found some comfort in listening to Raspoutine’s prayers. She believed in
the “Prophet” who had found favor in the eyes of the Lord, and whose
intercession in regard to the little Alexis would be crowned with
success. The woman was superstitious to the backbone, and perhaps more
mystically inclined even than most Russians are, which is saying a good
deal. She thought, at all events, that, once the Empress got to be
persuaded that she had to look to God alone for the recovery of her son
from a disease that had been pronounced to be incurable by the best
medical authorities, she would no longer fret as she had done, but begin
to look at things from a religiously fatalistic point of view. She hoped
also for another thing, and that was that the Czarina, once she had been
taught to look above for comfort and consolation, would cease to lament
over the “might have been” that has already caused so much heartburnings
in this world, and that she would leave off reproaching herself, as she
was constantly doing, for the death of the one man she had cared for,
whom in all innocence she had sent to his destruction, and who had
bravely preferred to disappear rather than allow a stain to rest upon
her honor. She had guessed the agony of the self-reproach under which
the soul of Alexandra Feodorowna had almost collapsed, and the remorse
which had racked it until her intelligence had almost snapped, through
the moral as well as through the physical pain which had clouded all her
faculties. She hoped, therefore, seriously and earnestly, that the
prayers of Raspoutine might ease this mental distress which had
transformed the Empress of All the Russias into a half-demented woman.
When she saw that his prayers had over the latter the beneficent
influence she had expected, she determined to do her best to induce her
to give her confidence to this man in whom her exalted imagination saw a
savior as well as a friend.
This was the real beginning of the Raspoutine intrigue, and it would
have been a lucky thing for all those who came afterward to be concerned
in it if it had stopped at this stage, and not been transferred to a
more dangerous one, the stage upon which European politics had to be
played and, unfortunately for Russia, played by utterly unskilful hands.
The comedy of Raspoutine did not last longer than a few months. Its
drama dragged on for years, and is not yet over by a long way.
XVI
SHE SAW HIM ONCE MORE
After she had made the acquaintance of Raspoutine the Empress changed
considerably. For one thing, she became more cheerful and seemed once
more to interest herself in what went on around her. She tried also to
keep her mind away from the one morbid thought which had been haunting
her, the thought that her son’s bad health was a punishment which God
had sent her on account of her conduct in regard to Colonel Orloff. She
had most undoubtedly loved the young officer, and she realized with a
painful but clear perspicacity that if she had allowed him to go away
when he wished to do so the tragedy which had culminated with his
suicide would never have taken place. Her mind, which was dimmed as to
so many other points, was quite awake to the terrible one that the man
to whom her whole heart had belonged had died to save her honor and to
prevent her good name from being compromised. This was quite sufficient
to fill her soul with acute remorse, but apart from this she missed the
companionship of this faithful friend before whom she could allow
herself to speak about her sorrows and her trials just as if she had
been an ordinary woman and not an Empress.
There were times when her grandeur oppressed her, and then it was that
she longed for a confidant and friend before whom she would not be
ashamed to bare her heart and unburden it. She felt so lonely amid the
pomp and splendor which surrounded her, so solitary in her great Palace
which was so very different from the simple house in which her childhood
and youth had been spent, and she was such a stranger in a land she had
not learned to love and where she had found herself confronted with
hostility from the very first day that she had set her foot in it. Of
course her children, and especially her son, constituted a great
interest and a great preoccupation in her life, but their existence was
not sufficient to fill it entirely. In moments when she thought herself
forsaken by the world she would have given ten years of her future
existence to be able to see once more the man who had died for her
because he had found it impossible to consecrate his whole life to her
service.
Raspoutine was a keen observer of human nature. Lurking behind his
hopeless ignorance there were immense cunning and a natural intuition of
what was going on in other people’s minds. Apart from this faculty, he
always made it a point to try and find out as much as he could
concerning the past of all persons with whom he happened to have
dealings. He understood quite admirably the art of “drawing out” those
with whom he conversed, and he could put together quite nicely the
tangled threads which another man would never have gone to the trouble
of trying to untwine. As soon as he had looked upon the Empress he had
understood that she must have gone through some great grief which was
not concerned with the state of health of her child alone, but which had
deeper foundations. In the fashionable drawing-rooms where he was a
welcome guest he had heard discussed more than once the personality as
well as the conduct of Alexandra Feodorowna; he had come to the
conclusion that the mystery which surrounded the death of Colonel Orloff
was in some way connected with her, and not with Madame Wyrubewa alone.
