The fact is, Anna Vyrubova was Razputin’s accomplice—nothing more. She kept him in touch with everything, especially with the boy’s health. It was at her house that Razputin saw the Emperor and Empress when it became too scandalous for him to appear daily in the Palace—after the dismissal of governesses who had raised an outcry against Razputin’s familiarities with their charges.
Another person deserves mention. It is not positively shown how far his influence was felt, but certainly he played an important part in the Romanov tragedy. He was in many ways a mystery man—a doctor of Thibetan medicine, by birth a Buriat, named Badmaiev. Besides dispensing nostrums that cured all ills—often bringing relief where modern science had failed—he dabbled in politics, and who knows what dark forces were served by him? Razputin was one of his best clients. According to Razputin one could immediately regain all the vigour of youth by swallowing a powder composed of Thibetan herbs; another kind of powder made one quite indifferent to worry. Badmaiev reserved these specifics for people whom he could trust. The first-named kind was for Razputin, but who was the recipient of the “dope” that “made you forget”—who if not the hapless Nicholas? And once it is admissable that the peasant had taken to drugs for unmentionable purposes, one may seriously entertain other accusations against him and his accomplices.
According to indications contained in the evidence, Anna Vyrubova arranged the “miracles” of healing that Razputin performed on the sick boy. It was not difficult. The malady always followed the same course. A slight bruise set up internal hemorrhage. The patient suffered terrible pain while the blood flowed, clotted, and finally began to be reabsorbed. Anna knew from experience how to read the symptoms. Razputin would come to pray when the crisis was over, so that it should seem as if his intercession had brought relief. Things happened in this way on several known occasions. Razputin did not wish to lose the Empress’s favour. He and Vyrubova took their precautions. And Badmaiev’s powders may here also have been used with benefit to all concerned. Alexandra’s eyes were never opened to the fact that Razputin’s prayers did not affect the disease.
It will be argued by those who knew Vyrubova that she was too garrulous to keep a secret, too child-like to conceive or carry out any intrigue, and still less any act affecting the Empress in whose hands she was as wax. To have lived for twenty years in the confidence of such a woman as the Empress presumes the possession of no ordinary faculties, whether of extreme innocence combined with serpent wisdom or of profound guile hidden under an appearance of candour. Vyrubova’s apologists would have us believe that she was nothing better than an idiot. The skill with which she crept into the good graces of the Imperial family, ably seconding all the moves of the practised courtier Taneiev, her father, shows the absurdity of such a theory and sufficiently denotes her real disposition.
Woman-like, the Empress regarded all things from a personal standpoint. Her malady only served to intensify her likes and dislikes. One of her particular aversions was Wilhelm of Prussia, first, because the Hohenzollerns had been exalted at the expense of her own House; secondly, because Wilhelm had not counted with her. Germany, ruled by Wilhelm, was ever the foe of Russia ruled by Alexandra. She could not admit the possibility of a compromise or truce with Wilhelm’s Germany, any more than she would permit the Tsar to summon a Ministry composed of Razputin’s detractors and enemies. A complete and ludicrous misapprehension prevailed in Russia and among the Allied peoples about the alleged pro-German tendencies of the ex-Empress. She hated Germany with a bitterness and a fervour equalled only by her contempt and loathing for the Russians—always excepting the peasants, whom she “imagined” to be endowed with all the virtues and qualities that Razputin was supposed to possess.
Wilhelm was described by her as “that low comedian” and “man of falsehood,” who had “stooped to associate himself with Bolshevists.” With fierce and joyful anticipation, she foresaw his punishment: “The day will come when they will destroy him!” She did not live to see her vision fulfilled.
Such was the so-called pro-German Empress. It is easy to recall the outcry that was raised in Entente countries in the spring of 1917 when it became known that the Romanovs would be permitted to come to England. “How can we tolerate this friend of Germany in our midst?” The public had been so deeply affected by the Razputin propaganda, that they would not hear of Alexandra coming to this country. And as the family could not be disunited, they had all to remain in Russia. The ex-Tsar’s servants had even prepared his English uniforms. Sorrowfully, without understanding the reasons, they obeyed the order to pack them away. Thus, after depriving them of the throne, Razputin’s foul influence took from the Romanovs their hope of an asylum and left them to suffer a shameful death.
CHAPTER IV
RAZPUTIN THE PEASANT
The walls of Ipatiev’s house epitomised the Revolution. One name and one effigy predominated: the name of Grishka, the silhouette of Razputin, loathsomely caricatured. One met, here and there, allusions to the “tsar-bloodsucker” and other catchphrases of the Revolution, but one felt that they were perfunctory. The one and only unpardonable crime in the eyes of the Red guards had been the preference shown by the Empress for a peasant—a common man like one of themselves. What a commentary on the blindness of the unfortunate Alexandra!
Political propaganda had represented Razputin as a monster of iniquity and occult powers, whereby he held the Empress under his thraldom. The dossier kills this legend—it is nothing more.