Rasputin the Rascal Monk
Disclosing the Secret Scandal of the Betrayal of Russia by the mock-monk
Grichka and the consequent ruin of the Romanoffs. With official
documents revealed and recorded for the first time..
By William Le Queux
Published by Hurst & Blackett, Limited, Paternoster House, London EC.
Rasputin the Rascal Monk, by William Le Queux.
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RASPUTIN THE RASCAL MONK, BY WILLIAM LE QUEUX.
PREFACE.
WHY THIS BOOK IS WRITTEN.
In the following pages I have attempted to take the reader behind the
veil of the Imperial Russian Court, and to disclose certain facts which,
in this twentieth century, may appear almost incredible.
As one who knows Russia, who has traversed the Empire from Virballen to
the Pacific coast, and who has met personally both the ex-Emperor and
his consort, as well as many of the persons herein mentioned, I confess
that I myself have often been astounded when examining the mass of
documents which this dirty Siberian peasant--the convicted horse-stealer
who rose to be the secret adviser of Nicholas II--had happily secreted
in the safe in his cellar in the Gorokhovaya, in Petrograd, so that the
real truth of his traitorous dealings with the Kaiser might be
chronicled in history.
I had hoped to be able to reproduce many of the cipher telegrams and
letters in facsimile, but the present shortage of paper has precluded
this, and it could only be done if this book were issued in expensive
form.
To me, it seems best that the British public should have access to it in
a cheap and popular form, and hence I have abandoned the idea of
facsimiles.
I here publish the story of the mock-monk's amazing career as a further
contribution to the literature upon Germany's spy system and propaganda
so cleverly established as an insidious adjunct to her military attack
upon the civilisation of our times.
The conversations herein recorded have been disclosed by patriotic
Russians, the truth has been winnowed out of masses of mere hearsay, and
the cipher telegrams and letters I have copied from the de-coded
originals placed at my disposal by certain Russians, Allies of ours, who
desire, for the present, to remain anonymous.
William Le Queux.
Devonshire Club, London, S.W.
November, 1917.
CHAPTER ONE.
THE CULT OF THE "SISTER-DISCIPLES."
The war has revealed many strange personalities in Europe, but surely
none so sinister or so remarkable as that of the mock-monk Gregory
Novikh--the middle-aged, uncleanly charlatan, now happily dead, whom
Russia knew as Rasputin.
As one whose duty it was before the war to travel extensively backwards
and forwards across the face of Europe, in order to make explorations
into the underworld of the politics of those who might be our friends--
or enemies as Fate might decide--I heard much of the drunken, dissolute
scoundrel from Siberia who, beneath the cloak of religion and
asceticism, was attracting a host of silly, neurotic women because he
had invented a variation of the many new religions known through all the
ages from the days of Rameses the Great.
On one occasion, three years before the world-crisis, I found myself at
the obscure little fishing-village called Alexandrovsk, on the Arctic
shore, a grey rock-bound place into which the black chill waves sweep
with great violence and where, for four months in the year, it is
perpetual night. To-day, Alexandrovsk is a port connected with
Petrograd by railway, bad though it be, which passes over the great
marshy tundra, and in consequence has been of greatest importance to
Russia since the war.
While inspecting the quays which had then just been commenced, my friend
Volkhovski, the Russian engineer, introduced me to an unkempt
disreputable-looking "pope" with remarkable steel-grey eyes, whose
appearance was distinctly uncleanly, and whom I dismissed with a few
polite words.
"That is Grichka (pronounced Greesh-ka), the miracle-worker!" my friend
explained after he had ambled away. "He is one of the very few who has
access to the Tsar at any hour."
"Why?" I asked, instantly interested in the mysterious person whose
very name the Russian Censor would never allow to be even mentioned in
the newspapers.
My friend shrugged his broad shoulders and grinned. "Many strange
stories are told of him in Moscow and in Petrograd," he said. "No doubt
you have heard of his curious new religion, of his dozen wives of noble
birth who live together far away in Pokrovsky!"
I glanced back at the receding shock-haired figure in the long black
clerical coat and high boots, little dreaming that I had met the
mock-Saint whose evil influence was to cause the downfall of the
Imperial House of Romanoff.
Strange it is that to-day I have before me the amazing official reports
of his career from revolutionary and private sources--reports from which
I intend to here set out certain astounding facts.
First, it is quite beyond question that the Pravoslavny Church, with its
malign influences and filthy practices, is, in the main, responsible for
Gregory Novikh's success as a worker of bogus "miracles." The
evil-minded libertine upon whom his fellow-villagers in Pokrovsky, in
the Siberian Province of Tobolsk, bestowed the name of Rasputin (or in
Russian, "Ne'er-do-well-son)," was a fisherman who possessed an
inordinate fondness for the village lasses, and also for vodka. A mere
illiterate mujik, disgusting in his habits and bestial in his manners,
he grew lazy and dissolute, taking to theft and highway-robbery, for
which, according to the official report of the Court of Tobolsk, before
me, he was imprisoned twice, and a third time was publicly flogged and
so degraded that he was compelled to bid farewell to Pokrovsky, much to
the relief of the villagers. Behind him he left a peasant wife, a
little son, named Dmitri, and two daughters. He also left behind him a
handsome young peasant woman known as Guseva, a person who was destined
to contribute a few years later in no small measure to his dramatic
death. Sins always follow the sinners.
