The villagers of Siberia were in the habit of hiring out horses to travellers passing through the country and offering their services as guides and coachmen. One day Rasputin happened to conduct a priest to the monastery of Verkhoturie. The priest entered into conversation with him, was struck by his quick natural gifts, led him by his questions to confess his riotous life, and exhorted him to consecrate to the service of God the vitality he was putting to such bad uses. The exhortation produced so great an impression on Grigory that he seemed willing to give up his life of robbery and licence. He stayed for a considerable time at the monastery of Verkhoturie and began to frequent the holy places of the neighbourhood.
When he went back to his village he seemed a changed man, and the inhabitants could hardly recognise the reprobate hero of so many scandalous adventures in this man whose countenance was so grave and whose dress so austere. He was seen going from village to village, spreading the good word and reciting to all and sundry willing to listen long passages from the sacred books, which he knew by heart.
Public credulity, which he already exploited extremely skilfully, was not slow in regarding him as a prophet, a being endowed with supernatural powers, and in particular the power of performing miracles. To understand this rapid transformation
LETTER TO THE AUTHOR FROM THE GRAND-DUCHESS OLGA NICOLAÏEVNA
(LIVADIA, CRIMEA, MAY 13/26, 1914).
[Facing page 60.
one must realise both the strange power of fascination and suggestion which Rasputin possessed, and also the ease with which the popular imagination in Russia is captured by the attraction of the marvellous.