reviewed his position, and saw that by cleverly playing his cards--now
that the Empress and her easily gulled Court had become so completely
enthralled by his "wonder-working"--he might assume his own position as
the most powerful man in the Empire.
His personal magnetism is indisputable. I can personally vouch for
that. On the occasion when I met him in that grey cold repellent
village on the Arctic shore, I myself felt that there was something
strangely indescribable, something entirely uncanny about the fellow.
Those grey eyes were such as I had never before seen in all my long
cosmopolitan experience. In those moments when we had exchanged
greetings and bowed to each other he seemed to hold me beneath a weird
curious spell. He was demon rather than man. Therefore I can quite
conceive that the ordinary Russian woman of any class would easily
succumb to his blasphemous advances and his assertions that he was
possessed of a divinity as the deliverer of Russia. Within the Russian
soul, two centuries behind the times, of to-day, mysticism is still
innate, and the mock-monk had already proved up to the hilt to his own
complete satisfaction that, by pretending to fast, yet having a good
square meal in secret; by pretending to make pilgrimages--but really
throwing off his monkish "habits" and as a gay man about town taking a
joy-ride in a motor car--and by crossing himself continuously and bowing
low before every ikon at which he secretly sneered, he could gull the
average woman whether she wore pearls or tended the pigs.
Rasputin, a low-born immoral brute, by reason of the discovery of his
own hypnotic powers, treated womenkind with the most supreme and utter
contempt, and it seems that while clearly masquerading beneath that
cloak of extreme piety and aided by his gardener-friend, the Bishop
Teofan--a fellow-adventurer from Pokrovsky--he resolved after his Moscow
adventure, to make a bold bid for further power.
Most men in such circumstances as these would have been both cowed and
careful. Against him he had Stolypin, at that moment one of the most
powerful men in the Empire, as well as the Grand Dukes Nicholas and
Dmitri Pavlovitch, M. Gutchkoff--a bearded man in gold pince-nez with
whom I had had before the war many interesting chats in Paris and in
Petrograd, and who subsequently became Minister of War and Marine--M.
Miliukoff, the whole-hearted Deputy for Petrograd in the Duma, and what
was far more serious, he had fifty or more wildly irate husbands and
fathers, all eager and anxious to bring about the scoundrel's downfall.
Traps were laid for him, but, with the amazing cunning of the erotic
lunatic, he eluded them all. Back in Petrograd, in the salons of the
highest in the Empire, he lived in luxury, with cars always at his
disposal. The "Holy Father" who had his own suite in the private
apartments of the Imperial family was welcomed everywhere he deigned to
go. His creature, Ilya Kousmitch, warned him of the pitfalls that were
being set. Even his dissolute crony the Bishop Teofan--whom, through
the Empress, he had himself created--grew grave. But the "Saint" merely
bit his dirty finger nails, as is the habit of the Siberian peasant, and
replied:
"Gregory Novikh has been sent to Russia by Divine Providence. He has no
fear!"
Soon after his narrow escape in Moscow he received a letter from the
father of the two young girls who had so completely fallen beneath his
pious blandishments--a letter in which the angry father declared that he
would shoot him at sight.
To that letter Rasputin, with the overbearing impudence of one who
smoked and spat upon the carpet actually in the Empress's presence, and,
who had the audacity to prompt the Tsar in making his appointments and
dealing with the affairs of State, replied by telegram--a message still
upon record--sent over the private wire from the Winter Palace:
"Shoot--and God will reward your daughters bountifully.--Gregory."
Though Rasputin presented a remarkably calm exterior, he no doubt, was
much perturbed by that threat. A single false step would certainly land
him either in oblivion or in prison. But criminal lunatics of his sort
are notoriously clever and astute. "Jack-the-Ripper" was of exactly
similar type, and he defied the whole detective police of the world.
The Secret Police of Russia, the wiles of which have been so vaunted by
the modern novelist, were as childish idiots when their brains became
pitted against those of the uncouth Siberian peasant, who, calling
himself a "saint," could induce every silly woman to follow his immoral
directions.
