterested intention of their sovereign.

Rasputin became the instrument of the reactionary party, which he, in his turn, contrived to make instrumental in carrying out his own views and aims. His head had been turned by the unexpected position in which he had found himself placed. It is not surprising that he lost his balance and that he ended by considering himself as being what he had been told by so many different people that he was—a Prophet of the Lord, having the right to say what he liked, to calumniate whom he liked, to make use of whatever means he found at hand, to eliminate from his path any obstacles he might have found intruding upon it. His name became synonymous with that of this ultraconservative party which was leading Russia towards its ruin, and which always contrived to reduce to nothing all the good intentions of the Czar. Rasputin was a symbol and a flag at the same time; the symbol of superstition, and the flag of dark reaction. It is impossible to know to this day whether he was not also what everything points to; that is, an agent of the German Government, who had entered into German interests, and who had during the last months of his life been working together with Mr. Sturmer and the latter’s private secretary, the famous Manassevitsch Maniuloff, towards a separate peace with the Central Powers, the conclusion of which would have dishonoured forever the Czar, together with his Government, and which would have provoked such discontent in the country that the dynasty might have collapsed under its weight.

There exist at least indications that such a thing was within the limits of possibility, and, if so, those who put an end to the evil career of this dangerous man deserve well from their country, and the leniency which has been shown to them is but the reward for an act of daring which, though unjustifiable from the moral point of view, is nevertheless to be condoned by the circumstance that its patriotic aim was so great that it was worth while risking everything, even remorse, in order to accomplish it.

In a certain sense, Rasputin was the curse of Russia. Thanks to him, the purest existences were subjected to a whole series of base attacks and of vile calumnies. Thanks to him, our enemies were given the opportunity to pour out upon us, upon our institutions, our statesmen and even upon our sovereign the poison of their venom, and to represent us to those who do not know us in a light which, thanks be rendered to God, was an absolutely false and untrue one.

Russia was far too great for such things to touch her. That Germany rejoiced at every tale which reached its ears in regard to Rasputin is evident if one reads its newspapers. That it was in understanding and accord, if not directly with him, at least with some of those who were his immediate friends and habitual confidents, has been proved to the satisfaction of all impartial persons. And that he worked continually towards establishing an understanding between the Czar and the Kaiser is another fact of which more than one man in Russia is aware. Whether he did so intentionally, or whether he was the unconscious instrument of others cleverer and more cultivated than he ever was or would become, is still a point that has not been cleared up to the general satisfaction. But that his so-called influence only existed over certain weak people, and that the Czar himself never knowingly allowed it to be exercised in matters of state, is a fact about which there can exist no doubt for those who knew the sovereign.

CHAPTER IV

I have quoted the impressions of Prince Lvoff in regard to Rasputin, and have remarked that I have had personally the opportunity to convince myself that they were correct, at least in their broad lines. The interview which I had with Rasputin in the course of the winter of 1913–14 left me with feelings akin to those experienced by the Prince. This interview took place under the following circumstances: I had been asked by a big American newspaper to see the “Prophet,” whose renown had already spread beyond the Russian frontiers, and who was beginning to be considered as a factor of no mean importance in the conduct of Russian state affairs. This, however, was by no means an easy matter. For one thing, he was seldom in St. Petersburg. He spent most of his time at Tsarskoie Selo, where his headquarters were the apartments of Mme. W. He used to make only brief and flying visits to the capital, where he possessed several dwellings. One never knew in which one he could be found, as he used to go from one to another, according to his fancy. He gave audiences like a sovereign would have done, and before any one was allowed to enter his presence that person had to be subjected to a course of cross-examination so as to make quite sure that no malicious or evil designs were harboured by him in regard to the “Prophet.”

At last, after a succession of unavailing efforts, I chanced to light on a certain Mr. de Bock, with whom Rasputin had business relations, and for whom he procured when the war broke out an important contract connected with the supply of meat for the troops in the field. It was this personage who finally obtained for me the favour of being admitted into the home of Rasputin. The latter was living at the time in a very handsome and expensive flat, in a house situated on the English Prospekt, a rather distant street in St. Petersburg, whose proximity to the quarters of the working population of the capital had appealed to the “Prophet’s” tastes. When I arrived there at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, I was, first of all, stopped by the hall porter, who wanted me to explain to him where and to whom I was going. Upon hearing that it was to Rasputin he insisted on my taking off my fur coat downstairs, and then examined me most carefully and suspiciously, surveying with special attention the size and volume of my pockets, so as to make sure that I was not carrying any murderous instruments hidden in their depths.

Upstairs the door was opened by an elderly woman with a red kerchief over her head, who, I learned afterward, was one of the “sisters” who followed the “Prophet” everywhere. She asked for my name, and then ushered me into a room, sparely but richly furnished. There some half-dozen people were waiting, in what seemed to me to be extreme impatience, for the door of the next room to open and admit them. Voices were heard through the door angrily discussing something or other. Among the people present I recognised a lady-in-waiting on the Empress, an old general in possession of an important command, two parish priests, three women belonging to the lower classes, one of whom seemed to be in great trouble, and a typical Russian merchant in high boots and dressed in the long caftan which is still worn by some of those who have kept up the traditions of the old school. Then there was a little boy about ten years old, poorly clad, who was crying bitterly. All these people kept silent, but the eager expression on their faces showed that they were all labouring under an intense agitation and emotion. When I entered the apartment a distinct look of disappointment appeared on all their faces. At last the old general approached me, and asked me in more or less polite tones whether I had a special card of admission or not.

“What do you mean?” I inquired.

