Wyrubew, “and I will not claim it from you. There are other means at my
disposal to punish you,” and he turned away contemptuously.
The young Colonel’s face became by turns deadly pale and fiery red. It
was evident that he could hardly contain the tumultuous feelings which
were racking him. Before him stood the Czarina looking at him with
haggard eyes and trying to free herself from the encircling arms of her
friend. Anna was weeping profusely and vainly struggling with an emotion
she absolutely could not control. Orloff went up to the two women, and
once more knelt before the Empress.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I ought to have known better, but believe me, I
shall atone.”
He kissed once more the hem of her garment and went out of the room,
without looking round, brushing past Wyrubew as if he had not seen him,
and went back to his own house, calm and determined, but probably with
the feelings of a man about to be taken to the scaffold.
Madame Wyrubewa seized her husband by the arm.
“Go now,” she cried. “You have done enough evil for to-day, but remember
that henceforth everything is at end between us.”
He laughed sardonically, but obeyed her, and the couple never set eyes
upon each other again after that terrible afternoon. The next day St.
Petersburg was electrified by hearing that the popular Colonel Orloff
had been found dead in his room, shot through the temple. He had atoned.
And two months later the Synod pronounced the decree of divorce between
Anna Wyrubewa and her husband. The tragedy, like so many others of the
same kind, had come to an end, by breaking two women’s hearts.
XIV
A NATION IN REVOLT
The suicide of Colonel Orloff was perhaps one of the events which
provoked the most sensation in St. Petersburg in recent years. Everybody
had known him, and he had been a general favorite, not only in his
regiment, but also among all the circles of society which he had
frequented. The Czar, who had also liked him very much, was deeply
affected by the catastrophe, and everybody kept wondering what could
have induced a man who apparently had not a single thing in the world to
trouble him to take his own life in such an unexpected manner.
The Empress alone said nothing. She was present at all the funeral
services which were celebrated over the coffin of the young officer, but
so was Nicholas II. Her attendance could not be considered as an
extraordinary thing. No one, with the exception of Anna Wyrubewa, who
had accompanied her, knew that on the night preceding the funeral of her
friend Alexandra Feodorowna had proceeded alone and unattended, save
for her, to the house where his mortal remains lay in state, and had
spent an hour praying beside his dead body and weeping bitter tears.
Outwardly, however, her calm had remained unshaken; and she had
succeeded in quite a wonderful way in keeping her feelings under
control. The only thing which she had insisted upon was to have Colonel
Orloff buried in the cemetery of Tsarskoye Selo, where she had a simple
monument, consisting of a large white marble cross, erected. She used to
go every day to pray there, and to leave flowers on this tomb which
represented for her so many hopes, and perhaps something else besides.
Of course these visits became known, but by a wonderful miracle they
were not commented upon in the way they might have been. The reputation
for eccentricity of Alexandra Feodorowna had by that time become so well
established that people had left off wondering at anything she might
attempt to do, and, besides, every one believed that the Colonel’s death
had been somehow connected with a love intrigue he had carried on with
Anna Wyrubewa, whose divorce lent ground for such a theory. It was
suspected or guessed that something had taken place in her house, but no
one could exactly ascertain what this something had been, and Wyrubew
himself had been for once thoroughly frightened, and had come to the
conclusion that the best thing he could do for his own sake as well as
for that of others was to hold his tongue, and to accept the divorce
upon which his wife insisted. Later on, however, he unburdened his soul
to some of his particular friends, but that happened at a time when
people were thinking of other things than the tragical death of an
officer whose existence was already forgotten by most of those who had
known him.
As for the Empress, she had, as we have seen, borne herself wonderfully
well in the first moments which had followed upon the tragedy, but
afterward her nerves gave way entirely, and it was then that she had to
be kept in strict seclusion, and under the care of trained nurses. It
was said that her reason had given way under the load of her anxiety for
her small son, and that the thought of his serious condition had weighed
down so thoroughly on her mind that she had grown melancholy to an
alarming extent. The story was believed perhaps because it suited so
many people to think that it was true, and, besides, the political
situation in Russia was becoming so alarming that it entirely absorbed
public attention. The war with Japan had come to an ignominious end, and
shown the many failings, as well as the thorough insufficiency, of the
Government. The first symptoms of the Revolution were clearly appearing
on the horizon, with its attendant horrors. Everybody felt that
something had to be done in order to avert a catastrophe the extent of
which it was impossible to foresee, but which was generally considered
as being inevitable, unless the Czar made up his mind to grant the
reforms for which his whole Empire was clamoring.
During those years, which were the prelude of other even more eventful
ones that were later on to sweep away the Throne of the Romanoffs,
Nicholas II. might still have regained the popularity which he had lost.
