THE POTSDAM PLOT DEVELOPS
ABOUT a week after Rasputin's first audience of the Empress Alexandra,
the Bishop Theophanus, confessor of the Imperial family, paid him a visit
at the Poltavskaya.
The Bishop, a big, over-fed man, had a long chat with the Starets in my
presence.
"Her Majesty was very much impressed by you, my dear Grichka," said the
well-known cleric to the man who, having pretended to abandon his
profligate ways, had parted his hair in the middle and become a pilgrim.
"She has daily spoken of you, and you are to be commanded to audience
with the Tsar. Hence I am here to give you some advice."
The "holy" man grinned with satisfaction, knowing how complete had been
the success of Stürmer's plans. At the moment Theophanus was in ignorance
of the deeply laid plot to draw the Empress beneath the spell of the
Starets whom the inferior classes all over Russia--as well as the
well-to-do--believed was leading such a saint-like, ascetic life in
imitation of Christ.
Truly, Grichka dressed the part well, and gave himself the outward
appearance of saintliness and godliness. Even the Bishop was bamboozled
by him, just as Petrograd society was being mystified and electrified by
the rising of "the Divine Protector" of Russia.
Of his doctrine I need not here write. Dark hints of its astonishing
immorality have already leaked out to the world through chattering women
who were members of the cult. My object here is to expose the most subtle
and ingenious plot which the world has known--the Teutonic conspiracy
against our Russian Empire.
Rasputin's "religion" was not a novel one, as is generally supposed. It
was simply a variation conceived by his mystically-inclined mind upon the
one devised by Marcion in the early days of the Christian era. He had
conceived the theory that the only means by which the spirit could be
elevated was to mortify and destroy the flesh.
The Bishop Teofan, or Theophanus, was a mock ascetic, just as was
Rasputin. Bishop Alexis of Kazan, after Rasputin's visit there, had
introduced him to the Rector of the Religious Academy, and already the
mock saint had established a circle of ascetic students, of whom Teofan
and another Starets named Mitia the Blessed (a name derived from Dmitry),
who came from Montenegro, were members. But Rasputin, although the
leader, had entirely imposed upon Teofan.
In all seriousness the Bishop told the Starets of the interest in him
which the Empress had aroused in the mind of the Tsar.
"He is a keen spiritualist, just as is the Empress," said the confessor.
"At Court everyone has heard of your marvellous powers. I can promise you
great success if you carry out the views I will place before you. You
must form a Court circle of disciples. The woman most likely to assist
you is Madame Vyrubova, who, with Mademoiselle Kamensky, is Her Majesty's
greatest confidante."
"Very well, I will meet her. You arrange it."
"To-morrow is Monday, and there will be the usual clerical reception at
the Countess Ignatieff's. I will see that she is there to meet you."
"Excellent, my dear Teofan!" said the "saint." "In this affair we will
help each other. I will form a circle of believers at Court, and
Alexandra Feodorovna shall be at their head."
The fact is that Teofan knew that Rasputin was possessed of a marvellous
hypnotic power, and, being aware of the vogue of hypnotists at Court, saw
in the Starets an able assistant by whom to gain power in the immediate
entourage of Their Majesties. Thus, quite unconsciously, he was
furthering the plans of Kouropatkine and Stürmer, who were receiving
money from Berlin.
Already one of Rasputin's principal disciples was Madame Golovine, the
elder sister of the Grand Duke Paul's morganatic wife, Countess
Hohenfelsen, a woman who had become his most ardent follower, and who
never failed to attend, with her two daughters, the famous séances held
weekly in that big upstairs room.
On the following evening I went with Rasputin to the great house of the
Dowager Countess Ignatieff to attend the usual Monday gathering of
prelates and ascetics, for her salon was a rendezvous for all kinds of
religious cranks, theologians, and people interested in pious works.
Rasputin's unexpected appearance there caused a sensation.
Outside his circle of "disciples" he was unapproachable. The instructions
given me by Boris Stürmer were absolute and precise. The reason that I
was always at the charlatan's right hand was because he could only write
with difficulty, and was therefore unable to make any memoranda. His
letters were the painful efforts of an unlettered mujik, as indeed he
was.
