Rasputin the Rascal Monk

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 Stürmer. 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 Stürmer, 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. Stürmer, 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