Just then the Empress, whose shallow impressionable mind led her to
adopt any new craze, and to seek any new sensation, met a person in whom
she indiscreetly placed her trust--a treacherous, long-bearded political
adventurer, named Boris Sturmer. This man was a boon companion of the
"Saint" in his debaucheries in the midnight wilds of Petrograd, for
Rasputin, when believed to be absent for a week of prayer and
self-denial, usually bathed himself, and wearing a well-cut evening-suit
plunged into the gay midnight life at the Old Donon, the Belle Vue, or
the Bouffes, on the Fontanka. Thus Boris Sturmer, a strong pro-German
who had many family connections with the enemy--and the bosom friend of
Rasputin--actually became Prime Minister of Russia, such being the
mock-monk's astounding influence over the Imperial Autocrat, whose wife
and family were, alas! as but clay within his filthy hands.
This latest triumph proved conclusively to Rasputin that his power was
as great as that of the Emperor--indeed, to certain of his intimates he
used laughingly to declare himself to be the uncrowned Tsar!
"I live in the Palace," he would declare. "The Empress does my bidding;
her daughters are as my children; the Court bows to me; Nikki only
smiles as an idiot--therefore, am I not the real Emperor of Russia?"
Discovering his own overwhelming influence this sinister favourite of
both Tsar and Tsaritza suddenly resolved upon a further move, the
cleverness of which was indeed well within keeping with his marvellously
astute reasoning. He decided not to be dependent upon the charity of
the Imperial pair, whom the Bishop Teofan had one day declared kept him
in the Winter Palace as a tame saint. His friend's taunt stung him to
the quick.
In consequence, he took a luxurious house in the Gorokhovaya, just
beyond the Moyka, and close to the Palace, and while still retaining his
apartments in the Palace, he lived mostly in his new abode, where in
future he announced that the bi-weekly meeting of his disciples for
prayer and consolation would be held.
Like wildfire the decision of the "wonder-worker" ran through the salons
of Society. There was now a chance for others to enter the cult of the
"Sister-disciples," and to become as one flesh with the Saint, and to be
cured by Divine agency of any ill.
Hundreds of society women were frantically anxious to enter this new
sisterhood.
His house was an expensive one, but only a few of the rooms were well
furnished. The dining-room on the ground floor was a large rather
bare-looking place, with cheap chairs set round and equally cheap tables
of polished walnut. On the walls were portraits of the Tsar, the
Tsaritza and himself. Upstairs was his study, a large luxurious
apartment, and from it led the bedroom of the "holy" man, which even
eclipsed the study in luxury. To this house the smart band of society
converts who called themselves the "Sister-disciples" went regularly
twice each week to hear the "miracle-worker" descant upon the beauties
of his new religion.
Among the members of this degenerate group were:--the pretty
fluffy-haired little Princess Boyarski, Madame Pistolcohrse, sister of
Madame Vyrubova, a certain Countess Yepantchine, whose splendid house
was in the Sergiyevskaya, the most fashionable quarter without equal in
Petrograd, as well as the Grand Duchess Olga, daughter of the Tsaritza,
and many others.
Though the blasphemous discourses were delivered and the disgusting
secret rites practised twice each week at Rasputin's house, as well as
also twice weekly in secret at Tsarskoe-Selo, many women seeking
knowledge of the new religion--after having fallen beneath the spell of
the mock-saint's eyes--went to the monk alone by appointment, and there
had what the blackguard termed "private converse" with him in his
upstairs study adjoining his luxurious sleeping apartment.
The uncouth peasant's actions, his open immorality, and the cold-blooded
manner in which he turned wife from husband, and betrothed from her
lover, had now become open gossip at the street corners. Whenever the
mock-saint went forth in any car or carriage of his female admirers or
of the Court, the people grinned and recognising the lady, would
whisper--
"Look! Grichka has taken yet another bride!"
At some of the mysterious meetings Rasputin's old friend the dissolute
Bishop Teofan was present, and on one occasion a dramatic incident
occurred.
The little Princess Boyarski had apparently grown jealous of the "Saint"
because he had paid too great attention to a new convert, a certain
Mademoiselle Zernin, just turned twenty. High words arose in the select
circle of worshippers, and the Bishop with his big golden cross on his
breast endeavoured to quell the dispute. The Princess then turned
furiously upon the Bishop, expressing the deepest resentment that he
should have been admitted to their private conference at all, and vowed
that she would use all her influence to get him turned out of the Church
he had dishonoured.