After a year or two of wandering as a rogue and vagabond, committing
thefts where he could, and betraying any woman he came across, he
suddenly conceived the brilliant idea of posing as a "holy man." This
idea came to him because, while in Pokrovsky, he had had as boon
companion and fellow-drunkard a certain market-gardener who had joined
the Pravoslavny Church and is to-day by his influence actually a bishop!
In most Eastern countries, especially in India and China, there are many
wandering "holy men," and modern Russia is no exception. To lead a
"gospel life" of endless pilgrimages to "holy" places and to collect
money for nonexistent charities appealed to the fellow as an easy mode
of lazy sensual self-indulgence. Therefore he adopted it, being aided
by the ex-market-gardener, who was already in the Church. So both
prospered exceedingly well.
Rasputin had by this time discovered himself possessed of quite
extraordinary powers. Indeed a report upon him written by a great
Russian alienist who knew him intimately, has recently reached London,
and from its voluminous pages which I have had before me, I gather that
both physiologically and psychically he was abnormal, while his natural
hypnotic influence was marked by the rare power he possessed of being
able to contract the pupils of his steel-grey eyes at will, regardless
of sunlight or shadow. Few persons can do this. It is a sign well
known to alienists that the person is a criminal degenerate. Rasputin
never smiled, even when he drank heavily. He could consume three
bottles of champagne and still be quite sober! With vodka, his
favourite spirit, he became talkative, but never indiscreet. He was a
lunatic of an intensely erotic type; a satyr who possessed a truly
appalling influence over women of all ages, and even at his word men in
high positions did not hesitate to cast off their brilliant uniforms and
decorations and mortify their flesh!
From this man, crafty, cunning and elusive, a fiendish satyr whose
hypnotic influence was irresistible, no woman, however high-born,
high-minded, or highly religious was safe. He lived upon his wits, and
lived well. With that amazing cunning usual in such criminals he
affected a deep piety, so that at the various monasteries where he
sought hospitality he was welcomed. In Russia many of the religious
houses still unfortunately savour of the most disgraceful debauchery, as
they did in England before the Reformation, and at such institutions
Rasputin became a popular figure. At certain convents the mock-monk,
with the connivance of the Pravoslavny Church, was eagerly entertained
by the dissolute nuns, more especially at Novo Tchevkask, on the Don, as
well as at Viatka, and at Saratov, in Kasan.
From the convent of Novo Dievichy (The Convent of the Virgins) near the
last-mentioned town, a great place which overlooks the Volga half way to
Wolgsk, some terrible scandals leaked out, when the Mother-Superior,
probably to save herself from the public indignation, brought in four
sturdy mujiks from the countryside, who pitched the "Saint" out into the
road, and administered such a severe kicking that the "Holy Father"--as
the Tsaritza afterwards called him--could only creep about in pain for
many days after!
Two months later, according to a report countersigned by Paul
Dragomrioff, superintendent of the Secret Police of Moscow--a screed
which, being somewhat ill-written, is difficult of translation--Rasputin
was in that city. I here quote from it:--
"Report of Ivan Obroutcheff, Police-agent, Number 1287, of the 2nd
Division, Secret Police, stationed at Moscow. April 2nd:--
"According to instructions from Police Headquarters, I visited at orders
of Superintendent Dragomrioff, Number 136, Tverskaia, next to
Loukonture's papier-mache factory at 1:35 a.m. to-day. I there found in
a carpeted but barely furnished room an assembly of the cult of the
Naked Believers kneeling before the monk, Gregory Novikh. Twenty-eight
persons, all being women, fourteen of them ladies of birth and
education, were present, and as I entered with my eight assistants the
`holy man' stood at the lectern, reading passages from the Gospel of St
Luke, interspersed with his own exhortations of the trials of the flesh.
The walls of the room were decorated with disgusting pictures of a
nature which would shock the modesty of all but the _demi-monde_, while
behind the monk Novikh hung a copy of the Holy Ikon of Novgorod.
"In accordance with instructions all present were arrested after they
had dressed, and I ordered them to be conducted to the Central Police
Bureau, where their names and addresses were taken, and they were
interrogated singly. Most of the midnight worshippers expressed
indignation, and more especially the `Saint' Rasputin, who demanded in
the name of the Tsar that he might telegraph to the Empress. My
superior officer, Nemiloff, Chief of Secret Police of Moscow, could not
deny him this privilege. The result has been that by eleven o'clock
next day an order came from the Tsar for the release of all the
prisoners, and orders that no facts should be permitted to appear in the
Press. Grichka has left for the capital by the 4:15 express this
afternoon.
"Signed: Ivan Obroutcheff."
The report above quoted shows Rasputin in the early stages of his
shameless debauchery. In London we have had the notorious Swami, with
her male accomplice, practising similar acts upon innocent girls, but in
Moscow the drunken and verminous monk with his hair-shirt, a rope around
his waist and sandals upon his bulging feet, had attracted a select
_coterie_ of society women, daughters and wives of some of the greatest
nobles of Russia, who, in secret and with gold in their hands, vowed
themselves as docile followers of this Siberian fisherman whom nature
had equipped as a satyr of such a type that happily none has ever been
known in Britain in all its glorious years of history.
