My curiosity being aroused I waited until after the departure of the train, when I watched the mysterious young man return from the platform, hurry out of the station, and jump into a droshky and drive off.
When I returned and reported my meeting with the young man, Rasputin seemed much gratified, and even telephoned to Sturmer, who was at that moment at the palace, having been called to the War Council which the Emperor--who had again consulted his dead father"s spirit at a further seance on the previous night--was now holding.
It appeared that a dinner had a week before been arranged by Prince Galitzine, to which the Grand Dukes Nicholas Nicholaievitch, Constantin Constantinovitch, and Michael Alexandrovitch, together with Generals Arapoff, Daniloff, Brusiloff, and Rennenkampf, had been invited. At first it was proposed to cancel the engagement owing to the critical position of affairs, but on the suggestion of the Grand Duke Nicholas it was not abandoned, for, as he pointed out, it would bring together the loyal leaders of the army on the eve of great events, and that, after dinner, views might be exchanged in confidence for the national benefit.
Now earlier that same day Rasputin had given me a note to deliver to the Grand Duke Michael, whom I had failed to find, but was told that he was to dine at Prince Galitzine"s. So about half-past six o"clock I took it to the prince"s house, when, to my surprise, as I pa.s.sed into the great hall I saw the same fair-haired young man to whom I had delivered that envelope in secret an hour before. He was one of the prince"s servants, but he had not seen me!
A sudden suspicion seized me. I asked to see the prince, and when shown up to his room I delivered the note for the Grand Duke.
Then, having seen that the door was closed, I asked permission to say something in strictest confidence, and told him of the mysterious envelope I had delivered to his servant.
He heard me through, gave me his hand in promise that he would not betray my confidence, thanked me, and dismissed me.
Next day the prince called me to him in secret, and told me that in the possession of the young man was found a lady"s silver powder-puff box filled with what looked and smelt like toilet-powder. This, on being examined, was discovered to be a most subtle and dangerous poison--one evidently prepared by that diabolical poisoner, Badmayev.
The young man had been forced by his master to swallow some, and had died in great agony. Thus it was proved that Rasputin and the camarilla had, on the very night of the outbreak of war, plotted to sweep off at one blow our most famous Russian generals, and leave our country practically without any military leaders of experience and at the mercy of the Huns!
The vile plot would no doubt have succeeded, and the deaths put down to ptomaine poisoning, as so many have been, had I not so fortunately recognised the young valet as he crossed the hall of Prince Galitzine"s house.
Thus it will be seen that Rasputin and his friends hesitated at nothing in their frantic endeavours to gain their own sordid ends and to secure victory for Germany.
CHAPTER IX
THE TRAGEDY OF MADAME SVETCHINE
"SISTER! thou who hast chosen to become the bride of Heaven, listen unto me, and repeat these words after me!" exclaimed the monk Rasputin, holding over the kneeling countess the big bejewelled cross which the Empress had given him, and in which were set some of the finest jewels of the Romanoffs.
"I will, O Father," replied Paula Yakimovitch, a pretty young woman, whose husband was Governor of Yakutsk, far off in Siberia, and who had begged him to leave her in Petrograd.
"Then repeat these words," said the bearded saint, fixing his weird, hypnotic eyes upon her. "Thou art my holy Father--"
"Thou art my holy Father----" exclaimed the Governor"s wife in obedience.
"To thee I bow, and to thee I acknowledge that thou art sent by Almighty G.o.d to save our holy Russia."
She repeated the words amid the silence of that afternoon a.s.sembly of the sister-disciples at the Starets" house, a gathering which included Madame Vyrubova and her sister, Madame Soukhomlinoff; Madame Katacheff, wife of the Governor-General of Finland; pretty little Madame Makotine, to whose salon everyone scrambled; and old Countess Chapadier, bedecked, as always, with diamonds.
"I hereby swear in my belief that G.o.d has sent to our Russia his divine saviour in the human form of Gregory Rasputin, and that the sin I commit in my belief is the sin which is easiest forgiven, and that by prayer and fasting my sins will be remitted, even as I am admitted to the sect of the righteous and holy."
These blasphemous words the young woman repeated after the unwashed saint, who, standing upon a sort of dais in the big upstairs salon, still held up the jewelled cross suspended from his neck in front of him.
"Salvation is in contriteness," the monk went on, for that was what the sly scoundrel had invented. "Contriteness can only come after we have sinned. Let us therefore sin, my sisters, in order to gain salvation! By sinning with me," he added, having reached the apogee of his influence, "salvation is all the more certain to come to you for this reason--that I am filled with the Holy Spirit!"
"G.o.d be thanked! G.o.d be thanked!" fell from the lips of those thirty or so bamboozled and hysterical women, who, seated on forms as school-children might sit, had a.s.sembled to a.s.sist at the admission of Countess Yakimovitch to the secret and disgraceful cult of the blasphemous charlatan.
The date was September the 7th, 1914.
Russia had been at war with Germany for a month, and the Press of the Allies was full of cheerful optimism regarding what one of your London journalists had called "the Russian steam-roller." We in holy Russia believed in "the mills of G.o.d," and the nation as a whole was confident that it could resist the Teuton invasion.
