“But it’s too far,” I said—aghast at the proposal.
Rasputin was angry. “They must,” he declared, and, a few minutes afterwards, he added the prophetic words: “Willing or unwilling, they will come to Tobolsk, and they will see my village before they die.”
We remained one day at Rasputin’s house. His wife was a charming, sensible woman, and the peasants were a fine type—honest, simple folk, who cultivated the fields belonging to Rasputin, and accepted no payment for so doing—working absolutely in the spirit of holiness.
Rasputin had three children—the two girls were being educated in Petrograd, but the boy was quite a peasant. Everyone was friendly, but most of the villagers were strongly against Rasputin’s returning to Petrograd.
As we had decided to go on to Ekaterinburg, and from thence to the Convent of Verchoutouria, I thought it would be a good idea to persuade Rasputin to remain with his people. This he refused to do; I told Anna that there must be no more gossip, and that she must persuade Rasputin to leave us. She promised to do so, but at the last moment he went with us to Ekaterinburg.
I shall never forget my first impression of this fatal town. Directly we got out of the train, I felt a sense of calamity—we were all affected; Rasputin was ill at ease, Anna perceptibly nervous, and I was heartily glad when we reached the Convent of Verchoutouria, which is situated on the left bank of the river Toura. We stayed a night in the guest house attached to the Convent, and then Rasputin asked us to go into the woods with him and visit a hermit who was locally supposed to be a very holy man.
This pilgrimage must appear entirely foolish in the eyes of English readers. I try and put myself in their place, and imagine what the English public would think if the “Daily Mail” announced that Queen Mary had sent two of her friends on such an expedition.
“This couldn’t happen—Queen Mary is far too sensible,” you will say.
No doubt Queen Mary is far too sensible ... such a thing could never happen in England, and I am only relating it in order to prove that, once again, it is impossible to judge Russia from an English standpoint.
The hermit lived in the heart of the forest and his hermitage might easily have been taken for a poultry farm. He was surrounded by fowls of all sizes and descriptions. Perhaps he considered fowls akin to holiness; he gave quantities of eggs to the Convent, but we supped frugally off cold water and black bread. The hermit had no use for beds, so we slept miserably on the hard, unyielding floor of dried mud, and I must confess that I was glad when we returned to Verchoutouria and we were able to sleep and bath in comfort.