I readily admit that the career of Grichka, the man whose name the
Censor does not allow to be mentioned, the sinister power that later on
so suddenly appeared behind the Russian throne and whose true story I am
here revealing, will appear incredible to my readers. I have written
many works of fiction which some, of you may have read. But no work of
mine has ever contained facts so extraordinary as the real life of this
unwashed charlatan who, under the active protection of his debauched
Church--and I write here with a true and reverent sense of our Christian
religion--succeeded in establishing himself in the apartments of the
favourite lady-in-waiting upon the Empress, and further, to teach his
horrible "religion" to the innocent daughters of the Tsar in turn!
Much has already appeared in the newspapers regarding the sturdy unkempt
rogue, but the greater part of it has emanated from the brains of
writers who have not had access to official documents.
In these present articles my intention is to tell the British public the
bare unvarnished truth culled from documentary evidence at my disposal,
and to leave them to form their own conclusions. Russia, our great
Ally, is, alas, still mysterious and much behind the times. True, she
has a press, a Duma, and many modern social institutions. Yet her
civilisation is only upon the surface. The Empire is, unfortunately,
still the same as England was under the Tudors, an underworld of
profligacy, plotting, and strange superstitions. The latter have, of
course, been recently revived in London, as is proved by the prosecution
of the fortune-tellers of Regent Street and St John's Wood. Again,
were not the scandals of the "Abode of Love" much the same as that of
Rasputin's dozen-wived harem which he established in Pokrovsky?
The criminal records of Holy Russia teem with amazing stories of this
"holy" scoundrel who from a drunken Siberian fisherman rose, by erotic
suggestion, to become the greatest consolation to the Empress, and the
lever by which "Nikki the Autocrat" was flung from his throne.
I remember how, when in Sofia, in the pre-war days with Sir George
Buchanan, then our Minister to Bulgaria, and now ambassador to Russia, a
cultured and clever diplomat to whom Great Britain owes more than she
can ever know, and hence cannot acknowledge, we discussed the mystery of
Russia and of the subtle influences near the Throne.
Little did either of us dream that he would now be ambassador to the
Russian Court, and I would be writing this exposure of the evil life of
the blasphemous satyr Rasputin.
The cult established by the pilgrimages of this illiterate peasant grew
apace. The "holy father" whose disgraceful past is recorded in the
police _dossiers_ at Tyumen and Tobolsk had, by his astounding power of
hypnotism, gathered around him a crowd of "Sister-disciples," mostly of
the upper and leisured classes, to whom the new religion of nature
strongly appealed.
Upon his constant pilgrimages to Jaroslav, Vologda, Vitebsk, Orel and
other places, he made converts everywhere. He declared that no woman
could obtain favour of the Almighty without first committing sexual sin,
because that sin was the one which was forgiven above all others. At
his weekly seances at which, strange to say, the highest born ladies in
the Empire attended in secret, the most disgraceful scenes were
witnessed, the dirty unwashed monk, a most repellent creature to all
save his "disciples," acting as the high-priest of this erotic
sisterhood.
Soon the disgusting rogue began to perform "miracles." Into his
confidence he took a young man named Ilya Kousmitch--who, be it said,
afterwards made certain statements to those who at last meted out
justice and who provided me with certain details--and with the young
fellow's connivance he succeeded in bamboozling a number of perfectly
respectable and honest women in Petrograd, as well as in Moscow and
Kiev, where he effected some really mysterious "cures."
In one instance at the house of a certain Madame Litvinoff, in the
Sergiyevskaya, the most fashionable quarter of Petrograd, the man known
as "the Stareb," or "Grichka," held a select meeting of his followers.
The shameless charlatan treated the ladies who had assembled to worship
him and to contribute lavishly to his imaginary charities, with the
greatest disdain and most brutal contempt. This man, guilty of the most
appalling vices, addressed them as usual in a strange illiterate jumble,
urging them to follow the new religion which he called "the trial of the
flesh," interspersing his remarks with occult jargon from works upon
black magic, interlarded with those self-same scriptural quotations
which will be found marked in that big Bible used by the Swami and her
fellow-criminal--a volume now preserved in the Black Museum at Scotland
Yard.
One of the women present, a certain Baroness Korotki, was suffering from
acute rheumatism. The "Saint" placed his hands upon her, looked into
her eyes with that intense unwavering stare of his, uttered some strange
incantation, and lo! the pains left her, and she declared herself
healed! The effect was electrical. Others declared themselves
suffering from various imaginary maladies, and after performing certain
rites as laid down by the "Holy Father," he laid hands upon them one
after the other, and hypnotised them into a belief that they were cured.
Next day reports of these amazing "cures" ran like wildfire through
Petrograd, and the superstitious lower-classes were at once seized by a
belief that the Saint "Grichka," head of the fast-growing organisation
of thinly disguised sensuality, was really a holy man and could work
miracles. Around him crowded the halt and maimed and the blind, and
aided by his accomplice Ilya Kousmitch, he not only pretended to effect
cures, but succeeded in making many more converts among the lower-class
women by declaring, as he had told the society dames, that there was in
him a portion of the Divine with whom, as he put it, "all that would be
saved must be one in the flesh and in the spirit!"
