In vain, also, Grand Duke Nicholas implored the Emperor to banish from the Court all those Germans by whom he was surrounded, telling him bluntly, “If you do not do so, the House of Romanoff is doomed.”
As for Rasputin, feeling himself tracked down like a wild beast, he continued to terrorize the Empress on the subject of the Tzarevitch, saying: “If any misfortune happens to me, the Tzarevitch will die too, and that exactly forty days, hour for hour, after me.” Many people disappeared and died in a mysterious manner, many dramas took place even in the “Saint’s” house—and some of these, it was said, were by his own hand—but he always succeeded in suppressing the scandal.
A young woman returned from Petrograd, who had the good sense not to become his victim, has told me how she was invited not very long before his tragic end to a tea-party at which the scoundrel was to be present. He entered the room not only with a most self-satisfied air, but one which tried to be also mystical, and began to speak to each of the young women in his hideous jargon, staring with that hypnotic look, which made each one of them his own, at the same time kissing each on the lips, with an incredible and repulsive audacity, as if it were due to him. The witness in question avoided the same fate but with difficulty, upon which the “Saint” took on a puzzled anxious expression, and began to turn round, saying that he felt a current of antipathy in the room and came to a stop in front of her.
From the moment she entered the room Rasputin did not appear to be at ease, no doubt because of that contrary current.
He seemed to this young woman to be a coarse creature, not even knowing how to express himself; naturally with no manners, and repulsive in his fatuousness; less than well cared for in his appearance, in fact—abject. Only one thing about him was right—of very fine quality—his linen. The Empress, it is said, gave him these very fine shirts; and, when her children were ill, it is said that she insisted that they should wear the “holy tunics” of the “Saint” so that they should not get worse.
It was in 1916 that the power of the mock-monk attained its zenith.
Naturally on the occasion of his visit to England some years ago, the German Emperor and his suite—cunningly chosen with a view to such functions—were there as spies, and not, as so many naïve people believed, as friends.
Prince Henry of Prussia repeated one of his spying tours and many other Germans avowed their love for England publicly—and that with good reason. Those journeys must have been very profitable for them, and I myself have no confidence in those who are always reiterating the small amount of interest they take in our country, while living in it all the time—what then are they doing in it?
Among the number of those spies one must evidently also count the Queen of Greece, sister of the Kaiser, who at Eastbourne on the eve of the declaration of war, pretended to know nothing about it, notwithstanding which she managed to escape just in time. She must therefore have been informed beforehand, or at any rate at the last moment. Since then she has but too much proved herself a fond sister for it to be possible for us to be credulous; it is true that her affection has cost her her throne, much it is said to her fury. In gratitude the Kaiser, directly on her arrival in Switzerland, opened an account at a Swiss Bank for her to the amount of £50,000.
Naturally, as the secret agent of the Kaiser in Russia, Rasputin was in constant communication with Berlin. They wished to get rid of Brusiloff, then of Korniloff, but failed in the two attempts at assassination, which annoyed Berlin very much. What they desired was the cessation of the great and victorious offensive.