In spite of all her efforts, she never succeeded in being merely amiable and acquiring the art which consists of flitting gracefully but superficially over all manner of subjects. The fact is that the Czarina was nothing if not sincere. Every word from her lips was the true expression of her real feelings. Finding herself misunderstood, she quickly drew back into her shell. Her natural pride was wounded. She appeared less and less at the ceremonies and receptions she regarded as an intolerable nuisance. She adopted a habit of distant reserve which was taken for haughtiness and contempt. But those who came in contact with her in moments of distress knew what a sensitive spirit, what a longing for affection, was concealed behind that apparent coldness. She had accepted her new religion with entire sincerity, and found it a great source of comfort in hours of trouble and anguish; but above all, it was the affection of her family which nourished her love, and she was never really happy except when she was with them.
The birth of Olga Nicolaïevna had been followed by that of three other fine and healthy daughters who were their parents’ delight. It was not an unmixed delight, however, for the secret desire of their hearts—to have a son and heir—had not yet been fulfilled. The birth of Anastasie Nicolaïevna, the last of the Grand-Duchesses, had at first been a terrible disappointment ... and the years were slipping by. At last, on August 12th, 1904, when the Russo-Japanese War was at its height, the Czarina gave birth to the son they so ardently desired. Their joy knew no bounds. It seemed as if all the sorrows of the past were forgotten and that an era of happiness was about to open for them.
Alas! it was but a short respite, and was followed by worse misfortunes: first the January massacre in front of the Winter Palace—the memory of which was to haunt them like a horrible nightmare for the rest of their days—and then the lamentable conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War. In those dark days their only consolation was their beloved son, and it had not taken long, alas! to discover that the Czarevitch had hæmophilia. From that moment the mother’s life was simply one dreadful agony. She had already made the acquaintance of that terrible disease; she knew that an uncle, one of her brothers, and two of her nephews had died of it. From her childhood she had heard it spoken of as a dreadful and mysterious thing against which men were powerless. And now her only son, the child she loved more than anything else on earth, was affected! Death would watch him, follow him at every step, and carry him off one day like so many boys in his family. She must fight! She must save him at any cost! It was impossible for science to be impotent. The means of saving must exist, and they must be found. Doctors, surgeons, specialists were consulted. But every kind of treatment was tried in vain.
When the mother realised that no human aid could save, her last hope was in God. He alone could perform the miracle. But she must be worthy of His intervention. She was naturally of a pious nature, and she devoted herself wholly to the Orthodox religion with the ardour and determination she brought to everything. Life at Court became strict, if not austere. Festivities were eschewed, and the number of occasions on which the sovereigns had to appear in public was reduced to a minimum. The family gradually became isolated from the Court and lived to itself, so to speak.
Between each of the attacks, however, the boy came back to life, recovered his health, forgot his sufferings, and resumed his fun and his games. At these times it was impossible to credit that he was the victim of an implacable disease which might carry him off at any moment. Every time the Czarina saw him with red cheeks, or heard his merry laugh, or watched his frolics, her heart would fill with an immense hope, and she would say: “God has heard me. He has pitied my sorrow at last.” Then the disease would suddenly swoop down on the boy, stretch him once more on his bed of pain and take him to the gates of death.
The months passed, the expected miracle did not happen, and the cruel, ruthless attacks followed hard on each other’s heels. The most fervent prayers had not brought the divine revelation so passionately implored. The last hope had failed. A sense of endless despair filled the Czarina’s soul: it seemed as if the whole world were deserting her.[10]
It was then that Rasputin, a simple Siberian peasant, was brought to her, and he said: “Believe in the power of my prayers; believe in my help and your son will live!”
The mother clung to the hope he gave her as a drowning man seizes an outstretched hand. She believed in him with all the strength that was in her. As a matter of fact, she had been convinced for a long time that the saviour of Russia and the dynasty would come from the people, and she thought that this humble moujik had been sent by God to save him who was the hope of the nation. The intensity of her faith did the rest, and by a simple process of auto-suggestion, which was helped by certain perfectly casual coincidences, she persuaded herself that her son’s life was in this man’s hands.
Rasputin had realised the state of mind of the despairing mother who was broken down by the strain of her struggle and seemed to have touched the limit of human suffering. He knew how to extract the fullest advantage from it, and with a diabolical cunning he succeeded in associating his own life, so to speak, with that of the child.
This moral hold of Rasputin on the Czarina cannot possibly be understood unless one is familiar with the part played in the religious life of the Orthodox world by those men who are neither priests nor monks—though people habitually, and quite inaccurately, speak of the “monk” Rasputin—and are called stranniki or startsi.