At one of his reunions, held a week or so later at Madame Litvinoff's,
there attended Madame Vyrubova, the handsome leading lady-in-waiting at
Court, and the chamber-confidante of both Tsar and Tsaritza. Like the
others, this intriguing woman at once fell beneath the mock-monk's
inexplicable spell. His new religion of the flesh appealed to her
erotic temperament, and she at once became one of his most passionate
devotees, a few days later introducing him at Court with astonishing
result.
The subtle intrigues of Madame Vyrubova were many.
As chamber-confidante of both Emperor and Empress she had for a long
time assisted in the spiritualistic seances which were given in private
at Tsarskoe-Selo by a Russian monk named Helidor and his French friend,
known as "Philippe." The young Tsarevitch was in a state of
fast-declining health, and Helidor, as a "holy man," had, at Madame's
suggestion, been called in to pray for him. Spiritualistic practices
followed in strictest secrecy, and the credulous Empress first believed
that the "holy man's" dealings with the unseen were resulting in a
beneficial effect upon the weakly lad.
At last, however, owing to. Court intrigue, Helidor fell out of favour.
It was just after this when Anna Vyrubova first met and fell beneath
the evil influence of Rasputin. Grichka was a "miracle-worker," and
might, she thought, perhaps restore the Tsarevitch to health! She knew
that the Empress, a shallow-minded, ephemeral woman, lived for one
object alone, namely, to secure for her son the crown of Romanoff. But
the physicians gave but little hope of this. In a year--perhaps
before--he must die, they had whispered. Helidor had been dismissed.
Would Rasputin be more successful?
Madame sought out the charlatan who was busy with many "cures," and
suggested that he should accompany her to the Palace, but with lordly
disdain the drunken fisherman from Pokrovsky declared that to him all
men and women were equal.
To a friend, a certain Madame Kovalenko, wife of one of the high Court
officials, Madame Vyrubova described this interview. It took place in
Petrograd at the house of a rich merchant living in the Tavritsheskaya,
opposite the gardens. When the lady-in-waiting, who had, like so many
others, fallen beneath his spell, had made the suggestion that the
master should be introduced to the Court circle, he placed his left hand
behind his back, a favourite attitude of his, drew himself up and began
to address her in that strange jargon which she hardly understood--
quotations from the "Lives of the Saints" jumbled up with lewd
suggestions, high phrases, and meaningless sentences. As conclusion to
this speech, however, the wily fellow added:
"I care nothing for the rulers of earth, but only for the Ruler of
Heaven, who has bestowed upon me His blessing, and has led me into the
path of honour, righteousness and peace. The rulers, of earth worship
in their chapels and their tinsel cathedrals, but I worship everywhere,
in the air, in the woods, in the streets, and you, lady, worship with me
in body and in soul." And he raised his cold eyes upward, his right
hand with its bulgy joints and broken dirty finger nails being placed
across his breast. Then he sighed, as he added: "Ah! you do not yet
understand! God has placed within me the power to smite--as well as to
heal."
Madame Vyrubova, fascinated by his strange hypnotic glance, fell upon
her knees before the "Saint," and kissing his bulgy unclean hand begged
of him again and again to see the Empress.
But the artful scoundrel remained obdurate. He knew of Helidor's
disgrace, and did not intend to hold himself at all cheaply.
The result was that Madame Vyrubova sought him next day and, handed him
an autograph note from the Empress inviting him to come to the Winter
Palace and see the Grand Duke Alexis. He read it, secretly much
gratified, for he knew that not only had his latest devotee prevailed
upon the Empress to seek the aid of another Russian monk to succeed the
degraded Helidor, but that the Pravoslavny Church, the most powerful
influence of State governance, had also been responsible for the
invitation he held within his dirty fingers.
From that moment Rasputin's power became assured--a power he wielded for
evil from that hour until the day of his well-deserved end.
When that grey afternoon the unkempt libertine was introduced to the
small white-and-gold private salon of the Empress, which overlooks the
gardens and the Neva on the northern wing of the palace, the Princess
Obolensky, Princess Orbeliani and Countess Hendrikoff, maids-of-honour,
were with Her Majesty, curious to see what manner of man it was who
could perform miracles, and whom so many of the Society women in
Petrograd and Moscow now acknowledged and addressed as "Master."
Upon the threshold the mock-monk halted, and in that dramatic attitude,
struck in order to impress his hearers, he stood with his left arm
behind him, erect, with his unkempt head thrown back, his face stern and
relentless, his grey eyes sharp and piercing.
For some moments he remained there in statuesque silence, well-knowing
how women were impressed by that pose. The hypnotism of those grey eyes
few of the opposite sex could withstand. His conquests, or
"conversions" as he termed them--were in every direction, and in every
city. The Cult of the Naked Believers had rapidly spread everywhere.
He was besieged by female disciples eager to hold meetings, for without
the actual presence of the Saint true worship of the erotic could not
take place.
"Great Lady!" he exclaimed at last in his deep, heavy voice, still that
of the Siberian mujik, "you desire me here? I have come!"