Rasputin and his friend ridiculed her threats, but two days later both
grew extremely uneasy, for Teofan was already extremely unpopular with
the Court circle, and all were only too ready to effect his dismissal
and disgrace. Indeed, forty-eight hours after the Princess had uttered
those threats, she, with the Countess Kleinmichel, contrived to secure
his expulsion from the Church. Only after Rasputin had threatened the
Empress that he would leave Petrograd, and in that case the Tsarevitch
would, he declared, die, that he secured the re-instalment of his
fellow-criminal. Such was the scoundrel's influence at Court in these
present war-days!
By various tricks, in which he was assisted by the young servant, the
man Ilya, the charlatan still performed "miracles" upon the poor, which
naturally caused his fame to spread all over Russia, while his sinister
influence was now being felt both in the Orthodox Church, and in the
conduct of the war. Contrary to what is generally supposed, he had
never been ordained a priest, while he never attended church nor
observed any of the forms of religious worship, save the immoral
practices of his own invention.
He claimed a semi-divinity, and thus declared himself to be above all
man-made laws.
In those scandalous discourses, in which he made use of the most erotic
suggestions, he always urged his female devotees that only through his
own body could they seek the protection and forgiveness of the Almighty.
"I show you the way!" he would constantly say as he stood with his hand
behind his back, his other hand upon the Bible. "I am here to give you
salvation."
Such was his power in ecclesiastical matters in Russia that the most
lucrative posts in the Church were now filled by men who had paid him
for their nominations, and he boasted that the Procurator of the Holy
Synod was merely his puppet. From certain evidence before me I am
inclined to believe this to be the truth, for some of the supposed
"miracles" could never have been "worked" without the Procurator's
connivance.
Daily, smart society women came to Rasputin's house for "private
converse." Sometimes one of the circle of his elect would bring with
her a young society girl who had heard vaguely of "the disciples," and
whose curiosity was naturally aroused, to meet the wonderful
wonder-worker. At others, women went alone. But in each case the
result was the same.
One afternoon the young wife of the wealthy Count Ivanitski went there
in secret, attired in one of her maid's dresses, so as to escape
observation, passing through the servants' entrance. The Count,
however, had heard whispers of this intended visit and, awaiting her
return, followed her back to the Furshtavkaya, where they lived in a
handsome house a few doors from the Liteyny Prospect. He then coolly
called his servants and compelled her to confess before them all that
had happened to her in Rasputin's house. Afterwards he drew a revolver
and shot her dead. Then he walked out and gave himself up to the
police. Within an hour news of the affair was brought to the Empress
and to Rasputin, who were dining together in the Palace.
The monk made a sarcastic grimace when he heard of the murder of the
woman who had that afternoon been his victim.
"Poor fool!" he exclaimed, his glass of wine in his hand. "The Countess
had already become a devoted disciple."
But the Empress at once bestirred herself in fear of public indignation
being aroused against the Holy Father, and telephoning to the Minister
of the Interior, ordered the Count's immediate release.
On another occasion, a week later, a young lieutenant of cavalry named
Olchowski, who had been with von Rennenkampf at Brest-Litovsk, had
returned to Petrograd, being met at the railway station by his devoted
young wife, a mere chit of a girl, the daughter of a Baroness living at
Ostroff. They returned home together, whereupon somebody slipped into
his hand an anonymous letter, stating that his pretty young wife Vera
had become one of the "spiritual brides" who attended the bi-weekly
meetings in the Gorokhovaya. The Lieutenant said nothing, but watching
next afternoon he followed her to the meeting place of the "Naked
Believers," and having satisfied himself that during his absence at the
front his beloved wife had fallen beneath the "saint's" spell, he
concealed himself in the porch of a neighbouring house until after the
worshippers had all departed. Then Rasputin presently descended the
steps to enter one of the Imperial carriages which had called for him as
was usual each day.
In an instant the outraged husband, half-mad with fury, flung himself
upon the "holy" libertine and plunged a long keen knife into his breast.
But Rasputin, whose strength was colossal, simply tossed his assailant
away from him without a word, and entered the carriage.
