"It became dark and spooky when our lights gave out.... and while we
sat huddled together the subject of 'ghosts' came up.... 'Ghosts!' the
'prisoner' almost snarled; 'that reminds me of the Jewish propaganda
against my Government.... There was hardly a Yiddish banker in the
world who did not accuse ME personally of inspiring Sheglovitov to
have the Jews executed for _ritualistic murder_; and I am sure their
influence will be very strong with certain statesmen and opportunists
to have my Empire dismembered when the time comes to settle the terms
of peace, as poor Nilus predicted.... I wish I could show you a letter
I received from a Jewish banker in New York threatening to kill my
loan in America and have our existing treaties denounced unless I
complied with certain Jewish demands.... I did not think it possible
and ignored the letter, of course.... You may judge of my astonishment
when the Jew's threat was made good by the American Government
doing precisely what the threat implied.... These people have been
persistent in accusing ME of having communication with the _spirits_
and of engaging in all sorts of _magic_, like the infamous Papus;
well, if that be so let me exercise my gifts to prophesy that the
denationalized Jews will attempt to hereafter enthrone themselves as
MASTERS of the civilized world by their mastery of its amusements,
its money, its POLITICS and its industry,--and you will find them
demanding and RECEIVING special privileges in many countries where, at
present, they are suspected and abhorred.... I have not the slightest
doubt but that Kerensky will be succeeded by some Jewish politician
within a little while--and they will blacken his reputation as they
have tried to blacken mine.... the methods may be different but the
result will be none the less effectual.... Only the other day, I might
say, WHEN WE WERE LEAVING TUMEN, a rabble of Yiddish _suttlers_ began
_yelling at ME: "Rasputin! Rasputin! where is your Rasputin!"_ ...
Now Grisha Rasputin was a friend of the Metropolitan Archbishop
of Protopopov. He was seeking to redeem the reputation of a
horse-stealing father if I remember right--'He was a friend of
Stuermer, Niki, not a friend to you,' interrupted the ex-Empress...
'You are right, darling,' returned the 'prisoner,' 'quite right, I
know.'... 'What kind of a mountebank was RASPUTIN?' I asked to feel my
'prisoner' out.... 'He was a worthless _rasputnik_ at best,' the fallen
Emperor answered.... And you think the Jews are responsible for
your reported attachment to him?' I asked.... 'Undoubtedly,' he said
bitterly with a sigh of resignation.... 'When we were being taken to
the boat at Tobolsk did they not make faces at me and Alice and flout
me with their cries: "Take him to the Criminal Court and let him read
the record of his libertine, Rasputin! Let his Barnabas teach him how
to sin for the joy of gaining absolution!"... How little do those
enfranchised Jews understand the meaning of forgiveness!' lamented
the ex-Czar.... 'May I ask your actual estimate of creatures like
Rasputin?' I ventured.... 'Our Rasputin was a hardened criminal beyond
a doubt until his conversion by Father Zaborovsky, the good Rector at
the Theological Academy at Tomsk,' the ex-Czar replied.... 'He would
have made an excellent subject for investigation by Lombroso, by
Havelock Ellis or other eminent criminologists ... but I believed the
man was sincere in his repentance and accepted him as a sort of text
for other sinners to point a way toward regeneration.... The higher
Rasputin rose, the greater his fame became, the more impressive would
be his textual example to other aspiring souls,--even a criminal
should not be denied the consolation of hope where crime is the result
of ignorance or misdirected patriotism.... If I sinned in pardoning a
sinner then sin must be an unpardonable crime!... Nathan treated
David as I treated Rasputin, although both were guilty of the same
offense.... He was grossly illiterate,--the only schooling he ever got
was in the Monastery Abalaksky and what he acquired from the lips
of monks while making his rounds as a barefoot pilgrim from place
to place.... His claims of having _visions_ I ascribed to his empty
stomach, although others gave credence to the nonsense.... Alice at
first abhorred him; finally she began to regard him as a rare
specimen in self-hypnosis who was worth studying to learn how far the
fascinations of self-delusion were capable of deluding and swaying
stronger wills and more cultivated minds.... We both learned, by
observing him, that an ignorant mujik, like an egotistical Minister,
if granted the semblance of authority for any length of time, will
demoralize the finest organization in the world.... That was the
lesson both Alice and I acquired from Rasputin.... And I am accepting
Rasputin as a standard to estimate what will happen when men of
his type and origin attempt the government of the world.... Without
education, with no experience in governing even the smallest unit of
society, unfamiliar with the trend of history, ignorant of military
and commercial strategy, building their philosophy of life and their
science of administration upon some isolated text, they will overturn
the whole structure of civilization by arrogating to themselves the
supernatural privileges and persuasiveness of the Voice of God!...
The prospects are not inviting.... There are Rasputins in all
the chancellories of Europe.... You have them in North and South
America,--some educated, others like Marat and Danton, while some are
simple Cagliostros who deceive the people and themselves.... If
they were only Gideons instead of Joshuas their strategy might be
reassuring,--but they are merely Rasputins and Papuses, after all!...
Against all laws of nature they will try to triumph by commanding the
heavenly and mundane bodies to stand still until they readjust the
motions of civilized society to some dissolving and ruinous invention
of emotional insanity where everything runs wild!'"