The Empress rose and stretching out her hand eagerly welcomed the unholy
charlatan into the Court circle, and half-an-hour later introduced him
to fully a dozen of the highest-born women of the Empire, all of whom
were at once impressed by his affected piety and humility. But a "dark
force" had now entered the very heart of Russia, and later that
afternoon, in a luxuriously furnished bedroom the miracle-worker was
shown the poor little Heir to the Throne lying upon his sick couch, he
placed hands upon him, and Her Majesty herself fell victim to that
strange spell which other women had found so indescribable and so
inexplicable.
"I will cure your son," said Rasputin slowly, after he had knelt beside
him and looked long and earnestly into his eyes without uttering a word.
Madame Vyrubova was present and exchanged glances of relief with the
Empress. To the latter, easily impressionable as she was, though all
believed her to be a staid mother of a family, Rasputin became at once a
Saint, a Divine agent, a miraculous guide. He had cured the poor; why
could he not, if he willed it, cure her son?
Then in the days that followed "incidents" occurred in the Palace. At
select assemblies of one or two of the Empress's confidantes--parties,
of course, arranged by Madame Vyrubova, Rasputin expounded his shameless
"religion." His jargon, the jumbled phrases of an illiterate peasant
who knew not the meaning of what he uttered, his exhortations to commit
sin so that it might be forgiven, his declaration of self-divinity, and
his odds and ends of scripture mixed with the foulest vocabulary of
Russian, was listened to with bated breath. Why?
Because, strange though it may seem, the health of the young Grand Duke
Alexis had taken a sudden turn for the better. Even his physicians were
compelled to acknowledge it!
Whether the latter were in any way under the influence of Rasputin by
means of money-payment--for the fellow had by this time acquired a
considerable fortune from his dupes--has not yet been ascertained. One
thing, however, is shown in the documents before me, namely, that the
mock-monk's "miracles" were often effected by means of secret drugs of
which he had quite a curious extensive knowledge. How this was acquired
is again a mystery, save that he was very friendly with a certain
student of Chinese and Thibetan medicine, named Badmayeff, and that this
person regularly furnished him at high prices with certain little-known
drugs from the Far East.
With the gradual improvement of the health of the poor little Grand
Duke, Rasputin's ascendancy over the Empress rapidly increased. He had
been introduced to the Emperor, who, though regarding him with askance,
tolerated him merely because his beloved son was improving beneath his
daily prayerful treatment. Meanwhile, the canker-worm of Rasputin's
religion had, fostered by the Empress's favourite lady-in-waiting,
entered into the Court circle, and many secret meetings were held in the
Palace where under the pseudo-religious cloak certain ladies of the
Russian Court became devotees of the "Holy Father," and practised
abominations absolutely incredible.
Official reports contain both dates and names of those who gave
themselves into the unscrupulous hands of this man who claimed the
Divine right and thus worshipped as "Believers."
Rasputin was too clever a scoundrel to allow matters to proceed quite
smoothly. Several chance conversations with the Emperor and with
Stolypin convinced him that he might ultimately share the same obscurity
as Helidor. He therefore one day pretended to be offended at some words
of the Empress--whom he now addressed by the familiar terms of "thee"
and "thou" which he used to his disciples, though even the Grand Dukes
and Duchesses would have hesitated so to address the Empress--and after
a dramatic farewell, he took himself off to the wonderful and luxurious
monastery which, according to his statement to the Empress, he had built
at his native Pokrovsky with the money he had collected upon his various
pilgrimages.
To the female section of Petrograd society he had been never tired of
describing the beauties of this monastery where his fellow-monks lived a
life of severe asceticism and constant prayer, therefore at his sudden
resolve to leave, the capital--or the better-class women of it--grew
tearful and the Empress most of all.
Within four days of his departure for Siberia the little Tsarevitch was
taken suddenly ill, and the Empress, beside herself at having expressed
any words of doubt concerning the unkempt Saint who had so entirely
entered into her life, telegraphed wildly to him. This message, since
unearthed by the Revolutionary Party, which ran as follows:--
"I cannot bear your absence. Life is so grey and hopeless without you,
my dear comforter, my master. Alexis has been taken ill. Do not take
any notice of Kokovtsov. He is responsible for my hasty words to you
and shall suffer for it. Forgive me. Return--for my sake and for the
life of Alexis-Alec."
But the crafty mujik was not to be thus entrapped. He had been guest of
the Minister Kokovtsov, a week before, and his host and his friends had
made him roaring drunk. In his cups he had made certain revelations.
What they were the Saint could not recollect. Hence he had absented
himself from Court, in order to maintain his Divine dignity--and to plot
further.
At this point it is necessary to make a critical remark.
For two years Rasputin had been speaking of his monastery at Pokrovsky.
In the salons and boudoirs of Moscow and Kiev as well as in Petrograd,
society spoke of the institute, discussed it and declared that indeed
Grichka was a holy man. The Metropolitan with his rich robes and
jewels, and all the bishops were as common clay in comparison with the
"Holy Father" who could cure by the laying-on of hands, who walked in
humility and who devoted himself to good works. Curiously enough it had
occurred to nobody, not even to the ever-ubiquitous police of Petrograd,
to investigate the story told by Rasputin regarding his monastery at
far-off Pokrovsky.