“Well, you see,” he said, “we all who are in this room have got one, but there”—and he pointed with his finger to the adjoining door—“there sit the people who have come here on the chance, just to try whether Gregory Efimitsch will condescend to speak to them. Some have been sitting there since last night,” he significantly added. And as he spoke he slightly pushed ajar the door he had mentioned. I could see that a room, if anything smaller than the one we were in, was packed full of persons of different ages and types, all of whom looked tired. They were sitting not only on the few chairs which the apartment contained, but also on the floor. There were women with children hanging at their breast, military men, priests, monks, common peasants and two policemen. The last named were seated by the window leisurely eating a piece of bread and cold meat, which they were cutting into small slices with a pocketknife. They had evidently made themselves at home, regardless of consequences or of the feelings of other people. Suddenly we heard another door slam, and a strong step resounded in the hall. A man began to speak in a loud voice. He said: “You just go to see——” and here the name of one of the most influential officials in the Home Office was mentioned, “and you tell him that Gricha has said he was to give you a place, and a good one, too. It does not matter whether there is none vacant, he must find one. There, take this paper, and now go, and don’t forget to show it when you come to the Home Office.”

The door slammed again, and all remained silent for a few minutes. Then the elderly woman who had admitted me, came into the apartment where we were sitting and beckoned me to follow her. But this proved too much for the feelings of the old general who had accosted me on my entrance, and he pushed himself forward in front of me, exclaiming as he did so:

“I have been here a longer time than she has been,” pointing at me with his finger, “and I must get in first.”

“You cannot do so,” replied the woman; “my orders are to let this lady in first.”

“Do you know who I am, woman?” screamed the general at the top of his lungs; he was evidently in a towering passion. “Go at once, and tell Gregory Efimitsch that I must see him at once, I have been waiting here for more than an hour.”

“I cannot do so,” replied the woman, “I must obey the orders that have been given to me.”

“Then I shall do it myself,” exclaimed the general, and he rushed toward the door, which he opened, when he was stopped by a whole torrent of invectives coming from the next room.

“How dare you disobey my orders?” cried out an angry voice. “Thou pig and son of a pig, I have said I wish to see this person and no one else! Thou idle creature! Chuck him out of the room, that pig who dares to contradict me, and you come in here!” And the tall figure of Rasputin appeared on the threshold of the room. He rudely pushed aside the general and, seizing my hand, pulled me into another apartment, which seemed to be his dining room.

It was a rather large corner room with three windows, in which stood a quantity of flowers and green plants. A round table occupied the middle, on which was laid a striped white-and-red tablecloth. A samovar was standing on it, together with glasses on blue-and-white saucers, slices of lemon, sugar in a silver sugar basin, and quantities of cakes and biscuits. Chairs were placed around it, on one of which Rasputin sat down, facing the tea urn, after having made me a sign to do likewise. I noticed that there was a large writing table in one corner covered with books and papers.

The “Prophet” himself did not at all strike me as being the remarkable individual I had been led to expect. He must have been about forty years old, tall and lean, with a long black beard and hair, falling not quite down to his back, but considerably lower than his ears. The eyes were black, singularly cunning in their expression, but did not produce, at least not on me, the uncanny impression I had been told they generally made on those who saw them for the first time. The hands were the most remarkable thing about the man. They were long and thin, with immense nails, as dirty as dirty could be. He kept moving them in all directions as he spoke, sometimes folding them on his breast and sometimes lifting them high up in the air. He wore the ordinary dress of the Russian peasant, high boots and the caftan, which, however, was made of the best and finest dark-blue cloth. What could be seen of his linen was also of the best quality.

After having beckoned to me to sit down, Rasputin poured out some tea in a glass and proceeded to drink it, sipping the beverage slowly out of the saucer into which he poured it out of the glass which he had just filled. Suddenly he pushed the same saucer toward me with the word:

“Drink.”

As I did not in the least feel inclined to take his remains, I declined the tempting offer, which made him draw together his black and bushy eyebrows with the remark:

“Better persons than thou art have drunk out of this saucer, but if thou wantest to make a fuss it is no concern of mine.”

And then he called out, “Avdotia! Avdotia!” The elderly woman who had opened the door for me hastened to come into the room.

“There,” said Rasputin, “this person”—-pointing toward me with his forefinger—“this person refuses to drink out of the cup of life; take it thou instead.”

The woman instantly dropped on her knees and Rasputin proceeded to open her mouth with his fingers and pour down her throat the tea which I had disdained. She then prostrated herself on the ground before him and reverently kissed his feet, remaining in this attitude until he pushed her aside with his heavy boot and said, “There, now thou canst go.”

Then he turned to me once more. “Great ladies, some of the greatest in the land, are but too happy to do as this woman has done,” he said dryly. “Remember that, daughter.”

Then he proceeded at once with the question, “Thou hast wished to see me. What can I do for thee? I am but a poor and humble man, the servant of the Lord, but sometimes it has been my fate to do some good for others. What dost thou require of me?”

I proceeded to explain that I wanted nothing in the matter of worldly goods, but asked this singular personage to be kind enough to tell me for the paper which I represented whether it was true that but for him Russia would have declared war upon Austria the year before.

Photograph, International Film Service, Inc.

Gregory Rasputin

“Who has told you such a thing?” he inquired.

“It is a common saying in St. Petersburg,” I replied, “and some people say that you have been right in doing so.”

“Right? Of course, I was right,” he answered with considerable irritation. “All these silly people who surround our Czar would like to see him commit stupidities. They only think about themselves and about the profits which they can make. War is a crime, a great crime, the greatest which a nation can commit, and those who declare war are criminals. I only spoke the truth when I told our Czar that he would be ruined if he allowed himself to be persuaded to go to war. This country is not ready for it. Besides, God forbids war, and if Russia went to war the greatest misfortunes would fall upon her. I only spoke the truth; I always speak the truth, and people believe me.”

“But,” I remarked, “no one can understand how it is that your opinion always prevails in such grave matters. People think that you must have some strange power over men to make them do what you like.”

“And what if I have,” he exclaimed angrily. “They are, all of them, pigs—all these people who want to discuss me or my doings. I am but a poor peasant, but God has spoken to me, and He has allowed me to know what it is that He wishes. I can speak with our Czar. I am not afraid to do so, as they all are. And he knows that he ought to listen to me, else all kind of evil things would befall him. I could crush them all, all these people who want to thwart me. I could crush them in my hand as I do this piece of bread,” and while he was speaking he seized a biscuit out of a plate on the table and reduced it to crumbs. “They have tried to send me away, but they will never get rid of me, because God is with me and Gricha shall outlive them all. I have seen too much and I know too much. They are obliged to do what I like, and what I like is for the good of Russia. As for these ministers and generals, and all these big functionaries whom every one fears in this capital, I do not trouble about them. I can send them all away if I like. The spirit of God is in me and will protect me.