He applied himself, therefore, to discover what had really taken place.
For some time he could learn nothing, as no one seemed to know anything
more than the bare fact of the suicide of the young officer. It is true
that when he had asked Anna for the true version the latter had angrily
denied any connection implying guilt, but Raspoutine, peasant though he
was, understood sufficiently the character of a woman of the world to
know that such denials were not worth much. Altogether he was puzzled,
but continued, however, to put in an appearance at Tsarskoye Selo
whenever he was asked to do so, and he was shown several times the
little Heir to the Throne. The Empress had brought the babe to Madame
Wyrubewa’s cottage several times for him to pray over. The “Prophet” had
at once declared that the child would not die, and that there was every
likelihood he would outgrow his weakness, a prophecy it had been
relatively easy for him to make, considering the fact that before doing
so he had taken good care to talk with a doctor of his acquaintance
about the illness of Alexis, and had heard from him all that there was
to hear on the subject, which was not much. The boy might live with
care, and even get strong, once he had reached the years of adolescence;
he might die from the effect of a hemorrhage, which the slightest
accident might bring about. The whole thing was a matter of chance, and
nothing else.
The Empress, however, became full of hope when Raspoutine told her not
to worry unnecessarily, but to trust more to Providence than she had
been doing. It happened just at that time that the little boy got
stronger and better than he had been since his birth, and this fact
inspired her with a hope such as she had never allowed herself to nurse
since the day when she had realized to what a weak and frail piece of
humanity she had given birth in the person of the only son and Heir of
Nicholas II. She began to speak of the future, which she had hitherto
not dared to do, and she seemed suddenly to think that this future might
still hold some joys for her in reserve. As was but natural, she
attributed this change in her feelings and mind to the influence of
Raspoutine’s prayers, and as was also natural she felt grateful to him
for having brought it about.
The crafty peasant, however, was not so satisfied as the Empress. He had
begun to make great plans concerning her and the influence he meant to
acquire over her person. Somehow he could not bring them to realization.
He might have gone on for a long time in this state of uncertainty if he
had not made just at that moment the acquaintance of one of the
cleverest secret police agents the Russian Government had in its pay,
Manassavitch-Maniuloff. This personage, whom I have described at length
in another book, knew more about what went on in the Imperial Palace of
Tsarskoye Selo than any one else in the world. During the time when the
famous Plehwe occupied the post of Minister of the Interior he had had
the Palace watched just as much as the houses of the people whom he
suspected of not favoring his views and policy. Among the agents whom
he had intrusted with this task Manassavitch-Maniuloff had occupied a
foremost place. He was one of the most unscrupulous men alive, and, as
the future proved, had but one aim in his existence, that of enriching
himself, thanks to all kinds of shady speculations and blackmail he
practised on a large scale. He knew, if others did not, all that had
taken place in the house of Anna Wyrubewa on the day when Colonel Orloff
had left it for the last time, but he had never divulged this secret,
and had been content with waiting patiently until the day when he might
be able to turn it into account and to make capital out of it. Always on
the alert, and just as keen an observer as Raspoutine himself of the
weaknesses of human nature, with the additional advantage of being a
very well educated and cultured man, he very quickly grasped the
importance of what the “Prophet” confided to him when he started to
relate to his friend the details of his first interview with the Empress
of All the Russias.
Maniuloff was very well posted as to all the details of the Philippe
incident, together with its ridiculous end. When he had heard how much
Alexandra Feodorowna had been impressed by the fervor of Raspoutine’s
prayers, he suggested to the latter that he make use of the hypnotic
faculties which he possessed in order to get the inexperienced and
weak-minded Sovereign to become a tool in the hands of both. He gave
him very detailed instructions as to how he was to proceed.