The world of Russia did not, of course, know that in that Siberian
village there still lived Rasputin's peasant-wife with her children, or
that his life had been so evil, a career of drink and profligacy which
even in Siberia stood out in letters of scarlet in the police _dossiers_
of Tobolsk. It, however, remained for a female spy of the Revolutionary
Party--a certain lady named Vera Aliyeff, from whose report I am
writing--to travel to that sordid Siberian village and watch the Court
charlatan in his home. I may here say that to the untiring efforts of
Mademoiselle Aliyeff is in a great measure due the downfall and
assassination of the terribly sinister influence which cost the Tsar
Nicholas his throne, and hundreds of women their good name--as I shall
afterwards show.
But to relate matters in their proper sequence as history I may here
quote from the report of this patriotic woman-revolutionary who
travelled to Rasputin's home in disguise, because he knew her, and as
she was good-looking, he had already endeavoured to induce her to join
the Cult of the Naked Believers. She reports:--
"I found the great monastery of Pokrovsky to be a dirty repellent hamlet
of mujiks of the worst and most illiterate type. There was no trace of
the marble palace which Rasputin had described as having erected as the
main building of the monastery. The latter was, I found, a large,
cheaply built, ordinary-looking house, three rooms of which were given
up to the `Saint's' peasant-wife, his son Dmitri and the younger of his
two daughters, while in the other part of the house lived twelve women
of varying ages--the youngest being sixteen--who were his fascinated
devotees and who had given up their lives in Europe to enter the
seclusion of that sordid home and become his spiritual brides."
Here Mademoiselle Aliyeff had an interview with the woman Guseva, and
later on after an inspection of the police records at Tobolsk and
Tyumen, she returned to Petrograd and reported the result of her visit
to the Right Party in the Duma.
Meanwhile, the Empress and also her favourite lady-in-waiting
telegraphed to Rasputin urgently imploring him to return to Petrograd.
But the verminous libertine was in too comfortable quarters with his
dozen devotees to stir out far from his nest, and while going about the
village standing drinks to all and sundry and ingratiating himself
everywhere, he at the same time treated his old and ugly wife with
brutal unconcern, and refused even to reply to the Imperial demand.
At last he grew weary of his retirement--for, truth to tell, he usually
retired there whenever he disappeared upon his many pretended
pilgrimages in Russia--whereupon he one day sent a telegram to the
Empress saying that he had at last been directed by a Divine call to
again return to the bedside of the Tsarevitch. This message was
received with the greatest joy at Tsarskoe-Selo, where it set a-flutter
hearts in which beat the noblest blood of Russia.
"The Holy Father is on his way back to us!" Such was the message
whispered along the long stone corridors of the Winter Palace, the many
windows of which look out upon the grey Neva. The Empress went to her
son's bedroom and told him the glad news, laying a tender hand upon the
poor lad's brow.
And Madame Vyrubova meeting the Emperor as he came out of his private
cabinet chatting with the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and the Minister
Protopopoff, whispered the news into his ear.
The Tsar smiled happily. Little did His Majesty dream that by that
return of the unwashed scoundrel whom the most delicately nurtured women
worshipped, he was doomed to lose his throne.
On Rasputin's arrival some intensely dramatic scenes ensued--scenes that
would be deemed fantastic if any modern novelist had dared to describe
them even as fiction.
But from these voluminous reports and the _dossier_ before me I shall
attempt to describe them.
CHAPTER TWO.
SCANDALS AT THE WINTER PALACE.
The rascalities of Rasputin were unparalleled, even in Russia.
The mock-monk, much against his will, returned to the Winter Palace
where the Court had gone for a few days and only because of the Divine
call, as he pretended. He treated the distracted Tsaritza with utter
disdain when early one wintry morning he drove in from the Dvortsovy
Square, passed the Palace Guards, and ascended the wide black-and-white
marble staircase of the Great Hall, where she stood eager to receive
him.
"Ah! Forgive me! Forgive me, my Master!" implored the Empress in a low
agonised tone. "I was thoughtless and foolish."
"Take me to Alexis," said the charlatan roughly interrupting her. "He
is ill--very ill--and God has sent me to him."
Eagerly the Empress conducted him to the bedside of her son, the little
Tsarevitch. Madame Vyrubova, the mistress of Rasputin, was awaiting
him, together with two nurses and a physician named Letchitzki.
With rough deep-voiced dismissal the unkempt profligate sent everyone
from the room, including the Empress herself. He wished to pray by the
sick lad's bedside, he explained.
This he did, Madame Vyrubova alone remaining. When the door was closed
the blasphemous rascal quickly bent over the Heir to ascertain that he
was sleeping, then he raised his own dirty hands for Madame to kiss,
crossing himself at the same time, and whispering "The drug? It seems
to have acted well--eh? Where is it?" She slipped a tiny green-glass
phial from her cream silk blouse and handed it to him, saying: "Yes,
Badmayeff was right! Each time I gave it to him in his milk, he grew
worse."
"Ah!" laughed the verminous fellow, his sensuous face bearded and
blotchy with drink. "Now that I have returned Divine Providence will
restore him. He will not get his six drops each day!" The dastardly
charlatan and poisoner of Russia's heir concealed the Thibetan drug in
the folds of his ample habit, and whispering in his rough uncouth
peasant way, "Now let the fools in again!" he threw himself upon his
knees by the bedside commencing a fervent prayer.