And yet already he had become the most renowned man in the Russian
capital!
Our Empire's quarrel with Japan had not been finally settled. The country
was in a state of serious unrest. While the revolutionary spirit, started
by the death of the girl Vietroff, was seething everywhere, the dynasty
was threatened on every hand. Yet the ever-open eye of the Okhrana was
upon everyone, and arrests of innocent persons were still continuing.
That night the salon of the Countess Ignatieff was responsible for much
concerning the downfall of the Romanoffs. In the great luxurious
drawing-room there were assembled beneath the huge crystal electroliers a
curious, mixed company of the pious and the vicious of the capital. There
was the Metropolitan in his robes and with his great crucifix, Ministers
of State in uniforms with decorations, Actual Privy Councillors and their
wives, and dozens of underlings in their gaudy tinsel, prelates with
crosses at their necks, and women of all classes, from the highest
aristocracy to the painted sister of the higher demi-monde.
The gathering was characteristic of Petrograd in those times of Russia's
decadence, when Germany was preparing for war. The fight with Japan had
already been engineered through Kouropatkine as a preliminary to the
betrayal and smashing of our Empire.
Of the conflict with the Mikado I have no concern. My pen is taken up in
order to reveal what I know regarding the astounding plots conceived in
Potsdam and executed in Petrograd, in order fearlessly to expose those
who were traitors to their country, and to whom the _débâcle_ of 1917 was
due.
In that great well-lit saloon, crowded by religious personages of all
kinds, the old Dowager Countess Ignatieff, in stiff black silk, came
forward to receive the popular Starets as the newest star in Russia's
religious firmament. With Stürmer behind him to advise and to plot, aided
by an obscure civil servant named Protopopoff--who afterwards became
Minister of the Interior and a spy of Germany--the "saint" never held
himself cheap. That was one of the secrets of his astounding career.
Though he possessed no education and could scarcely trace his own name,
he possessed the most acute brain of any lawyer or banker in Petrograd.
In every sense he was abnormal, just as abnormal as Joan of Arc, Saint
Anthony, Saint Francis, or a dozen others who have been beatified.
The rheumatic old countess, after shaking hands with us both, introduced
us to a dozen other persons around her. Suddenly she said:
"Ah! Here is my dear friend the Lady-of-the-Court Anna Vyrubova. Allow me
to introduce you, Father."
The Starets instantly crossed his hands piously over his breast and bowed
before a good-looking, sleek-faced woman of forty, who was elegantly
dressed, and who greeted him with a humorous smile. Having heard much of
the woman's scandalous past, I naturally regarded her with considerable
curiosity. She was a woman of destiny. Petrograd had not long before been
agog with the scandal following her marriage with a young naval officer,
who had gone to the Baltic, and unexpectedly returning to his wife's room
in the palace at Tsarskoe-Selo, had been shut out by the Empress herself.
The husband had afterwards died in mysterious circumstances, which had
been hushed up by the police, and madame had remained as the personal
attendant upon Her Majesty with her inseparable friend Zéneide Kamensky.
As I watched the monk's meeting with this woman of adventure, I saw that
he had at once fascinated her, just as completely as he had hypnotised
her Imperial mistress. She stood before him, using her small black fan
slowly, for the room was overpoweringly hot, and began to chat, assuring
him that she had for a long time been desirous of meeting him.
As I stood beside Rasputin I heard him say, in that humble manner which
always attracted society women:
"And, O Lady, I have heard of thee often. It is with sincere pleasure
that I gaze upon thy face and speak with thee. It is God's will--let Him
be thanked for this our meeting."
The blasphemy of it all appalled me. I knew of certain deep plots in
progress, and I watched the handsome lady-in-waiting, with whom the monk
crossed the room, nodding self-consciously to the bishops, prelates, and
mock-pious scoundrels of all sorts, with their female victims. I held my
breath in wonder.
As I followed I saw Stürmer, the goat-bearded traitor, standing chatting
to a pretty young girl in turquoise blue. Then I overheard Madame
Vyrubova say to the Starets:
"I came here to-night, Father, especially to meet you. Her Majesty gave
me a message. She is in despair. She requires your help, prayers, and
advice."