The neophyte, beneath the extraordinary hypnotism of the "saint," felt the dirty fingers upon her brow, as, in a strange jargon of religious phrases and open blasphemy, he p.r.o.nounced a kind of benediction upon her, adjuring her carefully to preserve the secrets of the sect "from your own mother and father, sister, brother, husband and child." Then he added: "In me, Gregory Rasputin, you see the One sent by Heaven as the Healer and Deliverer of Russia from the hands of the oppressor. To me the Emperor, but an earthly king, hath delegated his imperial powers. I am the saviour of Russia. Believe in me and in my teachings and ye shall have life, health and prosperity--with the life beyond the grave.
Disobey, and thou shalt be eternally d.a.m.ned, together with all thy family. I, Gregory Rasputin, who hath been sent to thee as saviour," he added, "take unto me as sister Paula Vladimirovna to be my disciple!"
"May G.o.d forbid!" cried a woman"s voice from among those a.s.sembled. "Let us end this blasphemy!"
The effect was almost electrical. Rasputin started, and gazed at the rows of elegantly-dressed women, his disciples, and the few good-looking young women whom he had invited to be present.
"Yes," went on a young and pretty woman seated at the back of the little audience. "I repeat those words!"
Startled myself at the boldness of the young lady, I saw that she was dark, extremely good-looking, and refined. Rasputin had met her a week before at the salon of old Countess Lazareff, and she having expressed a desire to know more of the secret cult of which so many curious rumours were rife in Petrograd society, he had allowed Madame Trevetski, the wife of the ex-Commander-in-Chief in the Caucasus, to bring her that afternoon.
Now, it must be said that no lady was admitted to those weekly reunions of the sister-disciples unless she first had the full approval of the Starets. She must be good-looking and possessed of either wealth or influence, but in preference wealth. And it was certain that no woman was ever invited unless it was Rasputin"s intention to admit her to the secrets of his "religion."
Yet here was open defiance! This lady, whose name was Madame Anastasia Svetchine, was the wife of Colonel Svetchine, who was on the Staff of the Etat-Major at Vilna, and who was already at the battle front. Before Rasputin had allowed her to be brought to his house it had fallen to my lot to make some inquiries concerning her, and I had found that she was of good family, that her husband was possessed of fair means, and that besides their house in Vilna they had a comfortable residence in the Kirotshnaya, in Petrograd. She moved in that rather gay, go-ahead set of which, prior to the war, the reckless Madame Soukhomlinoff was the centre, and she had recently become quite a notable figure in Petrograd society.
Rasputin, furious at her interruption, roared:
"Silence, woman! Go out of the room at once!"
But Madame Svetchine, springing to her feet, cried: "It is monstrous!
Disgraceful! Blasphemous! It is true what Purichkevitch has said in the Duma--that you are the evil force in Russia! Though a woman, I will have none of your mock piety and disgraceful licentiousness!"
"Ah! I see, madame, that you are an enemy--eh?" he said in a slow, deliberate way. "And let me tell you, when Gregory Rasputin has an enemy, he does not rest until that enemy is swept from his path. If you defy me, you defy your G.o.d!"
"I defy you!" cried the woman shrilly, making a dramatic scene. "But I fear my G.o.d, and Him alone."
"Oh! be silent, I beg!" cried Countess Lazareff in French, wringing her hands, she having introduced her, while all were horrified that the holy Father should be thus openly denounced before his "sisters."
"What is that woman saying?" the monk shouted across to me, for he did not know French, and was suspicious that the words contained yet another insult until I translated them to him.
"I refuse to be silent!" declared the colonel"s young wife. "I will describe to all whom I meet what has taken place here to-day--the mockery of it all. It is shameful how any woman in her senses, refined and educated, should fall beneath the fascination of such a brute!"
This was greeted with wild exclamations of surprise and indignation.
Indeed, so furious became the "sisters" at such open insult that I was, at Rasputin"s orders, compelled to conduct her out.
In the hall the young lady, who was certainly very pretty, became quite quiet again, and turning to me said:
"Monsieur Rajevski, I came here on purpose to denounce that infernal charlatan who is your employer. I am not without friends--and influential ones. I have spoken my mind fearlessly and openly. No doubt I have made an enemy of Grichka, but for that I care nothing, so long as I have exposed him."
Little did the unfortunate young lady know of Rasputin"s low cunning and diabolical unscrupulousness when she had uttered those words. I made no reply, for I feared that she would live to regret having created that scene in the monk"s holy-of-holies.
Late that evening, having been out, I returned to find the "saint" seated with the Minister Maklakoff, the man whom the newspaper _Utro Rossy_ described as "The love-sick Panther." Both were in an advanced state of intoxication, and when I entered, Rasputin, in a thick voice, exclaimed:
"Ah! my dear Feodor, I have just been describing the scene to-day with that woman Anastasia Svetchine--the little spitfire! But a pretty woman, Feodor--very pretty woman, eh? It"s a pity"--he sighed--"a great pity!"