"O God--the Great! the Merciful! the Giver of all Bounties, the Creator,
and the Death-giver--the Maker of Kings and the Destroyer of Nations--to
Thee we pray--and of Thee we ask--"
And as he uttered those blasphemous words the favourite lady-in-waiting
opened the long white-and-gold door to admit the Imperial mother of the
poor half-conscious elder son of the great House of Romanoff--the boy
whose life was being trifled with by the administration of those
pernicious drugs which, at any moment, when "Rasputin" willed, might
cause death from haemorrhage.
The fellow Novikh, the low-born thief and blackmailer from the far-off
wilds of Siberia, had planted himself in the Winter Palace as a divinity
to be worshipped. The Court circle of silly women in search of
sensation, and headed by the Empress herself, had fallen entirely
beneath his baneful influence, believing that only by first practising
his disgusting rites could they offer prayers to the Almighty. Another
of the Empress's intimates who had joined the Palace circle of Believers
was Countess Ignatieff, who had also become a most devout follower of
Rasputin and who exerted all her great influence in officialdom for his
benefit and protection.
War had broken out, and while the newspapers of the Allies were full of
Russia's greatness and the irresistible power of her military
"steamroller," the world was in utter ignorance that the Empress was
actually educating her own daughters to enter the secret cult of the
"Believers," a suggestion which they eventually obeyed! Such was the
truly horrible state of affairs at Court. Thus in a few brief months
that unmasked thief whom the workers of Petrograd contemptuously called
"Grichka," and whose very name Rasputin meant "the ne'er-do-well" had,
by posing as a holy man, and a worker of mock "miracles," become a power
supreme at Court.
Daily at eleven each morning this verminous libertine, whose weekly
reunions were in reality orgies as disgraceful as any organised by the
Imperial satyr Tiberius, knelt at the bedside of the poor little
Tsarevitch to drone his blasphemous appeals to God, while the Empress,
always present, knelt humbly in a corner listening to that jumble of
exhortations, threats, and amazing assertions of his own divine right as
high-priest of the Believers. The Empress had fallen completely beneath
the hypnotism of the grey steely eyes, the hard sphinx-like countenance
that never smiled, and those long dirty knotted fingers, the nails of
which were never cleaned. To her, filth, both moral and personal, was
synonymous with godliness.
Then, after each prayer, Madame Vyrubova would assist the mock-monk to
rise and declare--
"The Holy Father is, alas! tired," and then lead him off into the
adjoining ante-room overlooking the Neva where a silk-stockinged flunkey
stood ready to serve the scoundrel with his usual bottle of Heidsieck
monopole--the entire contents of which he would quickly empty and smack
his lips over in true peasant manner.
Mademoiselle Sophie Tutcheff, governess of the Tsar's daughters, very
quickly perceived a change in the demeanour of her charges. They were
no longer the charming ingenuous girls they were before. She had
overheard whispered conversations between the Grand Duchess Tatiana and
her sister, Marie. Rasputin, moreover, had now been given luxurious
apartments in the Palace, close to the rooms occupied by Madame
Vyrubova, and each day he came to the schoolroom in which the three
younger Princesses, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia were prosecuting their
studies.
It did not take Mademoiselle Tutcheff long to discern the true state of
affairs. The monk one day used the most lewd language while chatting
with the three young Grand Duchesses, whereupon Mademoiselle, who
belonged to one of the highest families in Russia, went off to the
Empress in disgust and indignation. Her protests were, as may be
imagined, met with withering scorn.
"I am Empress and the Holy Father is our guest in the Palace," exclaimed
the Tsaritza, who was taking tea with two ladies of the Court who were
her fellow-Believers. "What you have said is an insult to him. You are
dismissed in disgrace."
And an hour later poor Mademoiselle left the Palace without her pupils
being allowed to bid her farewell.
This, however, was but one illustration of the power which the rascally
ex-highwayman had secured over the Imperial Court, and hence over the
great Russian Empire itself. His influence was more powerful than that
of all the Grand Dukes, the Council of the Empire, and the Council of
Ministers put together. True, His Majesty was Tsar, but Gregory
Rasputin was equally powerful, if not more so, because of his innate
craftiness, his pseudo-divinity, his mock miracles, and the support he
received from a certain section of the Church.
Possessed of the curious cunning of the erotic criminal lunatic,
Rasputin never allowed matters to run calmly for very long. He was much
too clever for that, well knowing, that while Protopopoff, Minister of
the Interior was his friend, he had as powerful enemies, both Stolypin
and Miliukoff--who, later on, became Minister for Foreign Affairs. Both
the latter he feared, as well as the Grand Duke Nicholas Michailovitch.
The latter had secretly learnt much concerning the ex-thief of the
far-off Siberian village--more, indeed, than Rasputin had ever dreamed.
One day, a week after the departure of Mademoiselle Sophie Tutcheff, the
Grand Duke attended a great reception at the Winter Palace. The usual
brilliant throng had assembled; the usual Imperial procession had taken
place down the great Nicholas Hall, that famous salon wherein three
thousand people can dance at one time--the salon the walls of which are
adorned with golden plates, and where on the night of a Court ball the
assembly is indeed a gorgeous one of stars, medals, exquisite dresses
and brilliant uniforms. Though Russia was at war, the Empress had given
the ball, and all Russian Court Society had assembled.