"Ah! my dear lady, I regret; I am fully alive to the high honours which
our Tsaritza has done me to command me to Court. But my sphere is with
the poor. My life is with them--for their benefit and guidance."
"I bear you a message," said the well-preserved woman of whom a thousand
tongues had gossiped evilly in Petrograd. "To-morrow the Empress expects
you informally. She will take no refusal."
"Refusal--how can I refuse my Empress?" he replied. "I can beg of her to
excuse me. I have to attend a meeting in the lowest quarter of the city
to-morrow among those who await me. And in the evening I go upon a
pilgrimage. Her Majesty will not begrudge the poor my ministrations.
Please tell her this. My sphere, as designed by God, is with the masses
and not in the Imperial Palace."
That was all I overheard. Stürmer called me aside to whisper, and as he
did so I saw that the Starets had at once become surrounded by women, of
whom he always became the centre of attraction, with hands crossed so
humbly over his breast.
His refusal to go to Court was in accordance with his extraordinary
intuition and acumen, though his meeting with the woman Vyrubova marked
another milestone in the history of Russia's betrayal.
The days passed. The world was, of course, in ignorance, but we in the
Poltavskaya, the monk and myself, knew of the despatch of Admiral
Rozhdestvensky's blundering fleet on its voyage half-way round the world,
how he was ordered to fire upon anything he saw in the North Sea, and
how, as soon came out, he fired upon some of your British trawlers on
the Dogger Bank, for which our Government paid quite willingly sixty-five
thousand pounds in compensation.
But let the first war-chapter of Russia's history pass. With it Rasputin
had but little to do. The person who, unwilling or not, carried out the
will of Potsdam's Kaiser was the Empress Alexandra. And having done so
she, with her curious nature, suddenly turned from gay to grave. She
became strange in her conduct and discarded her wonderful Paris gowns--in
which, by the way, she was eclipsed by "Liane," the dark-haired diva of
the Paris _cafés chantants_, in whom Nicholas II. took such a very
paternal interest.
Time after time I had been present when Stürmer and Rasputin, chuckling
over the undoubted success of their conspiracy, discussed the situation.
Since Her Majesty had met the rascal monk at Tsarskoe-Selo she had never
appeared in public. On certain occasions, when a Court pageant or
function had to be held according to custom and the calendar, it was the
Emperor's mother who, with her well-known charm and honesty, received the
guests. Excuses were made for Alexandra Feodorovna's non-appearance. The
truth was that the Empress, full of spiritualistic beliefs, had suddenly
developed a religious mania, centred around the amazing personality of
the mock monk.
Thrice had Her Majesty sent him commands through her pro-German puppet
Fredericks, and thrice he, at Stürmer's suggestion, refused to comply.
This illiterate Siberian monk, ex-horse-thief and betrayer of women,
actually disregarded the Imperial order! He had declared himself to be
the saviour of Russia, and greater than the Romanoffs.
"The Empress is furious!" declared the Bishop Teofan one day as, with his
heavy bejewelled cross upon his breast and wearing clothes of the richest
texture, he sat with the rascal in his den. "Sometimes she is in anger,
at others in despair. Anna Vyrubova is frantic. Why do you not come to
audience?"
"She promised that I should see Nicholas," was the reply. "After I have
spoken with him I will see her. It does a woman good to wait."
"I agree, but your refusal may be stretched too far," said the Bishop.
"None will tell the truth concerning her," Rasputin said. "I hear on one
hand that she thinks herself too fat and is taking the 'Entfettungscur'
against the advice of the Court physician. Others say that she has eczema
and dare not show her face, while others say she is mad. What is the
truth?"
"Come and ascertain for yourself."
"Her devotion is that of a fanatic--I take it?"
"Exactly. She lives only for the entertainment of monks and pilgrims. You
are lucky, my dear Grichka. Madame Vyrubova was evidently entranced by
you at Countess Ignatieff's. She will do your bidding. Only, I beg of you
to come to Court."
The charlatan, however, steadily refused the Bishop's advice. Instead, he
left Petrograd that night alone, and went away to his wife and
sister-disciples at Pokrovsky, in Siberia.
