CHAPTER XII ANNA VIRUBOVA SPEAKS
“Let any American mother imagine that her only son, who came into the world a weakling, and whose life had always hung on a thread, had been miraculously restored to health. Suppose also that the person who did this wonderful thing was not a doctor, but a monk of that mother’s church. Wouldn’t it be natural for that mother to regard the man with almost superstitious gratitude for the rest of her life? Wouldn’t it also be natural that she would want to keep the monk near her, at least until the child grew up, in order to have the benefit of his advice and help in case of a return of the illness?”
I had heard the story of the Rasputin murder as told by one of the principals in the gory tragedy, Prince Felix Yussupoff, and now I was to hear it again, this time from one of the reputed “dark forces,” of which Rasputin had been the head and front, Anna Virubova, the intimate friend and confidante of the Empress of Russia, and believed by many to be the chief accomplice of Rasputin. I had heard all sorts of horrible stories about this woman. It was said that she was Rasputin’s procuress. It was said that she conspired with him to make the Empress believe that the Czarevitch would die if the monk were sent away from court, or if he voluntarily withdrew. On the several occasions when he did go, Madame Virubova was said to have fed the child with minute doses of poison, so that he sickened, and when that happened of course the frantic mother demanded the return of Rasputin.
As the monk’s appetite for power grew and he demanded the removal of this or that metropolitan or bishop, the removal or appointment of ministers, the suppression of newspapers that denounced him, the Czarina, urged on by her friend Madame Virubova, would insist that Rasputin should have his way. Otherwise he might leave, and the Czarevitch would surely die. Madame Virubova was also said to have conspired with a court physician to poison the Czar, or rather to put constant doses of some toxic in his food in order to cloud his mind, and thus make him an easier dupe for the pro-German conspirators. They told the most amazing stories about this woman, making her out a sort of a combination of Lucrezia Borgia and Jezebel.
Gregory Rasputin and some of his female devotees.
Whether the provisional government believed these stories or not, the Duma members who forced the revolution evidently believed Anna Virubova to be one of the most dangerous of the inner court circle, or camarilla, which was planning a German peace. For when the Czar was forced to abdicate, and all the accused men of the camarilla were arrested and thrown into the fortress of Peter and Paul, Madame Virubova was also arrested and sent to the fortress. She was taken out of a sick bed—there had been an epidemic of measles in the royal family—thrown into an underground cell and kept there for three months. At the end of that time she was in such a state of collapse that the prison physician recommended her removal to a hospital. To this the provisional government consented, but when the order for her release was presented to the governor of the fortress, and he ordered her cell door unlocked, the soldiers on duty refused to obey the order. It was days before they were persuaded to let her go. Madame Virubova was sent to a hospital for a month, and then they set her free. That is, they permitted her to go to the home of her brother-in-law, who is a stepson of the Grand Duke Paul, and to live there under strict surveillance. They had searched her house in Tsarskoe Selo, and her rooms in the palace. They had put her through every kind of cross examination, not once but many times, and they were forced to admit that they could not discover a single incriminating circumstance, or any evidence of poisoning or conspiracy. They had to release her, but she was not allowed to leave the country, or even her brother’s house, without permission, which, of course, would not be granted. She was watched all the time, and might be rearrested and given the third degree at any time if the least bit of evidence seemed to warrant it.