Armed with these instructions, Raspoutine started upon a campaign which
brought Mr. Maniuloff to penal servitude, sent the Czarina to exile in
Siberia, and himself to an untimely and bloody grave.
At the meetings at Anna Wyrubewa’s house, during which the “Prophet” not
only prayed himself for the prosperity of the House of Romanoff, he also
persuaded the Empress to pray, too, in accordance with the particular
rites which he declared were indispensable to a perfect communion of the
human spirit with God, and which consisted in numerous genuflexions, and
other things of the same kind; in long fasts and hours spent in
meditation with the face on the floor, in what grew in time to be a
hysterical state of ecstasy. These meetings went on undisturbed for a
considerable length of time, until one day Raspoutine informed Alexandra
Feodorowna that he thought it wiser to discontinue them because certain
things had been revealed to him by the Holy Ghost which had caused him
to think that it would be better if he went away; otherwise he would be
compelled to try and take her spiritually with him into regions whither
perhaps she would not care to follow him. The Empress, of course,
eagerly asked what he meant, upon which he replied that to perfect
people such as he and she the Lord could grant the privilege of entering
into relations with dead and gone people whom they had loved in this
world; he did not know whether she would be able to go through this
ordeal; therefore he thought it better to discontinue their meetings for
the present.
The Czarina went home brooding upon what she had heard and with all her
superstitious curiosity awakened. At first she tried not to think of
what the “Prophet” had told her. Then she wondered whether she would be
strong enough to face the ordeal of entering into communion with the
other world, that world for which she had been longing, where had gone
the one man she had loved beyond every other earthly thing. For some
weeks she struggled against the temptation as it had been presented to
her by Raspoutine; then at last she yielded to it, and asked Anna
Wyrubewa to bring the “Prophet” once more to her house, as she wanted to
speak with him again.
The adventurer demurred at first, finding one obstacle after another in
order to decline the invitation which had been extended to him. At last
he consented to an interview, but declared that he would insist that no
one else be present at it, as the things which the “spirit” had
commanded him to say to Alexandra Feodorowna were of such a secret
nature that no one but herself could hear them. When he was introduced
into the presence of the Sovereign he began by falling on his knees and
praying with a fervor such as she had never seen him display before. At
last he told the miserable, deluded woman that he had been commanded to
say to her that there was one pure spirit now in another world who had
been allowed to communicate with her through his medium; that he did not
know who it was, but that if she wished to try the experiment she must,
before attempting it, prepare herself for it, with long prayers and
fastings, so as to be in a complete state of grace; otherwise the favor
about to be conferred on her could not be awarded. By that time the
Czarina had reached a nervous condition where anything Raspoutine told
her would have been acceptable to her over-excited brain. She promised
to conform herself to all the directions given to her, and three days
later she met again the impostor in a place which he indicated to her,
whither she went, accompanied by the faithful Anna. Madame Wyrubewa,
however, was not admitted to the room where Raspoutine was waiting for
the Empress. He stood before several holy images, with lamps burning
before them.
The Empress had scarcely touched any food for three days; she had spent
the time in long and almost continual orisons. She was just in a
condition when any appeal to her superstition would be sure to meet with
response. When she prostrated herself beside the “Prophet,” she had
reached a state of exhaustion and excitement which made her an easy prey
to any imposture practised by the unscrupulous. For about an hour
Raspoutine kept praying aloud, invoking the spirits of heaven in an
impressive voice, every word of which went deep into the heart of
Alexandra Feodorowna. Suddenly he seized her by the arm, exclaiming as
he did so: “Look! look! and then believe!”
She raised her eyes, and saw distinctly on the white wall the image of
Colonel Orloff, which, by a clever trick had been flashed on it by a
magic lantern held for the purpose by Manassavitch-Maniuloff.
The Empress gave one terrible cry and fell in a dead faint on the floor.
Anna Wyrubewa, hearing her scream of agony, rushed into the room to find
nothing but Raspoutine absorbed in deep prayer beside the inanimate form
of his victim.