“Thou canst say this to those who have sent thee to see me. Thou canst tell them that the day will come when there will be no one worth anything in our holy Russia except our Czar and Gricha, the servant of God. Yes, thou canst tell them so, and be sure that thou dost it.”

I protested that I should consider this my first duty, but at the same time begged “the servant of God,” as he called himself, to explain to me by what means he had acquired the influence which he possessed.

“By telling the truth to people about themselves,” he quickly replied. “Thou probably thinkest that all these fine ladies about the court who come to me do not care to be told about their failings. But there it is that thou art mistaken. They feel so disconcerted when they hear me call them by their proper names and remind them that they are but b——s, and the daughters of b——s, that they immediately fall at my feet. A silly lot are these women, and Gricha is not such a fool as one thinks. He knows how they ought to be treated. Wilt thou see how I treat them?”

I said that nothing would give me more pleasure. Rasputin went to the door and called Avdotia.

“Go to the telephone,” he said when she came in, “ask the Countess I—— to come at once. She must come herself to the telephone, and if a servant replies, say that he must call her immediately, and then tell her that I require her presence here at 12 o’clock to-night; not one minute earlier or later, mind.”

The woman went away, and I could hear her talking at the telephone in the next room in an authoritative tone. Soon she returned with the words:

“The Countess sends her humble respects to Gregory Efimitsch, and she will be here at midnight as she has been ordered to.”

Rasputin turned toward me with a triumphant smile on his coarse cunning countenance.

“Thou canst see, they are losing no time to obey me. Thou dost not know what women are, and how they like to be handled. Wait, and thou shalt see something better. Avdotia,” he called again. “Is Marie Ivanovna here?” he asked, when she came in response to his call. “Yes, since three hours,” was the reply. “Call her here.”

A young woman of about twenty-five years of age appeared. She was very well dressed in rich furs, and ran up to Rasputin, kneeling before him, and kissing with fervour his dirty hands.

“How long hast thou been here?” he asked.

“About three hours, Batiouschka,” she answered.

“This is well, thou art to remain here until midnight, and neither to eat or to drink all that time, thou hearest?”

“Yes, Batiouschka,” was the reply, uttered in timid, frightened tones.

“Now go into the next room, kneel down before the Ikon, and wait for me without moving. Thou must not move until I come.”

She kissed his hands once more, prostrated herself on the floor before him three times in succession, and then retired with the look of being in a kind of trance during which she could neither know nor understand what was happening to her.

“If thou carest, thou canst follow her, and see whether she obeys me or not,” said Rasputin in his usual dry tone.

I declined the invitation, protesting that I had never doubted but that the “Prophet” would be obeyed, adding, however, that though I had understood he could control the fancies and imagination of women gifted with an exalted temperament, yet I was not convinced that his influence could be exerted over unemotional men, and that this was the one point which interested my friends.

“Thou must not be curious,” shouted Rasputin. “I am not here to tell thee the reasons for what I choose to do. It should suffice thee to know that I would at once return to Pokrovskoie if ever I thought my services were useless to my country. Russia is governed by fools. Yes, they are all of them fools, these pigs and children of pigs,” he repeated with insistence. “But I am not a fool. I know what I want, and if I try to save my country, who can blame me for it?”

“But Gregory Efimitsch,” I insisted, “can you not tell me at least whether it is true that some ministers do all that you tell them?”

“Of course, they do,” he replied angrily. “They know very well their chairs would not hold them long if they didn’t. Thou shalt yet see some surprises before thou diest, daughter,” he concluded with a certain melancholy in his accents.

Avdotia entered the room again.

“Gregory Efimitsch,” she said, “there is Father John of Ladoga waiting for you.”

“Ah! I had forgotten him.” Then he turned toward me.

“Listen again,” he said; “this is a priest, very poor, who is seeking to be transferred into another parish somewhere in the south. Avdotia, call on the telephone the secretary of the Synod and tell him that I am very much surprised to hear that Father John has not yet been appointed to another parish. Tell him this must be done at once, and that he must have a good one. I require an immediate answer.”

The obedient Avdotia went out again, and we could hear her once more talk on the telephone. “The secretary of the Synod presents his humble compliments to you, Batiouschka,” she said when she returned.

“Who cares for his compliments?” interrupted Rasputin. “Will the man have his parish or not? This is all that I want to know.”

“The order for his transfer will be presented for the Minister’s signature to-morrow,” said Avdotia.

“This is right,” sighed Rasputin with relief. And then turning to me:

“Art thou satisfied?” he asked, “and hast thou seen enough to tell to thy friends?”

I declared myself entirely satisfied.

“Then go,” said Rasputin. “I am busy and cannot talk to thee any longer. I have so much to do. Everybody comes to me for something, and people seem to think that I am here to get them what they need or require. They believe in Gricha, these poor people, and he likes to help them. But as for the question of war, this is all nonsense. We shall not have war, and if we have, then I shall take good care it will not be for long.”

He dismissed me with a nod of his head, and his face assumed quite a shocked look when he found that I was retiring without seeming to notice the hand which he was awkwardly stretching out to me. But I knew that he expected people, as a matter of course, to kiss his dirty fingers, and as I was not at all inclined to do so, I made as if I did not notice his gesture. As I was passing into the next room, I could perceive through a half open door leading into another apartment the young lady whom Rasputin had called Marie Ivanovna. She was prostrated before a sacred image hanging in a corner, with a lamp burning in front of it, with her eyes fixed on Heaven, and quite an illuminated expression on her otherwise plain features. St. Theresa might have looked like that. But seen in the light of our incredulous Twentieth Century, she appeared a worthy subject for Charcot, or some such eminent nerve doctor, and her place ought to have been the hospital of “La Salpetriere” rather than the den of the modern Cagliostro, who was making ducks and drakes out of the mighty Russian Empire.