For more than two months he was absent from Petrograd. One day a frantic
message came to me over the telephone from Madame Vyrubova, who inquired
the whereabouts of the Starets.
"The Father has gone to his convent at Pokrovsky, Madame," I replied.
"What!" she gasped. "Gone to Siberia! Why, Her Majesty is daily expecting
him here at the Palace. When will he return?"
"I regret, Madame, that I cannot say," was my reply. "He has told me
nothing."
"Will you please take a confidential message to Boris Stürmer for me?"
she asked. And when I replied in the affirmative, she went on:
"Please go at once to him and ask him to come to the Palace this evening
without fail. I am very anxious to see him concerning a highly important
matter. A carriage will meet the train which arrives at seven-thirty."
I promised to carry out the wishes of the Tsaritza's favourite
lady-in-waiting, and half an hour later called upon Stürmer at his fine
house in the Kirotshnaya, where I delivered the message.
During the next few weeks I merely called at the Poltavskaya each morning
for the monk's letters, which I opened and dealt with at my leisure.
His correspondence was truly amazing. The letters were mostly from
wealthy female devotees, missives usually couched in pious language. Some
contained confessions of the most private nature, and asking the Father's
advice and blessing. All these latter he had given me strict instructions
carefully to preserve. Any letter which contained self-condemnation by
its writer, or any confession of sin, was therefore carefully put away,
after being duly replied to. At the time, it did not occur to me that the
impostor ever intended to allow them to see the light of day, and,
indeed, it was not until several years later that I discovered that he
was using them for the purpose of extracting large sums from women who
preferred to pay the blackmail he levied rather than have their secrets
exposed to their sweet-hearts or husbands.
While Rasputin, having thrown off his cloak of piety, was leading a
dissolute life in far-off Pokrovsky, and refusing to obey the Empress's
repeated invitations, the guns of Peter and Paul one day boomed forth
salvo after salvo, announcing to the world that the prayer uttered by the
Starets before our Lady of Kazan had been granted.
An heir had been born to the Romanoffs!
There was but little public rejoicing, however, for Russia was, at the
moment, plunged into grief over the disastrous result of her attack upon
Japan. Nevertheless, the event more than ever impressed upon the neurotic
Empress that Grichka was possessed of some mysterious and divine
influence. Her Majesty believed entirely in his saintliness, and her
faith in the power of his prayers was complete. God had granted his
prayer and sent an heir to the Romanoffs because of his purity and
perfect piety. Already she was wondering whether, in some mysterious way,
the child's life was not linked with that of the holy Father whom the
Almighty had sent to protect her son's existence.
Because of this the Empress sent to Rasputin, at Pokrovsky, a number of
telegrams, which eventually the monk gave over to me to docket and put
away with the incriminating letters of his foolish and fascinated
admirers. The women of Russia, from the Empress to the lowly
superstitious peasant, were now at the charlatan's feet.
One telegram from Alexandra Feodorovna read as follows:
"Father and Protector of our House, why do you refuse to come and
give us comfort? God has given the Romanoffs an heir, and we
desire your counsel and your prayers. Do, I beg of you, return to
sustain us with your presence. When we met our conversation
remained unfinished. I confess that I doubted then, but I now
believe. Make haste and come at once to us. From your
sister--ALEXANDRA."
Of this appeal the Starets took no notice. He preferred the society of
his sister-disciples at Pokrovsky to that of the Tsaritza. Besides, was
it not part of his clever plan to place the Empress beneath his influence
by bringing her to the brink of despair? He had not yet met Nicholas II.,
and it was his intention to place his amazing and mysterious grip upon
him also at the crucial moment. So again the Empress sent him a
communication--a letter written in her own hand, and delivered by one of
the Imperial couriers.
"Why do you still hesitate?" she asked. "I sent you word by Anna
[Madame Vyrubova] that I desired eagerly to see you again. Your
good works are to-day in everyone's mouth. All at Court are
speaking of you and your beautiful soul-inspiring religion, of
which I am anxious to know more details from your own lips. It
is too cruel of you to sever yourself from Petrograd when all are
longing for your presence. What can I do in order to induce you
to come? Ask of me anything, and your wish shall be granted. Do
reply.--ALEXANDRA."