If he had only bravely and courageously faced his people, and tried to
get into direct contact with them, he could have secured for his dynasty
a new lease of life. He was not liked, it is true, and he was not
trusted, which was still worse; but nations are sometimes apt to be led
by impulse, and it is certain that Russia would have felt grateful to
him if he had only made an appeal to its loyalty for his person, and
asked of her to help him in the task of repairing the wounds caused by
the disastrous campaign that had come to an end with the signature of
the Treaty of Portsmouth.
But the Czar ignored the wishes of his subjects and refused to
acknowledge the justice of their claims to be taken into his confidence.
He was narrow-minded, cruel by disposition, and though not at all an
autocrat, yet every inch a tyrant. He was even something worse than
that; he was a coward, and this is a defect which neither nations nor
women forgive in those to whom they find their destinies intrusted.
The remembrance of that dreadful Sunday when a crowd of peaceful
workmen, under the leadership of the afterward notorious priest, Gapone,
marched toward the Winter Palace, to be met with the firing of
machine-guns that laid them low by hundreds on the pavement--the
remembrance of this bloody deed has never been effaced from the mind of
the Russian nation. It traced between itself and its Czar a line of
demarcation which could never be removed later on.
Many versions exist as to the conduct of Nicholas II. on that awful day.
Some people have said that it was the Empress who had entreated him to
fly to Tsarskoye Selo, where she thought that they would be in greater
safety than in St. Petersburg; others have asserted that it was he who
of his own accord had decided that it would be better for him to leave
the capital and to abandon to his uncle, the Grand-Duke Wladimir, the
task of drowning in blood this attempt of his subjects to enter into
direct communication with him. Probably both versions are right, in a
sense, at least, because it is certain that Alexandra Feodorowna was
always in fear something might happen to her son, and very likely she
tried to induce her husband to consider how best to insure the safety of
their only boy; on the other hand, the Emperor might, had he only come
himself to take a sane view of the situation such as it presented itself
at the time, have been able to reassure his wife and to explain to her
that neither she nor their children were in any danger. Nicholas II.,
however, had only one thought in his small mind, and that was how to
punish this “insolence,” as he termed it, of his people. For him a mob
was always a mob, except when it was ordered to cheer him, and lately he
had had to acknowledge that, in regard to St. Petersburg, cheering had
become rather a rare event.
I am not trying to relate here any of the numerous episodes which have
made the unsuccessful Revolution of 1905 memorable. I am not writing the
history of Nicholas II. Others have done so, and will do so, better than
I could. What I only want to point out is the utter callousness shown by
both the Czar and the Czarina in presence of the abominable repression
which the police, together with some military commanders, inaugurated in
regard to the people compromised even in a slight degree in the movement
of emancipation which had shaken the existence of the dynasty. It was in
vain that some wise people, like Count Witte, for instance, had tried to
explain to Nicholas II. that unless he frankly granted some reforms
without which it would be impossible to govern Russia in the future he
might expect an explosion of wrath on the part of the nation which it
would be almost impossible to subdue or to destroy. The Czar refused to
listen, and when at last he yielded to the demands of his Ministry and
signed the famous Manifest of the 17th of October, with its “simulacre”
of constitution, it was with the firm intention not to keep any of the
promises which it contained, and to try, on the contrary, to reduce to
absolute powerlessness the National Assembly, or Duma, as it was called,
the election of which he had allowed only because he could not help it,
but not at all because he believed or hoped it might prove useful to him
in the solution of the many problems which were waiting to be unraveled.
What followed upon the first convocation of the first Parliament Russia
was to know is already a matter of history. It did not live for more
than a few weeks, and very probably the Czar had never intended it to
exist for any length of time. What he wished was to appear before the
eyes of Europe as a Sovereign who had been willing to make any amount of
sacrifices in order to insure the welfare of his subjects, who, instead
of showing themselves grateful to him for his good intentions, had
rewarded him with the basest ingratitude. He thought this a clever
piece of policy, forgetting that any politician worthy of the name could
see at once through his game, and that this game could have only one
result--that of inspiring an utter contempt for his person as well as
for his moral character.
Therein lies the great, the supreme, fault of Nicholas II. He never
could bring himself to act frankly in regard to any serious matter in
which his people were concerned. The Empress, in her strange way, was
far more honest, because she did not hesitate to follow the instincts of
her heart, and in her most mistaken actions she was at least sincere.