As I was going down the stairs, I met an old man slowly climbing them, with a little girl whom he was half carrying, half dragging along with him. He stopped me with the question:

“Do you happen to know whether the blessed Gregory receives visitors?”

I replied that the “Prophet” was at home, but that I could not say whether he would receive any one or not.

“It is for this innocent I want to see him,” moaned the man. “She is so ill and no doctor can cure her. If only the blessed Gregory would pray over her, I know that she would be well at once. Do you think that he will do so, Barinia?” the man added anxiously.

“I am sure he will,” I replied, more because I did not know what to say rather than from the conviction that Rasputin would receive this new visitor. I saw the old creature continue his ascent up the staircase, and the whole time he was repeating to the child, “You shall get well, quite well, Mania, the Blessed One shall make you quite well.”

On the last steps before the stairs ended on the landing, two men were busy talking. They were both typical Israelites, with hooked nose and crooked fingers. They were discussing most energetically some subject which evidently was absorbing their attention to an uncommon degree, and discussing it in German, too.

“You are quite sure that we can offer him 20 per cent?” one was saying.

“Quite sure, the concession is worth a million; the whole thing is to obtain it before the others come on the scene.”

“Who are the others?” asked the first of the two men.

“The Russo-Asiatic Bank,” replied the second. “You see the whole matter lies in the rapidity with which the thing is made. The only one who can persuade the minister to sign the paper is the old man upstairs,” and he pointed out toward Rasputin’s apartment. Thereupon the two in their turn started to mount the steps.

My first interview with Rasputin, all the details of which I wrote down in my diary when I got home, gave me some inkling as to the different intrigues which were going on around this remarkable personage. It failed, however, to make me understand by what means he had managed to acquire, if he really acquired, a fact of which I still doubted, the strong influence which he liked to give the impression he exercised. It was quite possible that he had contrived through the magnetic gifts with which he was endowed to subdue to his will the hysterical women, whose bigotry and mystical tendencies he had exalted to the highest pitch possible. But how could he, a common peasant, without any education, knowledge of the world or of mankind, have imbued ministers and statesmen with such a dread that they found themselves ready to do anything at his bidding and to dispense favours, graces and lucrative appointments to the people whom he called to their attention. There was evidently something absolutely abnormal in the whole thing, and it was the reason for this abnormality that I began to seek.

This search did not prove easy at first, but in time, by talking with persons who saw much of Rasputin and of the motley crew which surrounded him, I contrived to form some opinion as to the cause of his success. It seemed to me that he was the tool of a strong though small party or group of men, desirous of using him as a means to attain their own ends. There is nothing easier in the world than to make or to mar a reputation, and it is sufficient to say everywhere that a person is able to do this or that thing, to instil into the mind of the public at large the conviction that such is the case. This was precisely what occurred with Rasputin.

Count Witte, who was one of the cleverest political men in his generation and perhaps the only real statesman that Russia has known in the last twenty-five years, ever since his downfall had been sighing for the day when he should be recalled to power. He knew very well all that was going on in the Imperial family, and it was easier for him than for any one else to resort to the right means to introduce an outsider into that very closed circle which surrounded the Czar. So long as he had been a minister and had under his control the public exchequer it had been relatively easy for him to obtain friends, or rather tools, that had helped him in his plans and ambitions. When this faculty for persuasion failed him he bethought himself to look elsewhere for an instrument through which he might still achieve the ends he had in mind. He was not the kind of man who stopped before any moral consideration. For him every means was good, provided it would prove effective. When he saw that certain ladies in the entourage of the sovereigns had become imbued with the Rasputin mania, he was quick to decide that this craze might, if properly managed, prove of infinite value to him. He therefore not only encouraged it as far as was in his power by pretending himself to be impressed by the prophetic powers of the “Blessed Gregory,” but he also contrived very cleverly to let the fact of the extraordinary ascendancy which Rasputin was rapidly acquiring over the minds of powerful and influential persons become known. Very soon everybody talked of the latter-day saint who had suddenly appeared on the horizon of the social life of St. Petersburg, and the fame of his reputation spread abroad like the flames of some great conflagration.

Russia is essentially the land where imperial favourites play a rôle, and soon the whole country was not only respecting Rasputin, but was trying to make up to him and to obtain, through him, all kinds of favours and material advantages. Together with Count Witte a whole political party was working, without the least consideration for the prestige of the dynasty which it was discrediting, to show up the rulers as associated with the common adventurer and sectarian, who, under other conditions, would undoubtedly have found himself prosecuted by the police authorities for his conduct. They had other thoughts in their heads than the interests of the dynasty, these money-seeking, money-grubbing, ambitious men. They represented nothing beyond the desire to become powerful and wealthy. What they wanted was important posts which would give them the opportunity to indulge in various speculations and more or less fraudulent business undertakings they contemplated.

Russia at the time was beginning to be seized with that frenzy for stock-exchange transactions, share buying and selling, railway concessions and mining enterprises which reached its culminating point before the beginning of the war. Men without any social standing, and with more than shady pasts, were coming forward and acquiring the reputation of being lucky speculators capable in case of necessity of developing into clever statesmen. These men began to seek their inspirations in Berlin, and through the numerous German spies with which St. Petersburg abounded they entered into relations with the German Intelligence Department, whose interests they made their own, because they believed that a war might put an end to the industrial development of the country, and thus interfere with their various speculations. The French alliance was beginning to bore those who had got out of it all that they had ever wanted; it was time something new should crop up, and the German and Russian Jews, in whose hands the whole industry and commerce of the Russian Empire lay concentrated, began to preach the necessity of an understanding with the great state whose nearest neighbour it was. A rapprochement between the Hohenzollerns and the Romanoffs began to be spoken of openly as a political necessity, and it was then that, thanks to a whole series of intrigues, the Czar was induced to go himself to Berlin to attend the nuptials of the only daughter of the Kaiser, the Brunswick.