This was but the first scene of many of the same character. The Czarina
recovered her scared senses with the full conviction that she had really
seen the spirit of the man she had loved so dearly; she was very soon
persuaded that he had been allowed to show himself to her and that he
would henceforward watch over her and guide her with advice and
encouragement in her future life. She quite believed that Raspoutine,
whom she sincerely thought to be in total ignorance as to that episode
in her life, was a real Prophet of God, and that, thanks to him, she
would be able to communicate with the dead. Whether Anna Wyrubewa shared
this conviction or not it is difficult to say, but it is not likely that
either Raspoutine or Maniuloff confided in her. They knew too well the
small reliance that, as a rule, can be placed upon feminine secrecy, and
the game they were playing was far too serious for them to run the risk
of compromising it by an indiscretion. It is therefore far more probable
that they also played upon the superstitious feelings of the Empress’s
friend, and that they used both ladies for the furtherance of their own
nefarious schemes with as much unscrupulousness as consummate art.
XVII
MY SON! I MUST SAVE MY SON!
After the episode which I have just related, there was no longer any
question of Raspoutine being allowed to leave the proximity of the
Imperial Court. The Empress came to have such utter confidence in him
that she even tried to induce the Czar to consult him; this he refused
to do, but, seeing how much brighter his wife had become since her
acquaintance with the “Prophet,” he made no objection to her seeing him.
One must here remark that both Raspoutine and his chief adviser,
Manassavitch-Maniuloff, played their cards wonderfully well by avoiding
every appearance of mixing themselves up with politics. The “Prophet”
talked with the Empress when he had the opportunity to do so, which, by
the way, was not so frequent as might have been supposed. His
conversations were always confined to religious subjects. He was very
carefully coached by his accomplice every time he had to meet Alexandra
Feodorowna, and he used to relate to her some sensational supernatural
stories, which a man of his ignorance could not possibly have learned if
he had not been inspired by the Almighty, as she fondly imagined. Her
superstitious feelings had entirely taken the upper hand of her reason
in all matters where Raspoutine was concerned, and she truly believed
him to be a Prophet of God, whose every word was inspired by Heaven,
whose intercession in her behalf had decided the Almighty to cure her
son of a disease which all the doctors who had seen him had pronounced
to be quite incurable.
In the mean while, although the relations of the Czarina with the crafty
adventurer who had succeeded in captivating her confidence remained
restricted to the purely religious ground, people were talking about
them, trying to turn them into a vast agency where everything in the
world could be bought and sold, providing the necessary money was
forthcoming to do it. Manassavitch-Maniuloff, thanks to the numerous
spies whose services he could command for a consideration, started to
spread the rumor that Raspoutine had become all powerful in Court
circles, and that if only one applied to him one could bring through the
most difficult kind of business. It must be remembered that at the time
I am referring to (the five years or so immediately preceding the war)
Russia had been transformed into a vast stock-exchange, thanks to the
mania for speculation which, since the Japanese war, had seized hold of
the public. Industry always more or less neglected had suddenly taken a
new and unexpected lease of life, and banks did a roaring business in
selling and buying for the account of the innumerable speculators who
rushed to invest their money. Nothing mattered in that respect save the
quotation of yesterday and the one expected or hoped for to-morrow.
Government contracts for all kinds of things, especially contracts
connected with the railway business and with factories of every sort,
were eagerly sought for. In the fight which was taking place to obtain
them every possible argument was employed. The art of Maniuloff and of
his friends, because he was not alone in this detestable business,
consisted in persuading others, even men in power who ought to have
known better, that Raspoutine, through his connection with the powers
who ruled at Tsarskoye Selo, could get for them such contracts that he
expected in return a solid commission, which, of course, was never
refused to him.
How long this kind of thing would have gone on it is difficult to say if
Mr. Stolypine, who was at the time Prime Minister, had not had his
attention drawn toward the activity of the “Prophet.” Not knowing very
well what to make of the conflicting reports which were brought to him,
he expressed one day the desire to meet Raspoutine. After the interview
he uttered his famous phrase:
“The only use the man could be put to was to light the furnace of the
house he was living in.”