Again he treated her invitation with contempt, for following this, ten
days later, she sent him another telegram:
"If you still refuse to come I will send Anna to you to try and
induce you to reconsider the situation. Nicholas is extremely
anxious to consult you. Father, I again implore you to come to
us.--A."
Rasputin, who had created such a favourable impression upon the
lady-in-waiting Vyrubova, certainly had no intention of allowing her to
go to Pokrovsky and see the sordid home which Russia believed to be a
wonderful "monastery," and to which Petrograd society had subscribed so
freely. He therefore sent Her Majesty a message--the first response she
extracted--to the effect that he was leaving for Petrograd as soon as it
was possible to fulfil his Divine "call."
In the meantime I had been introduced by Boris Stürmer, whom I met almost
daily, to Stolypin, a friend of Rasputin's principal disciple in
Petrograd, Madame Golovine, and to Monsieur Raeff, who afterwards, by
Rasputin's influence, received the appointment of Procurator of the Holy
Synod. At Stürmer's fine house there were, in the absence of the Starets,
constant meetings of Raeff, General Kurloff, the Chief of the Political
Police, and a beetle-browed official named Kschessinski, who was director
of that secret department of State known as "the Black Cabinet," a suite
of rooms in the central postal bureau in Petrograd, where one's
correspondence was daily under examination for the benefit of the corrupt
Ministers and their place-seeking underlings. In addition, at these
dinners, followed by the secret conferences, there attended a certain
smart, well-set-up officer named Miassoyedeff, a colonel stationed at
Wirballen on the East Prussia frontier, and who had received gracious
invitations from the Kaiser to go shooting and to hob-nob with him. This
man afterwards became a spy of Germany, as I will later on reveal.
Kurloff, as head of the Political Police, had, before my appointment as
secretary to the Starets, been my superior, and therefore I well knew the
wheels within the wheels of his department. Naturally he was
hand-in-glove with the director of the Black Cabinet, the doings of which
would require a whole volume to themselves, and to me it was evident that
some further great and deep laid plot was in progress, of which Rasputin
was to be the head director.
One day in the Nevski I met Mitia the Blessed, the Starets who ran
Rasputin so closely in the public favour. I saw he was hopelessly
intoxicated, and was being followed by a crowd of jeering urchins. I did
not, however, know that Stürmer and his friends had arranged this
disgraceful exhibition of unholiness in order to discredit and destroy
Grichka's rival. Five minutes later I met the Bishop Theophanus walking
with the Procurator of the Holy Synod, who, like myself, witnessed the
degrading sight, and from that moment Mitia the Blessed no longer
exercised power, and was not further invited to the salons of those
mystical members of the aristocracy. He had been swept into oblivion in a
single day.
Rasputin at last returned, forced to do so by the determined attitude of
the Empress, who without doubt was suffering from serious religious
mania, as well as an acute form of neurotic heart disease. The monk
arrived quite unexpectedly at the Poltavskaya, and rang me up on the
telephone late one evening.
The Bishop Theophanus was, I found, with him. He knew of his arrival, and
had come from Peterhof to meet him and urge him to go next day and see
the Empress.
"If it is thy wish, I will," replied the "saint" with some reluctance,
for he knew too well that already he wielded an unbounded influence over
the Tsaritza. The fellow whose record was the worst imaginable, and
whose very nickname, "Rasputin," meant in Russian "the dissolute," was
regarded by the Empress as possessed of divine power, and as saviour of
Russia and protector of the Imperial family and its heir.
"I hear that Alexis, Bishop of Kazan, has turned your enemy, and has
written to the Holy Synod regarding your questionable monastery at
Pokrovsky," remarked Theophanus. "It is very regrettable."
"Bah! my dear friend. I have no fear," declared the man whose vanity was
so overweening. "Soon you will see that Nicholas himself will do my
bidding. I shall play the tune, and he will dance. All appointments will,
ere long, be in my hands, and I will place one of our friends as
Procurator of the Holy Synod."