This momentous journey to Berlin was undertaken partly on account of the representations of Rasputin to the Empress, whose love for peace was very well known. Europe had just gone through the anxiety caused by the Balkan crisis, and it was repeated everywhere in St. Petersburg that a demonstration of some kind had to be made in favour of peace in general and also to prove to the world that the great Powers were determined not to allow quarrels in Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece to trouble the security of the world. The marriage festivities of which Berlin became the theatre at the time seemed a fit opportunity for this demonstration. The bureaucratic circles in the Russian capital and the influence of Rasputin were used to bring about this trip of the Czar.

Rasputin was thus fast becoming a personage, simply because it suited certain people—the pro-German party, to use the right word at last—to represent him as being important. They pushed things so far that many ministers and persons in high places refused on purpose certain things which were asked of them and which were absolutely easy for them to perform simply because they wished Rasputin to ask for them for those who were weary of always meeting with a non possumus in questions for which they required the help of the Administration.

Rasputin’s various intermediaries, through whom one had to pass before one could approach him, sold their help for more or less large sums of money, and thus began a period of vulgar agiotage, to use the French expression, of which Russia was the stage, and Rasputin, together with the men who used him, the moving spirits. I very nearly said the evil spirits. But of this, more later on.

CHAPTER V

I must now make one remark which is absolutely necessary in order to enable the foreign readers to understand how the numerous legends which were connected with Rasputin and the influence of the latter on the course of public affairs could come to be accepted by the nation at large. One can seek its principal reason in the tendency which the Russian government has cultivated since immemorial times to forbid the open discussion of certain things and facts. At the time about which I am writing present military censorship did not exist, and there was no war which could have justified the control by the government of the publication by the daily press of the current events of the day. Yet the censors did not allow any mention of Rasputin to be made in any organ of publicity. Thanks to this senseless interdict, it helped the invention of the most unbelievable tales concerning him and the attitude which he had adopted in regard to state affairs, with which he had begun to occupy himself, much to the dismay of those who had by that time learned to appreciate the fact that the “Prophet” was but the plaything of men far cleverer than himself and 50,000 times more dangerous.

St. Petersburg has always been famed for its gossiping propensities, and in no place in the whole world do the most incomprehensible rumours start and flourish with the rapidity that they do in the Russian capital. What the newspapers are forbidden to mention is told by one person to another, whispered from one ear to another and discussed everywhere, in clubs, drawing rooms, restaurants, in the houses of the proudest aristocrats as well as in the dwellings of the humblest citizens. Nowhere does, or rather, did, because I believe this has become impossible nowadays, the telephone contribute more to relate all kind of gossip concerning both private people and public matters. Of course, as there existed no possibility of controlling all that was being related under the seal of secrecy all over St. Petersburg, the most improbable rumours were put in circulation and were carried about not only in the town itself, but in the provinces, where the travellers returning from St. Petersburg were but too glad to repeat with considerable additions all that they had heard in the capital.

The very secrecy which was enjoined by the authorities in regard to Rasputin added to the latter’s importance and transformed him into a kind of legendary personage, either too holy or too bad to be mentioned. Soon all kinds of things in which he had had absolutely no part began to be attributed to him, and many persons, earnestly believing him to be all-powerful, took to asking his help not only in the matter of their administrative careers, but also in questions where their private life and private interests were involved. It happened every day that a man who had a lawsuit of a doubtful character sought out Rasputin, hoping that he might be able to put in a word capable of influencing the judges before whom the case was to be tried. As it was absolutely impossible for any one to approach him without passing through an intermediary of some kind, it was generally this intermediary who began the regular plundering of the pockets of all the unfortunate petitioners who had hoped to retrieve their fortunes by an appeal to the “Prophet’s” protection. This plundering went on as long as the victim had a penny to spare and a hope to live upon.

On the other hand, the liberal parties in the country began to be seriously alarmed at the importance which this uncouth peasant was assuming, and they it was who helped by the anxiety which they openly manifested to set the general public thinking about him more than it ought to have done. In the Duma the name of Rasputin was mentioned with something akin to horror, and allusions without number were made concerning the “Dark Powers,” as they were called, who were grasping in their hands the conduct of public affairs. The “Prophet” began to be mentioned as the scourge of Russia long before he had become one. His followers, on the contrary, made no secret of his ever-growing importance, and invented on their side any number of tales absolutely devoid of truth and tending to prove that nothing whatever was done in regard to the management of state affairs without his having been previously consulted. Who consulted him no one knows, and no one could tell. Certainly it was not the Emperor, who had, when the “Prophet” once or twice had attempted to touch upon this point in his presence, rebuked him most sharply; certainly it was not the Empress, who at that time had never yet cared for politics, whether foreign or domestic. It was also not the ministers, and most certainly it was not the leaders of any party in the Duma, because all parties there were agreed as to one thing, and that was a thorough detestation of Rasputin and of the whole crew which surrounded him and without which he could not exist. Who consulted him, then? No one knew, and very probably no one cared to know. But the fact that he was consulted was an established one, most probably due to the efforts of those persons in whose interests it lay to represent him as the deus ex machina without whom nothing could be done in general, and upon whom everything more or less depended.

It was even related in St. Petersburg that one day, during an audience which he had had with the Czar, Mr. Rodzianko, the President of the Duma, had attempted a remonstrance on the subject of Rasputin for which he had been severely reproved by the Sovereign. Personally, I do not believe for one single instant that such an incident ever took place. For one thing, no one, not even Mr. Rodzianko, would have dared to talk to the Emperor about such an unsavoury subject as that of the “Prophet,” even if he had been endowed with a moral courage far superior to that of the President of the Duma. Then, again, the well-informed were, at the time I am referring to, far too cognisant of what was going on in the way of court intrigues not to understand that all protestations against the constant presence of Rasputin in the vicinity of the Imperial family would have led to nothing, for the simple reason that those upon whom it depended did not and could not even recognise the danger that it presented, because they simply looked upon him as upon a holy man. He soothed the anxieties of the Empress in regard to her small son, promising her that the day would come when, thanks to his prayers, the child would outgrow his delicacy. He amused the Emperor by talking to him in a rough but bright language, describing bluntly all the incidents that had reached his knowledge generally through the channel of those interested in having them conveyed to the Sovereign in the way that best served their own interests. But Nicholas II. never took him seriously into account, and therefore could hardly have been brought to think that others were doing so, and doing it with a vengeance into the bargain.