Beneath his monkish hair-shirt he had for some time, at the Empress's
urgent desire, worn another shirt which she had had specially made for
him in Paris, as also for the Tsar--a light but most effective shirt of
steel-mail.
CHAPTER THREE.
HOW RASPUTIN POISONED THE TSAREVITCH.
The dark forces established so ingeniously by the Kaiser behind the
Russian throne in April, 1914, had now become actively at work.
The small but all-powerful clique of which Rasputin was the head because
he practically lived with the Imperial family and ate at their table--
the little circle which the Russians called "The Camarilla"--were
actively plotting for the betrayal of the Allies and a separate peace
with Germany. Sturmer, the Austrian who had been pushed into the office
of Prime Minister of Russia by his boon companion and fellow
_bon-viveur_, the mock-monk of Pokrovsky, had already risen in power.
The man whose long goatee-beard swept over the first button of his
gorgeous uniform, all true loyal Russians in their unfortunate ignorance
cheered wildly as he drove swiftly with the _pristyazhka_, or
side-horse, along the Nevski, for he was believed to be "winning the
war." Russia, alas! to-day knows that with German gold flowing freely
into his pocket he was in secret doing all he could to prevent ministers
arriving from Great Britain, and laughing up his sleeve at his success
in ordering a mock-railway from Alexandrovsk to be built in order to
connect Petrograd to an ice-free port--a line which subsequently had to
be taken up and relaid!
Even our British journalists were cleverly bamboozled, for they returned
from Russia and wrote in our newspapers of her coming great offensive,
when they would sweep back the Kaiser's hordes and be into Berlin ere we
should know it. In Petrograd one heard of Rasputin as the Shadowy
Somebody. But most people declared that he was only a monk, a pious
person whom silly women admired, as women so often admire a fashionable
preacher even in our own country, and further because of "something,"
the Censor refused to allow his name to appear in any paper.
In Russia the censorship is full of vagaries. My own novels came under
his ban twenty years ago, because as correspondent of _The Times_ I had
spoken some very plain truths in that journal. I remember well old
Monsieur de Stael, then Russian ambassador in London and the cheeriest
of good souls, laughing when I came back from Russia at my complaint
regarding the censorship. "Why!" he said, "they censor my letters to my
own daughter in Nijni! Please do not think any the less of Russia for
that. You have been across the Empire, into Siberia, and surely you
know how far we are behind the times!"
Russia had, after all, advanced but little in those intervening twenty
years, though it has produced the rascal Rasputin.
That small circle of Germanophiles who met so frequently in secret at
Rasputin's house in the Gorokhovaya--the scene of the bi-weekly orgies
of the "Sister-Disciples"--though they were unaware of it were, with
clever insinuation, being taught that a separate peace with Germany
would be of greatest advantage to the Empire. They were hourly
plotting, and the details of their conspiracies which have now come to
light and are before me, documents in black and white, which had been
carefully preserved by the monk, are truly amazing. Surely no novelist,
living or dead, could have ever imagined a situation so astounding and
yet so tragic, for the fate of one of the mightiest Imperial Houses of
the modern world was now trembling in the balance.
That both the Prime Minister and his long-moustached sycophant
Protopopoff, a political adventurer whose past is somewhat shady and
obscure, were in daily consultation is plain from the reports of secret
agents of the Revolutionists. The Duke Charles Michael, though heir to
the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, had, as part of the German
Emperor's subtle plot, become naturalised as a Russian three weeks
before the declaration of war, and he, with the erotic scoundrel, was
actively carding out Berlin's set programme in the salons of
Tsarskoe-Selo.
"Grichka," the convicted thief from the far-off Siberian village, the
man who had a dozen "spiritual brides" at Pokrovsky, uncouth, unlettered
and unwashed, had by this time obtained such hypnotic hold upon the
female portion of Petrograd society that when he deigned to accept an
invitation to dine at the various palaces of the nobility he would eat
from his plate with his dirty fingers and his female admirers actually
licked them clean! This is absolute fact, vouched for by dozens of
patriotic Russians whose names I could give.
It is contained in a plain report in cold unvarnished language in an
official Russian report which is before me. Readers will, I believe,
halt aghast. But such men have exercised the same powers over women--
criminal lunatics always--through the long pages of history.