The words were repeated, of course, to the person whom they concerned,
and they proved the death sentence of Stolypine, because his “removal”
by fair or by foul means was decided immediately after he had uttered
them. Stolypine, however, in spite of his apparent disdain for the
strange personality of Raspoutine, was far too clever not to realize
that the constant presence of this man by the side of the Empress of
Russia was likely to lead to gossip of a dangerous kind, if not to
various complications. He tried at first to get rid of him by diplomatic
means, and enrolled the sympathies of the Grand-Duchess Elisabeth, the
eldest sister of Alexandra Feodorowna, who, by reason of her having
embraced a religious life, was in possession of great respect everywhere
and could say what she liked to the Czar as well as to the Czarina. The
Prime Minister explained to her that it was to the highest degree
harmful for the reputation of the Imperial dynasty in general to see its
heads give way to a superstition which only evoked ridicule on the part
of reasonable people. Elisabeth Feodorowna promised that she would try
what she could do, but after a while she had to acknowledge that at the
first words she had spoken concerning the advisability of sending
Raspoutine back to his native village of Pokrowskoye in Siberia the
Empress had interrupted her so angrily that she had not been able to go
on with the conversation.
Stolypine was not a man to stop at half-measures. He asked no one’s law
or leave, and in virtue of his powers as Prime Minister he had the
“Prophet” exiled from the capital at twenty-four hours’ notice.
Raspoutine wished to communicate with the Empress as soon as the order
to leave St. Petersburg was signified to him, but he was prevented from
doing so by his friend, Manassavitch-Maniuloff, who assured him that it
would be far wiser not to murmur, and to accept the decree of banishment
issued against him; because in that way he would acquire far more
sympathy than would be the case if he rebelled; besides, in his absence
it would be relatively easy to play upon the nervous temperament of the
Empress to such an extent that after he had been recalled he would never
stand again the risk of a second dismissal. This was accordingly done
and Alexandra Feodorowna found herself alone, deprived of the
possibility of going on with religious practices that had gradually
assumed the character of those indulged in by that sect of the Khlystys
to which Raspoutine belonged.
By a strange coincidence, which was nothing but a coincidence because,
weak and foolish as was Anna Wyrubewa, she did not lend herself to the
conspiracy which was so falsely attributed to her, which in reality did
not exist, the conspiracy of drugging the little Cesarewitsch for the
purpose of proving to his mother that he could not be well so long as
Raspoutine was not there to pray for him--the child suddenly sickened in
a more dangerous manner than ever before. The poor Empress again went
out of her mind. She used to cry aloud that God was punishing her for
not having known how to protect His “Prophet,” and things of the same
kind. At last the baby grew better, and the Court could remove to the
Crimea, where it was hoped he would more rapidly recover than in the
damp climate of St. Petersburg. It was during this journey that
Stolypine was murdered by secret police agents, a crime in which it was
generally believed that Raspoutine, together with his accomplices, had
been mixed up. The Empress, who had hated the Prime Minister ever since
she had ascertained that it was he who had banished her favorite, did
not disarm even in the presence of death, and it was related that she
publicly prided herself upon having persuaded the Emperor not to attend
the funeral of the man who had died for him, but to leave Kieff for
Livadia on the eve of the day when it was to take place.
She had become very bitter just then, and she never missed any
opportunity which presented itself to show her want of affection for the
Imperial Family, as well as her contempt for the Russian people. The
morganatic marriage of the only brother of Nicholas II., the Grand-Duke
Michael, which took place at about that time, procured her a new
occasion to prove the unbounded influence which since the birth of her
son she had acquired over the mind of the weak Emperor, and to exercise
her revengeful feelings in an unexpected manner. This marriage, so much
must be conceded, was of a nature to give rise to unpleasantness, and
could not in any case have been viewed with favorable eyes either by the
Czar or by the Imperial Family. The lady had already been divorced
twice, and the fact of her last husband having been an officer in the
same regiment as the Grand Duke was also a reason why the match would
have been disapproved of in any case. But, on the other hand, Michael
Alexandrowitch, in uniting himself to the woman who had captivated his
heart and his fancy, was acting as a man of honor, considering several
facts which made it almost imperative for him not to forsake a person
who had sacrificed much for his sake. It would certainly have been
sufficient to oblige him to leave the army and to reside for some time
abroad as a punishment, and no one imagined that worse could befall him.