Rasputin, however, was of a different opinion, and in his desire that others should share it he liked to boast in public of the things which he had not done and of the words which he had not spoken. He was upon excellent terms with some of the palace servants, in whom he had found comrades and with whom he felt more at his ease than with any one else. He got them to relate to him all that was going on in the family of the Czar. He very cleverly made use of this knowledge later on. It is well known in Russia that the Emperor himself was watched by the secret police, not only in view of his personal safety, but also because it was to the interest of the police to be thoroughly acquainted with all that he did and with the remarks it pleased him to make. And the secret police were working hand in hand with Rasputin. Their provocative agents, of which there existed considerable numbers, were everywhere talking about the “Prophet’s” influence and ever-growing importance, as well as relating in all the restaurants and public places in the capital wonderful and improbable tales concerning him and his doings. From these they were spread among the public and penetrated to people who otherwise would never have had the possibility of hearing anything about them. Among those who showed themselves the most active and the most eager to talk about Rasputin and about the influence which he was acquiring were persons well known for their German sympathies and others suspected of being German agents in disguise.

At that period the great aim of the German Foreign Office was to bring about the collapse of the Franco-Russian alliance, and it set itself most cleverly to try to bring it about. Among the persons whom it employed for the purpose was Rasputin, perhaps unknown to himself, but led by men like Count Witte, who had always been pro-German in sympathy and who had almost engaged himself to bring about a rapprochement between the St. Petersburg and the Berlin Court. Working with Witte was Mr. Manusevitsch Maniuloff, one of the most abominable secret agents the world has ever known, who in his unscrupulousness would have done anything he was asked, provided he were paid high enough. For years he had been in receipt of German subsidies. By dint of blackmailing he had contrived to maintain himself in the capacity of one of the editors of the Novoie Vremia, where he wrote all that was asked of him for a consideration, the extent and nature of which depended upon circumstances. He was also on the staff of the Russian political Intelligence Department, to which he rendered such services as he considered to be advantageous to himself without the least thought of the use these might be to the State which employed him.

Mr. Maniuloff was a spendthrift who never could deny himself any of the good things of life. These are always considered to be expensive ones, and consequently he had expensive tastes. His capacity of police agent had allowed him to blackmail to advantage people against whom he had discovered, or thought he had discovered, something in the way of dangerous political opinions. One of his favourite occupations consisted in going about among these people and hinting to them that unless they showed themselves willing to minister to his numerous wants they might find themselves one day in a very tight corner. Generally these tactics proved successful, until he was caught red-handed in Paris, where he had been sent on a special mission, tampering with the funds of which he had control. This accident caused him to be dismissed. But the man knew far too much and had been far too advanced in the confidence of his superiors for them to be able to do without his services, so he was allowed to return to Russia and enroll himself in journalism, thus to make himself useful again. He had a wonderful intelligence and was an excellent worker and talked fluently in most of the European languages. He therefore made his way up the ladder once more, until at last he became the private secretary to Mr. Sturmer when the latter was Prime Minister, an advancement that proved fatal to him because it brought him to prison. But of this I shall speak later on when touching upon the events which culminated in the murder of Rasputin.

Such were the men who virtually controlled every action of the “Prophet,” and it is no wonder if guided by them he sometimes contrived to influence never the Czar himself, but the latter’s Ministers and officials who had been told, they did not even know by whom, but probably by the loud voice of the public, that to do anything to please Rasputin was to secure for oneself the good graces of the highest people in the land. As time went on the “Prophet” showed himself less and less in public, remaining among a small circle of personal friends whose interest it was to represent him as a kind of Indian idol, unapproachable except to his worshippers.

And in the meanwhile the ladies who had been the first artisans of Rasputin’s favour were still holding religious meetings under his guidance and still seeking inspiration from his teachings. They believed him to be a real saint, refused to admit that he could do anything wrong and refused to accept as true the rumours which went about and which, unfortunately for the “Prophet’s” reputation, were but too exact, that he was fond of every kind of riotous living, that he spent his nights in drunken revels and that he gave his best attention to brandy mixed with champagne. His admirers persisted in seeing in him the prophet of the Almighty and believed that they could never be saved unless they conformed to all the directions which it might please him to give them.

The Rasputin craze became more violent than ever during the few months which immediately preceded the war, and it very nearly verged upon complete fanaticism for his personality. Everything that he did was considered to be holy. His insolence and arrogance, displayed with increasing violence every day and hour, were almost incredible. This illiterate peasant dared to send dirty little scraps of paper on which he had scribbled a coarse message to ministers and public men ordering them to do this or that according to his pleasure, and presuming to give them advice, which was never his own, in matters of the utmost public importance. At first people had laughed at him, but very soon they had discovered that he could revenge himself on them quickly and effectively, and this had led to the general determination not to interfere with him any more, but to leave him severely alone, no matter what extravagance he might commit or say. And when it came to the extortion of large sums of money, those who were challenged to pay them generally did so with alacrity, as happened in the case of several banks to which Mr. Maniuloff applied for funds, with the help of these illiterate scraps of paper upon which Rasputin had scribbled his desire that the money should be put at the disposal of his “protégé.”