At the moment I was inclined to laugh at such bombastic assertion.
Little, indeed, did I dream that within twelve months his prophecy would
be fulfilled, and that the ex-horse-stealer, whose secretary I had
become, would actually rule Russia through the lethargic weakling who sat
upon the throne as Tsar Nicholas II.
A week later I accompanied the Starets to have his first audience with
His Majesty the Emperor at the Palace of Peterhof, that wonderful
Imperial residence where the great Samson Fountain in gilded bronze
throws up from the lion's jaws a thick jet seventy feet high, in
imitation of Versailles, and where nearly six hundred servants were
employed in various capacities. We passed the Marly Pond, where the carp
were called by the ringing of a bell, and the Marly Cascade, where water
runs over twenty gilded marble steps. Truly, the beauties of Peterhof
were a revelation to the Starets and myself. On the previous day he had
had audience of the Empress at Tsarskoe-Selo, but I had not been present,
therefore I remained in ignorance of what had transpired. All I know is
that he returned home and drank a whole bottle of champagne to himself,
in full satisfaction--not that he cared for the wine, for his peasant
taste favoured the fiery vodka.
On entering Peterhof we were met by the valet Tchernoff, who greeted
Rasputin very warmly with some meaning words, and said:
"His Majesty is in his private cabinet expecting you. Come."
Another valet took our hats and overcoats, and then Tchernoff led us up a
great flight of marble stairs, and on through nearly a dozen panelled
rooms with historic portraits, much like those I had once passed through
at Fontainebleau, until he entered the blue drawing-room, a great,
old-fashioned, eighteenth-century apartment adorned by a number of
magnificent pictures by Saltzmann.
Your British public have never truly realised the gorgeousness of the
Palace at Peterhof, or the fact that in the Imperial service at the
various residences there were no fewer than four thousand domestics, most
of them useless and all uniformed. The "Arabys," imported especially from
Abyssinia, and who wore fantastically embroidered blue and gold uniforms
with a great crimson sash, and a kind of turban upon their heads, were
simply well-paid puppets, who added pomp to the gorgeous salons, the
doors of which they guarded.
As we passed through the great rooms on our way to the Tsar's private
cabinet, a hundred servants and officials bowed to us, but Rasputin
remained quite unimpressed. He was possessed of a most astounding
intuition, and he knew that by his mystical practices, his mock piety,
and by apparently ignoring the Imperial pair that success was assured.
At last we stood before the door of the autocrat's room, which Tchernoff
threw open unceremoniously, when we were confronted by His Majesty, who
wore a rough tweed shooting-suit, presenting anything but an Imperial
figure. I had expected to see him in uniform, like the thousand and one
pictures which purport to represent him, instead of which I found a very
ordinary-looking, bearded man, with deep-set eyes, a wan countenance, and
rather lank hair. He was square-built, a trifle below the medium height,
and a man whom, had you passed him in the Nevski, you might have taken
for a Jew tailor or a small tradesman. But the room itself was a
beautiful one, like all the apartments in Peterhof, semicircular in
shape, with a great bay window looking out upon the wonderful fountains,
all of which were throwing up their jets, with a great vista of greenery
beyond.
The Tsar bowed as the Starets, crossing himself, bestowed his blessing
upon him. The owner of twenty palaces and seven hundred million acres of
land turned his eyes to the carpet humbly as the mock saint uttered those
words of incomprehensible jargon which half Russia believed to be
inspired by the Divine will.
When Rasputin spoke His Majesty seemed cowed and thoughtful. Over his
whole frame was written fear and exhaustion. His voice was hollow when he
replied, and his glance was full of anticipation. At every gesture of the
Starets he seemed startled.
Was it any wonder when one recollected, so many were the plots against
the dynasty, that at the moment he had removed from Tsarskoe-Selo, where
a gang of a thousand men were engaged in digging deep trenches around the
palace because the Okhrana had got wind of a desperate plot to tunnel
beneath the Imperial residence and blow it up together with its Imperial
occupiers.
His Majesty addressed the Starets as "thee" and "thou."
