Part 25 (2/2)
Come back to us at once. Nikki [the Tsar] says we cannot endure life without you, for there are so many pitfalls before us. For myself, I am longing for your return--longing--always longing!
Without our weekly meetings all is gloom----”
Here I broke off. What followed ought, I saw, not to be read aloud to that trio, who might at any moment turn to be enemies of the Starets.
”Yes,” he said, smiling in gratification. ”The woman evidently misses me.
It places a woman in her proper position to discard her for a while,” he added with a drunken laugh. ”What else does she say?”
”Only that they are due to go to Yalta, but that Her Majesty awaits your return,” I replied.
”Then let her wait. I am very comfortable here. Perm is pleasant as a change.”
I knew well that he was enjoying himself hugely and had already formed a great circle of hysterical women who believed in his divinity and practised the rites of his disgraceful ”religion.”
The final words of that amazing letter, which in itself showed the terms upon which Alexandra Feodorovna was with the convicted horse-stealer from Pokrovsky, were as follows:
”Here, O dear Father, we have only the everlasting toll of war!
Germany is winning--as she will surely win. She must. You will see to that! But we must all of us maintain a brave face towards our Russian public. In you alone I have faith. May G.o.d bring you back to us very soon. Alexis is asking for you daily. We are due to go to Yalta, but shall not move before we meet here. I embrace you, and so do Nikki and Anna.--Your devoted daughter, ALIX.”
The unkempt quartette, treating the Empress's expressions of affection as a huge joke, filled their gla.s.ses with champagne and drank heavily again, while Rasputin began to regale his ”saintly” companions with stories of the intimate life of the pro-German Empress.
Truly, it was a gay, dissolute life that the verminous rascal was leading at the Verkhotursky Monastery, and many were the women over whom he exercised his weird, uncanny fascination.
”Believe in me and you will receive G.o.d's blessing,” was his constant blasphemous declaration to every woman whose looks were even pa.s.sable.
”Doubt me and you will be d.a.m.ned.”
By Russia's millions in the provinces he was looked upon as the holy man sent by G.o.d to the Tsar. Did not the ”saint” eat at the Emperor's table, and did he not prompt His Majesty in fighting the Germans? None ever dreamed that the unkempt miracle-worker, whose fascination for women was so astounding, was the secret amba.s.sador of the a.s.sa.s.sin of Potsdam.
Two of those companions of his nightly drinking bouts at Perm were named Rouchine and Yepantchine, brawny fellows whose evil life was almost as notorious as Rasputin's. Rouchine had been a conjurer before he adopted a ”holy” life, and by reason of his knowledge of magic and illusions he frequently a.s.sisted the Starets in performing those ”miracles” that so astounded the mujiks who witnessed them with open mouths.
Whenever things grew a little dull, or Rasputin believed that his divinity was being doubted, he would calmly announce:
”I have had a vision. Last night the Holy Virgin appeared unto me and declared that I must again perform a miracle so that the world should be made aware that G.o.d, through me, is protecting our dear nation Russia.”
Instantly the news would spread from mouth to mouth--Rasputin's name being forbidden to be mentioned in the newspapers--that the Starets was about to perform a miracle, and thousands would a.s.semble in some open place, where one of Rouchine's conjuring tricks would be performed.
By this time so deeply had Rasputin corrupted the Russian Church in its centres of power and administration that half the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries were of his creation, his fellow-thief in Pokrovsky having been appointed to a bishopric.
Very naturally, Rasputin had made many enemies. His overbearing vanity, his relentlessness in dealing with any who stood in his path, and the exposure of his use of _agents-provocateurs_ in securing the conviction and imprisonment of anyone who displeased him, had aroused against him a fierce hatred in certain quarters both in Petrograd and Moscow. Many of those who had sworn to be avenged were wronged husbands and fathers, a number of whom it had been my duty to endeavour to pacify even at personal risk to myself as the rascal's secretary.
It was while at Perm that Rasputin received news that a man named Ivan Naglovski had been in Pokrovsky busily inquiring into his past, and interviewing his sister-disciples who were living there. Further, it was reported that he had been in communication with the monk Helidor, a man named Golenkovski, whose young wife was a ”disciple” in Petrograd, and with Marie Novitski, who was preaching loudly against the erotic doctrine of the new ”religion.”
It was plain that Ivan Naglovski was a secret enemy.
Acting upon the monk's instructions I returned to Petrograd, and at the headquarters of the Secret Police made application that Naglovski's movements should be watched. Three days later I was a.s.sured that a small league of patriotic men and women had been formed, with Naglovski at their head, determined to unveil and unmask the traitorous rascal who was my employer.
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