What I have been writing is fact, which has been proved publicly, and never contradicted by so much as one single word of protestation. It accounts for the hatred with which the “Prophet” came to be viewed. As time went on it was felt that something ought to be attempted against the imposter who had contrived to break through barriers one could have believed to be absolutely impregnable. But no one knew how this was to be done, and at the time I am referring to the idea of a political assassination of Rasputin had not entered into the people’s heads. It was a woman who was to bring it before the public in the following circumstances:

During the spring of the year 1914, Rasputin, to the general surprise of everybody, declared to his friends that he intended to leave the capital and to return for a few months to his native village of Pokrovskoie in Siberia to rest from his labours. Strenuous efforts were made to detain him in Petrograd, but he remained inflexible and rudely thrust aside those who would fain have kept him back. He declared that he was tired and weary of the existence which he had been leading the last year, and that the various annoyances and difficulties that had been put in his way by his numerous enemies had quite sickened him. Such, at least, was the explanation which he chose to give and to which he stuck. Others, it is true, declared that the real reason for his departure was that he had been given to understand that he would do better to absent himself from St. Petersburg during the time when the visit of the President of the French Republic was expected, as his presence there might prove embarrassing from more than one point of view. The hint had enraged him, and he had determined to go away for a much longer time than he had been told to do. He had even declared to a few of his closest friends that he was not going to return to the capital any more, but that he would remain in Siberia, where, as he graphically put it, “there was a great deal more money to be made than anywhere else in the world.”

Whether the above is strictly true or not, I am not in a position to say, but it does not sound improbable. The fact remains that Rasputin left St. Petersburg for Pokrovskoie, where he arrived in the first days of June, 1914, accompanied by the “Sisters,” who were his constant companions. He was received with such honours that he might have been the Sovereign himself instead of the simple peasant he was. A crowd composed of several thousand men and women met him at the gates of the village and threw themselves at his feet imploring his blessing and calling upon him to pray with them, and to show them the real way to God which he was supposed to be the only one in Russia capable of indicating. For a few days this kind of thing continued, and Rasputin’s house was literally besieged by crowds of people who had gathered at Pokrovskoie from all parts of Siberia eager to pay homage to their national hero, for such he was considered to be. Rasputin smiled and chuckled and rubbed his hands, as was his wont in those moments when he allowed his satisfaction at anything to overpower him. If in St. Petersburg he had been considered as a prophet, here in this remote corner of Siberia he was fast becoming a kind of small god at whose shrine a whole nation was worshipping. This was just the sort of thing to please him and to make him forget any small unpleasantnesses he might have experienced before his departure from the capital.

One morning, it was the 13th of July, 1914, Rasputin was leaving his house on his way to church, whither it was his custom to repair every day. On the threshold of his dwelling a woman was awaiting him. She had her face muffled in a shawl in spite of the warm weather. When she saw him she threw herself on her knees before him, as persons of her kind invariably did when they met him. The “Prophet” stopped and asked her what it was she wanted from him. Her only reply was to plunge into his stomach a large kitchen knife, which she had held the whole time hidden under her shawl.

Rasputin uttered one cry and sank upon the ground. The crowd which was always following him rushed toward him and lifted him up, while two local policemen who had been set by the authorities to protect and guard him threw themselves upon the woman and seized her violently by both arms. She remained perfectly quiet, declaring that they need not hold her as she had not the slightest intention of running away. She knew very well what she had done, and she had meant to do it for a long time. When asked what had been her motives, she declared that she would speak before the magistrates, and only asked to be protected in the meanwhile against the fury of the mob that was threatening to tear her to pieces in its rage. She did not seem to be in the least disturbed by what she had done and throughout she showed the most extraordinary coolness and self-possession.

Very soon it was ascertained that she was a native of the government of Saratoff, and that her name was Gousieva. When Rasputin had been preaching in Saratoff she was among the women who had been taken in by his speeches, and though married she had left her husband and family to follow the “Prophet.” He very soon proceeded to “cleanse her from her sins,” according to his favourite expression. We know, of course, what this meant, and Gousieva, who at that time was young and pretty, only shared the fate of so many other women, deluded by the mealy mouthed utterances of the “new Saviour,” that it was only by means of a complete union with himself that they could be saved and their sins forgiven them. The unfortunate Gousieva had been only one of many. When she had found it out an intense rage had taken hold of her, which had been further enhanced and strengthened by the monk Illiodore, to whom she had related her misfortune. He had already at the time she sought him out become the deadly enemy of his former friend Rasputin. The miserable woman had lost everything—home, children, husband, relatives—on account of her mad infatuation for the deceiver who had made her forget her duties by the fascination which he had exercised over her weak mind. She swore that she would revenge herself and kill the “Prophet,” so that at least other women could be saved from the awful fate which had befallen her.

After Rasputin had dismissed her she had been compelled to lead a dreadful kind of existence in order to obtain a piece of bread. At last she had become attacked by an awful disease, which had already eaten away a part of her nose and completely disfigured her face. This, too, she attributed to the “Prophet.” In her despair she decided that as she had nothing to lose the best and only thing left for her to do was to try and rid the world from the awful impostor who had caused so much misery, brought about such abominable misfortunes and occasioned so much distress to such a number of innocent women. She had followed Rasputin for a long time in St. Petersburg, but had never been able to approach him near enough to execute her design. But when it had come to her knowledge that he was returning to Pokrovskoie she had taken it as an indication that the Almighty would be with her in the deed which she was contemplating, and she, too, started for the distant Siberian village. There she had spent three days waiting for a favourable opportunity until the morning when she had at last succeeded in getting close enough to him to plant in his body the knife which she had carried about with her for more than two years.

This whole story was related by Gousieva with the utmost composure, and without any hesitation at all. She considered Rasputin as the incarnation of the devil, and she had thought it a good deed to put him out of the way of committing any more evil. For the rest, she did not care what was to become of her. As it was she knew that she had not long to live, and with the illness with which she was afflicted existence in itself was not so sweet that she should sacrifice her revenge in order to retain it. She had had no accomplices, and she had consulted no one. In spite of the efforts which were made to induce her to say that she had acted under the directions and the inspiration of Illiodore, she denied it absolutely, adding that had she spoken to him about her intention she knew that he would have dissuaded her from it and that he might even have warned the police so as to frustrate her design.