"I know, Father, that thou art our guide and saviour," said the autocrat,
when together we were seated in the window, Rasputin explaining that he
always took me with him in order that I might take mental notes of
conversations and decisions.
"Féodor is mute," he added. "And he is part of myself."
Then His Majesty referred to Rasputin's "miracles" which he had performed
in Warsaw, Kiev, and other places, mere conjuring tricks which had held
the peasants speechless in amazement.
"Theophanus has told us of them. Thou hast healed the sick and cured the
lame," said His Majesty. "Truly, thou art greater in Russia than
myself."
"Pardon, your Majesty," replied the impostor humbly, "I am but God's
messenger, but thou art Tsar. It is not for me to exert authority, only
to pray unceasingly for the Empire and for the well-being of its Imperial
House. Theophanus hath, I hope, told thee that I seek no emoluments, no
advancement, no favour, no honour; I am but the humble Starets--a pilgrim
who hopes one day to see Mount Athos, there to retire in devotion."
"Theophanus has told me much," said the Emperor. "He has told me how at
spiritualistic séances thou canst work thy will with our departed, and
how at the house of our dear Stürmer not long ago thou didst obtain
communication with the spirit of my dear father Alexander. Truly, thy
powers are great, and we have need of thee. Why didst thou refuse to come
to us even though the Empress sent thee so many commands?"
"Because, as I have replied to Her Majesty, I am no courtier. My work
lies in the homes of the poor, not in the palaces."
"Ah, no," laughed the autocrat with good humour. "Thou art truly sent to
us to save Russia. Thy place is here, in our own home."
I drew a long breath when I heard the Tsar pronounce those words, for
they showed quite plainly the strong, invincible grip the impostor had,
by posing with unconcern, already obtained upon the Imperial family and
the Court.
The Starets crossed himself, and again bowed. I was amazed to witness the
crass ignorance and astounding superstition displayed by the Emperor of
Russia, whom all Europe believed to be a progressive, wideawake monarch.
That he possessed a spiritualistic kink, as did also his German wife, was
quite apparent. Any bogus medium or charlatan could easily impose upon
him. A dozen men and women who, by their vagaries and pretended powers,
had brought psychic studies into ridicule, had given séances before the
Emperor, and had told him things which his crafty entourage had already
paid them to "reveal."
On the night of the declaration of war with Japan, Kouropatkine brought
to Peterhof the French medium Jules Verrier, who received a handsome fee
for pretending to get into touch with the spirit of Peter the Great, who
declared that Russia, in declaring war, had carried out his wishes. And
Nicholas was at once in high glee, and mightily enthusiastic to know that
his historic ancestor approved of his action.
The Imperial Court was full of frauds, traitors, and sycophants. In all
of them Nicholas had the fullest confidence, while his wife was possessed
of certain knowledge which sometimes caused her to discriminate.
The commonplace-looking man in tweeds, who was the entire reverse of
one's idea of an Emperor, grew confidential, and it was plain that he was
quite as much impressed by Grichka as the Empress had been, for
throughout the audience the monk had used to the full his inexplicable
hypnotic power.
"Our good Theophanus and Helidor favour us with their counsel, but,
Father, thou hast our most complete confidence. I beg of thee to grant
the Empress another interview to-morrow, for she is daily longing for
counsel from thee. I will fix the audience. So, as our friend, please
keep the appointment. But before we part I wish to grant to thee any
request that thou mayest desire--any appointment or advancement of any
friend. Speak, and thy wish shall be at once granted."
The monk reflected. It was, indeed, the moment of his first triumph.
"I have a young and extremely able friend named Protopopoff in the
Ministry of the Interior," he replied. "He is a loyal son of Russia, and
a pious believer. Cannot he be advanced?"
"He shall be. I will make a note of the name," and turning to his desk,
he scribbled it upon the blotting-pad with a stubby pencil, repeating the
words:
"Protopopoff--in the Ministry of the Interior."
And such was the manner in which the man who was the most audacious spy
that Germany employed in Russia was placed in the path of advancement,
subsequently in 1915 becoming Minister in his own Department, and
betraying his country for German gold.
Truly, the Potsdam plot was rapidly maturing, and its amazing
ramifications I intend to disclose.