During the years that followed upon the insurrectionary movement of 1905
Alexandra Feodorowna was in such a state of health that it was almost
impossible for her to take any part in what went on around her. Her
reason had been seriously compromised by the shock caused by the
tragical ending of the only romance she had known in her life, and she
used to spend hours weeping in her room, absorbed in the contemplation
of her own grief. It was in vain that Anna Wyrubewa, who had become more
intimate with her than had even been the case before, had tried to
induce her to fight the morbid ideas which were torturing her. The
Empress would not listen to her friend, and insisted on secluding
herself from the world and even from her own daughters, whose presence
irritated her and made her give way to fits of impatience that were very
nearly akin to madness. The girls were perfectly charming and had the
luck to have an excellent governess, who tried to give them the love
their own mother refused or was unable to award them; nevertheless their
lives were blighted by the illness of the Empress, and it is not
extraordinary that they came to care for their father more than for her,
whom they were always more or less afraid to approach, whom they were
constantly told they must not bother by questions of any kind or
manifestations of affection.
It was only the little Cesarewitsch who was allowed to share his
mother’s solitude, whom she would never let out of her sight. He was the
only preoccupation her diseased mind would admit, and when she saw that
his state of health did not improve she became more and more desperate,
until one day she confided to Anna Wyrubewa that she was sure God was
punishing her for the affection which she acknowledged now that she had
borne for Orloff, and that her boy would never get well. Her despair was
so evident, and her mind was getting so unhinged, that at last the
question of putting her in some retreat where she could be under a
doctor’s continual care was seriously considered by her medical
attendants, who even informed the Czar of their fears in regard to the
sanity of his Consort. Of course the fact that they had done so reached
the knowledge of Madame Wyrubewa, and it was then that the latter began
to consider whether it would not be possible to restore by some way or
other the equanimity of Alexandra Feodorowna and to procure for her some
kind of consolation for the seemingly incurable grief which was
destroying her life and her reason. Unfortunately for all parties
concerned, she was to make at that time the acquaintance of the
notorious Raspoutine, whom she introduced, under the circumstances which
I am going presently to relate, to the miserable, half-demented Empress,
an introduction which was to prove so fatal not only to the unhappy
Sovereign, but also through her to the whole of Russia.
XV
A PROPHET OF GOD
Anna Wyrubewa had always been inclined toward religious exaggeration,
and this was perhaps one of the reasons why the Empress, who for years
had buried herself in the exercise of all kinds of devotional practices,
had taken to her so quickly. They were both of a mystical turn of mind,
and never so happy as when enabled to spend long hours absorbed in
prayer before some icon or other. And besides this, Anna was in the
habit of frequenting certain circles of St. Petersburg society that were
considered as the supporters of orthodoxy in its most rigid form, where
all questions concerning the discipline of the Church were discussed and
in some cases decided.
Such, for instance, was the house of the Countess Sophy Ignatieff, where
the higher clergy used to meet at weekly assemblies, during which the
laxity of the younger generation in regard to religious matters was
discussed with many a sigh and many a shaking of wise heads, disposed to
admit that this religious indifference, which was getting stronger and
stronger every day, was bound to bring Russia to the brink of terrible
misfortunes. Countess Ignatieff had traveled all over her native country
in search of its sacred shrines and places, and was very well known
personally in almost all the principal convents in the Empire. She had
been suspected at one time of sympathies with dissenters, but this has
never been proved; on the contrary, in her old age she gained the
reputation of being fanatically orthodox, one who saw no salvation
outside the fold of her own creed, who favored persecution of all others
on account of her conviction that people ought to be brought back to the
bosom of the Greek Church by any means, even through violence if other
ones failed.
During one of the yearly pilgrimages in which so much of her time was
spent she had had occasion to meet a kind of vagrant preacher whose wild
eloquence had captivated her fancy and her imagination, and she had been
partly instrumental in his coming to St. Petersburg, where she had
arranged for him to hold religious meetings in her house, to which she
had invited prominent church dignitaries, together with a few ladies of
an enthusiastic turn of mind whom she believed would be inclined to
listen to the wild ravings, for they were nothing else, of her new
_protégé_.
At first people laughed at her, as well as at the uncouth appearance of
the “Prophet of God,” as she called him, who, while not blessed with the
eloquence of a Savonarola, yet possessed sufficient persuasive gifts and
talents to shake the equanimity of the hysterically inclined women who
listened to him. This “Prophet” was none other than Grigory Raspoutine,
who later on was to become such an important personage in Russia.