In the meanwhile, Rasputin had been carried back to his room and telegrams dispatched everywhere for a doctor. The wound, though deep, was not a serious one and it had not attacked any vital organs. The man was in no danger, but his disciples chose to say that it was a miracle of Providence that he had not succumbed at once under the blow which had been dealt at him. The “Prophet,” when he had felt himself stabbed, had cried out that some one was to “arrest that b——h who had hit him.” Then he caused several telegrams to be sent to his friends in St. Petersburg in which he described the attempt against his life as the work of the devil, who had inspired the woman Gousieva and induced her to commit her abominable action. He added that at the moment when her weapon had touched him he had seen an angel descend from Heaven, stop her arm, and then put a hand on his wound so as to stop it from bleeding, and that it was only due to this direct intervention of the Almighty that he had escaped with his life. Of course, the story was believed by the credulous people who accepted every one of his words as a manifestation of the will of the Lord, and he became more than ever a saint, to whom the people began to raise altars, and to regard in the light of another Saviour come to redeem mankind from the terrors of sin.

In St. Petersburg the news of the attempted assassination of Rasputin had produced an immense impression, and had been commented upon in different ways. Some people saw in it an intervention of the secret police, who had been told to get rid in some way or other of a man who was fast becoming a public nuisance and embarrassment for everybody, even for those who had benefited through their acquaintance with him. Others declared that it was a just punishment for his evil deeds, and that the woman Gousieva had not been badly inspired when she had tried to revenge herself on him for the terrible wrong which he had done to her. Every one was anxious to learn how the news would be received in certain quarters and among the bevy of feminine worshippers whose existence was wrapped up in that of Rasputin. Public curiosity, however, was not destined to be satisfied, because nothing was heard concerning the feelings of these adepts of his on this remarkable occasion.

The only thing which one learned in regard to the whole affair was that two ladies who figured among his most prominent supporters had started at once for Pokrovskoie, and that a celebrated surgeon from Kazan had also been requested to go to see him regardless of what his journey might cost.

The care that was taken of Rasputin soon restored him to his usual health, and he became at once a martyr. When the first moment of fright—and, being a great coward, he had been thoroughly frightened—had passed away, he felt rather satisfied at the fuss which was made about him, and more grateful than anything else to the woman Gousieva for having given him such a splendid opportunity to recover some of his popularity, which he had feared might decrease during his absence from St. Petersburg. The fact that his attempted assassination had brought his name and his person once more prominently before the public pleased him, and his natural cunning made him at once grasp the whole importance of the event and the capital that might be made out of it. He was the first to plead for indulgence for his would-be murderess, perhaps out of fear of the scandal which a trial might produce, a trial during which a lawyer might be found daring enough and enterprising enough to speak openly of the reasons which had driven the accused woman to this act of madness, and to disclose certain episodes in the past existence of the “Prophet” which the latter would not have cared at all to become the property of the public. On the other hand, the authorities, too, felt that a public trial would only cause a most painful sensation, by the mention of names which it was of the highest importance to keep outside the question. The culprit herself insisted upon being brought before a jury, declaring that she had sought publicity and that she would not rest until she had it; that, moreover, she did not intend to be cheated out of her revenge or prevented from exposing the man in whom she saw the most flagrant and daring impostor, a creature for whom nothing in the world was sacred and who would not hesitate at anything in order to come to his ends. She insisted on the fact that she would have rendered a public service to the country had she killed him, and that, whatever happened to her personally, the vengeance of God would one day overtake “Gricha” and his wickedness, and that others would be found who would follow the example which she had given to them and not fail as she had failed.

Gousieva told all this to the examining magistrate to whom had been intrusted the preliminary inquest, and she persisted in her allegations, notwithstanding all the efforts and even the threats which were made to her to induce her to retract her first deposition. The authorities found themselves in a dilemma from which they did not know how to extricate themselves, when Rasputin himself came to their rescue.

“The woman is mad,” he said. “All that she relates is but the ravings of a madwoman. Lock her up in an asylum, and let us hear nothing more about her!”

This piece of advice was considered to be the best possible under the circumstances, and Gousieva was placed first in a hospital for observation and then a few months later adjudged insane by order. She was removed to a madhouse, no one knows exactly where, and there she probably is locked up to this day unless death in some shape or form has overtaken her and removed her forever out of a world which certainly had never proved a kind one for her.

In the meanwhile her victim was mending rapidly, and three weeks after his accident he was removed first to Tobolsk and then to St. Petersburg. His disciples were preparing a great reception for him, and he himself was openly talking of all that he would do on his return and of the revenge which he was going to take on the people to whose influence he attributed the “mad” act of the woman who had attacked him. He made the greatest efforts to connect Illiodore with the attempt of Gousieva, and he was quite furious to see them fail, declaring that when he was once more in the capital he would make it his business to find out whether it was not possible to discover some points of association between the unfrocked monk and the woman whose knife had been raised against him. He further made no secret of his intention to obtain the proofs which he needed, thanks to the intelligence and with the help of his friend Mr. Manassevitsch-Maniuloff. Whether he would have succeeded or not, it is difficult to say, because when Rasputin returned to St. Petersburg and was enabled to visit his friends at Tsarskoie Selo once more, there were other preoccupations which were troubling the public more than anything connected with his individuality. War had broken out with Germany.

CHAPTER VI

It was perhaps a fortunate thing for Rasputin that he was not in St. Petersburg when Germany attacked us so unexpectedly. It is quite probable that if he had found himself in the capital at the time he would have intrigued in so many ways that he might have put even the Sovereign in an embarrassing position, for any hesitations in the decisions of the Government would have been attributed to the influence of the “Prophet.” At this time of national crisis, it certainly would have been a misfortune if anything had occurred likely to endanger the prestige of the dynasty. But in regard to Rasputin himself, it is likely that his absence delayed the conspiracy which resulted in his death, as he was forgotten for the moment, so intensely was public opinion preoccupied with the grave events that were taking place.

Later on, after the disaster of Tannenberg, the friends of the “Prophet,” in order to win back for him some popularity, spread the rumour that he had from his distant Pokrovskoie written to one of his warmest patronesses, Madame W, that he had had a vision during which it had been revealed to him that the Russian armies were to march immediately upon eastern Prussia, where it would be possible to deal a decisive blow at the enemy, and to do so with all their strength. Now this is precisely what was not done, owing to the military misconception of the Russian General Staff, which for political reasons started to proceed to the conquest of Galicia, that could have been delayed with advantage until after the Prussian monster, if not killed, had been at least seriously injured.