Among the throng were two men the Bishop Teofan, of the Pravoslavny
Church, and with him the monk, silent and unbending, upon whom the eyes
of all the women were turned. Naturally there were many strange
whisperings among those who were "Believers" and those who had not been
initiated into the cult of the "Sister-disciples," whispers among the
old and young--whispers which were not meant for any male ear.
Bishop and monk passed down the great ballroom, through the beautiful
winter-garden beyond, where many men and women were chatting beneath the
palms, and then into the Oriental gallery, a place decorated with those
engraved golden and silver plates which Catherine the Great received
with bread and salt from those who came to do her homage.
Thence the pair disappeared into one of the side rooms to what is known
as the Jordan Entrance.
A tall, bald-headed man with heavy brow, moustache, small round beard,
and wearing a brilliant white uniform with many decorations had followed
the pair from the ball-room. With him walked a young, clean-shaven,
dark-haired man in uniform, erect and determined.
The elder was the Grand Duke Nicholas Michailovitch, the younger the
Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch.
They entered the small room unceremoniously, and confronted the
illiterate Bishop and the peasant charlatan.
"We have come to turn you out of the Palace!" exclaimed the elder man
firmly. "Your presence is obnoxious to us, especially the charlatan of
Pokrovsky. We are Grand Dukes of Russia, and we have no intention to
mix with convicted thieves and beguilers of women! Come!" His Imperial
Highness cried, "Go! You are not wanted here!"
"And pray by what right do you speak thus?" asked the Starets with
offensive insolence.
"By the right of my position," was the Grand Duke's reply.
In response, Rasputin spat upon the pale blue carpet in defiance.
In a moment the young Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch, an athletic young
officer who had only the day before returned from the German Front where
he had been with von Rennenkampf, took the dirty monk by the scruff of
his neck and flung him outside into the big marble hall, administering
to him a severe kick in the presence of a dozen of the astonished Palace
guards.
"Put this scoundrel outside!" he commanded the men, and two minutes
later, Rasputin, with his dirty black habit badly torn, found himself
flung down the steps headlong into the snow.
Meanwhile the Grand Duke Nicholas had administered to the dissolute
Bishop--whose sister, by the way, was one of Rasputin's "spiritual
brides" at his monastery, or harem, at Pokrovsky--a very severe
castigation and with his own hands had torn the big crucifix from his
neck and cast it across the room.
Then, when at last the Bishop emerged into the Hall, he shared, at the
Grand Duke's order, the same indignity that had befallen the dissolute
blackguard whom the Empress caressed and called her "Holy Father."
Of this episode Rasputin made no mention to Her Majesty. It, however,
caused him considerable misgivings and before morning he had decided
upon a dramatic course of action.
Next afternoon, a Wednesday, was the day fixed for the usual performance
of the bi-weekly secret rites. He took luncheon with the Emperor and
Empress in their private apartments, Madame Vyrubova alone being the
only other person at table.
Suddenly the monk who had been talking with the Emperor, using his
uncouth Siberian expressions, and even eating with his fingers, clasped
his knotted, peasant fingers together and turning to the Empress,
announced:
"To-night, Great Lady, I go upon a pilgrimage. Divine God has called me
to Moscow, where work there awaits me. I know not what it is, but when
I arrive there I shall receive His divine direction. Alexis will be
well in my absence, and will improve, for twice each day he will have my
prayers. God has called me--I cannot remain."
"Not even this afternoon?" gasped the unnerved hysterical woman who was
Empress of Russia in this our Twentieth Century.
"No. I must take leave of you, great lady, to obey the call," was his
deep answer.
And by that night's express he left in a luxurious sleeping-berth for
Moscow where, truth to tell, the Countess Ignatieff was awaiting him.
The only "call" the licentious blackguard had received was the news that
two very prepossessing young girls, named Vera and Xenie, daughters of
the late Baroness Koulomzine, of Moscow, had expressed their desire to
Countess Ignatieff to join the secret cult. The Countess had shown him
their photographs and the libertine, in pretence of performing a
pilgrimage, travelled to Moscow in order to initiate them. Next day, at
the Convent of the Ascension, where the libertine had spent the night,
he interviewed the two young gentlewomen. Before an ikon with flowers
upon the altar and in the presence of the Lady-Superior, he exorcised
their sins according to his prescribed rite.
It was a strange scene. The penitents in the dimly-lit chapel each
touched their forehead and breast with thumb and forefinger, gazing
immobile and fascinated at the miracle-working "Master," their lips
moving in proper response to the prayers of the Heaven-sent confessor.
At what subsequently transpired I can only hint. According to the
official report before me the girls confessed to two officers, their
half-brothers, that after the benediction the verminous monk induced
them both to go to the Turkish baths together, for "purification" as he
put it.
Well, the mock-monk found himself under arrest, and only by the most
strenuous efforts of the Countess Ignatieff was he released, after
spending forty hours in a cell.
But Rasputin merely smiled. He knew his own power. Next day he
returned to Petrograd, and within twelve hours of his arrival
Plestcheff, Chief of Police of Moscow, had, at the instance of the
Empress, been relieved of his post in disgrace.
Rasputin's exploits in Moscow brought him very nearly to disaster.