Madame Wyrubewa had heard about Raspoutine a long time before she ever
came to hear him. But after she had had the opportunity of meeting him
she thought that it would not be a bad thing to bring him to Tsarskoye
Selo, where the poor Empress was eating away her heart in her grief at
the loss of all that she had cared for in life, and to try to induce
Alexandra to listen to him, and to pray together with him. He was
supposed to perform wonders by the intensity and the fervor of his
prayers, and it might just be possible that the very fact of his being a
complete stranger to her, and moreover a man totally outside Court
circles and Court intrigues, would influence the Czarina to give him her
confidence and to permit him to cheer her up. At all events, she spoke
about him several times, and pleaded hard with the Empress to allow him
to be brought to her. This Alexandra Feodorowna absolutely refused, but
she was induced at last to consent to see him at the house of Anna
Wyrubewa, and thither came one winter evening the adventurer who was in
time to become the Cagliostro of a reign which was not even worthy to
have any one else but a common, uncouth peasant for its jester.
Now, as has been ultimately proved, Raspoutine was far from being the
saintly man his admirers thought he was, but he was endowed with an
unusual amount of cunning, and far more spirit of observation than he
was credited with. When he was told that he would have the honor of
meeting the Empress of Russia, and to pray in her presence for the
health of her delicate little boy, he had at once perceived the
advantages which might result for him out of this introduction, if only
in regard to his personal prestige before his disciples and followers.
He was above everything else a man who cared for his enjoyment as well
as for the good things of life, and who, in the way of Paradise, only
admitted the one described by Mohammed in his Koran. He had led a
licentious, godless kind of existence, which he had contrived to
persuade the weak women who had succumbed to his exhortations was in
accord with the spirit of the doctrine which he preached, the principal
points of which consisted in blind submission to his will and to his
fancies. He had told them that they would be cleansed of their sins by a
complete union with him, which he meant in the physical as well as in
the moral sense of the word. It is probable that in his dealings with
all the people who had grown to believe in him he had had recourse to
his incontestable hypnotical powers and to practices of magnetic
influence which he had learned amid some wild tribes of Siberia, where
he had spent his childhood and early youth, who are to this day adepts
in the art of witchcraft as well as in all kinds of magical rites and
customs. At the same time the crafty adventurer knew very well that it
would be unwise of him at the beginning of his intercourse with the
Consort of his Sovereign, an intercourse which he was fully determined
should be continued and not be limited to a single interview, to do
aught else but assume the attitude of a man entirely absorbed in God and
in the practices of religion. When he was introduced to Alexandra
Feodorowna at the house of Anna Wyrubewa, he therefore remained standing
before her, in an attitude of apparent humility, and he waited quietly
until she should begin talking with him, which she immediately did,
saying that she had heard so much about him that she had wished to see
him and to ask him to pray for her little boy, whose state of health
gave rise to so much anxiety and worry.
Raspoutine looked at her, then replied quietly that he would be happy to
pray for the child, but that he thought she was just as much in need of
prayer as her son because her state of moral health was far more
alarming than Alexis’s physical one.
The Empress was so amazed that she could not find a reply to what
appeared to her in the first moment to be an unsurpassed piece of
insolence. Anna Wyrubewa saw what was taking place in her mind, and,
addressing her in English, a language which they always spoke together,
implored her not to feel offended, as the man really did not know what
he was saying, sometimes being urged by a strength superior to his own
to give utterance to thoughts he would never have dared to express
otherwise. She then urged the Czarina not to carry on the conversation
further, but to ask Raspoutine to begin at once praying for her welfare,
and also for that of Russia and of the Imperial Family.
Alexandra acquiesced, and the preacher proceeded to set himself before
the icon which, as is usual in all Russian houses, was hanging in a
corner of the room. He began long litanies which he recited in a
peculiar deep tone of voice, that rose up louder and louder as gradually
he worked himself up into a state of religious frenzy akin to the one
displayed by the dancing and howling dervishes in Turkey. But whether or
not his manner or the tone of his supplications or his personal
influence was the cause of it, the Empress as she listened to him felt
calmer and quieter than she had done for years. It seemed to her as if a
great peace was stealing upon her after the despair and the sadness in
which her days had been spent during the last months. When at last
Raspoutine’s orisons came to an end she was weeping silently, but all
the nervous excitement under which she had been laboring at the
beginning of the interview seemed to have disappeared and she looked
more like a normal woman than she had done since the day when Orloff had
said his last good-by to her in the boudoir of Anna Wyrubewa.
She silently extended her hand to the “Prophet,” saying as she did so:
“You have done me a great deal of good, and I thank you with all my
heart. I shall ask you again to pray for me.”
It was thus that Alexandra Feodorowna met the man who was to have such a
baneful influence over her whole life, whose fatal influence was to
estrange her, still deeper than was already the case, from her subjects,
and to give rise to the flood of calumnies in which she was ultimately
to be drowned; and to perish, dragging along with her this mighty
Russian Empire whose Crown she wore and whose people she had never
understood nor even tried to understand.