Fate willed that he who wore the halo of a saint should be nothing but a low and perverse creature, and that, as we shall soon see, this man’s evil influence was one of the principal causes of which the effect was the death of those who thought they could regard him as their saviour.
CHAPTER V
RASPUTIN
IN the preceding chapter I thought I ought to dwell on events some of which took place before I took up my duties, because they alone could explain the fundamental reasons why Rasputin was ever able to appear on the scene and obtain so great an influence over the Czarina.
I should have preferred to confine my book to events in which I have taken a direct part and give personal evidence only. But if I did so my story could not be clear. In the present chapter I am compelled once more to depart from the rule I wished to lay down for myself. If the reader is to understand me, it is essential for me to give certain details about the life and beginnings of Rasputin and to try and disentangle from the legends innumerable of which he is the subject such facts as seem to me part of history.
About one hundred and fifty versts south of Tobolsk the little village of Pokrovskoïe lies lost in the marshes on the banks of the Tobol. There Grigory Rasputin was born. His father’s name was Efim. Like many other Russian peasants at that time, the latter had no family name. The inhabitants of the village, of which he was not a native, had given him on his arrival the name of Novy (the Newcomer).
His son Grigory had the same kind of youth as all the small peasantry of that part of Siberia, where the poor quality of the soil often compels them to live by expedients. Like them, he robbed and stole.... He soon made his mark, however, by the audacity he showed in his exploits, and it was not long before his misdoings earned him the reputation of an unbridled libertine. He was now known solely as Rasputin, a corruption of the word rasputnik (debauched), which was destined to become, as it were, his family name.