The heart of Russia was being eaten out by the German canker-worm. The
high-born women of Petrograd were being used by Rasputin to play the
Kaiser's game.
Outwardly Sturmer, Protopopoff, the Bishop Teofan, and their
place-seeking friends were good loyal Russians bent upon winning the
war. In secret, however, they were cleverly arranging to effect various
crises. The supply of food was held up by a ring of those eager to
profit, and the Empire became suddenly faced with semi-starvation, so
that rioting ensued, and the police were kept busy. Then there
succeeded serious railway troubles, congestion of traffic to and from
the front, "faked" scandals of certain females whom the camarilla
charged with giving away Russia's secrets to Germany. Some highly
sensational trials followed, much perjured evidence was given, false
reports of _agents provocateurs_ produced, and several officers in high
command who, though perfectly innocent, were actually condemned as
traitors, merely because they had become obnoxious to Rasputin and his
circle.
One day a sensational incident occurred when Rasputin visited the
Ministry of the Interior, and sought the Adjunct-Minister Dzhunkovsky,
who controlled the police of the Empire.
On being shown into his room the monk insolently demanded why he was
being followed by police-agents, and why his friends who visited his
house in the Gorokhovaya were being spied upon.
"My duty, my dear Father, is to know what is in progress in Petrograd,"
replied the Minister coldly.
"Are you not aware that I am immune from espionage by your confounded
agents?" cried Rasputin in anger. "Are you in ignorance that my
personal safety is in charge of the special Palace Police who are
responsible for the safety of the Emperor?"
"My own actions are my own affair," was the chill reply--for truth to
tell--the Revolutionists had already imparted to Dzhunkovsky certain
evidence they had collected as to the traitorous conduct of the
pseudo-monk and his traitorous friends.
High words arose. Grichka, losing his temper, made use of some very
insulting remarks regarding the Minister's young wife, whereupon
Dzhunkovsky sprang from his chair and promptly knocked down the "Saint."
An hour later Rasputin, with his eye bandaged, sat with the Empress in
her room overlooking the Neva, and related how he had been assaulted by
the Adjunct-Minister of the Interior, merely because he had expressed
his unswerving loyalty to the throne. To the Empress the unwashed
charlatan was as a holy man, and such insult caused her blood to boil
with indignation.
The fellow knew quite well that no word uttered against himself was ever
believed by either Emperor or Empress. They were all said to be stories
invented by those jealous of the Saint's exalted position, and the
wicked inventions of enemies of the Dynasty. Therefore, what happened
was exactly what he expected. In a fury the neurotic Empress rose and
went off to the Tsar who, then and there, signed a decree dismissing his
loyal Adjunct-Minister from office, and appointing an obscure friend of
Rasputin's in his place!
In that same week another incident occurred which caused the Saint no
little apprehension. His Majesty had appointed Samarin as Procurator of
the Holy Synod, an appointment which Rasputin knew might easily result
in his own downfall. Samarin, an honest, upright man, was one of his
most bitter enemies, for he knew the disgraceful past of both him and
Teofan, and further he had gained accurate knowledge of which
appointments of Bishops in the Pravoslavny Church had been the outcome
of the ex-horse stealer's influence. Therefore, the arch-adventurer saw
that at all hazards this new Procurator must not be allowed to remain in
office, for already he had announced his intention to clear the
Pravoslavny Church of its malign influences and filthy practices.
Three days later Rasputin went out to Tsarskoe-Selo, where the Emperor
happened to be, and entering His Majesty's private cabinet said in a
confidential tone:
"Listen, Friend. I have a secret to whisper to thee! Last night I was
with Sturmer, and he revealed that a great revolutionary plot is afoot
for thy deposition from the Throne!"
"What!" cried the Emperor, pale with alarm as he sprang from his chair.
"Another plot! By whom?"
"Its chief mover is the man Samarin, whom thou hast appointed Procurator
of the Holy Synod," replied the crafty adventurer. "Sturmer urged me to
come at once and to tell thee in private."
"Are you quite certain of this, Holy Father?" asked the Emperor, looking
straight into his bearded face.
The monk's grey steely eyes, those hypnotic eyes which few women could
resist, met the Tsar's unwaveringly.