Chapter Five.
Rasputin’s Secret Orders from Berlin.
Some pages of Rasputin’s dossier concern his intimate friendship with the Imperial family, and more especially with the Tsar’s daughters, whom the Empress herself had placed beneath his “tuition” and influence.
It seems that the monk Helidor—who because of his patriotism fell out of favour when Rasputin commenced to perform his conjuring tricks, which the Imperial Court believed to be miracles—still retained his friendship with the Grand Duchess Olga, and the governess of the Imperial children, the honest and straightforward Madame Tutcheva.
To Helidor—who afterwards revealed all he knew to the Revolutionary Party—the young Grand Duchess confessed her love for a certain very handsome officer, Nicholas Loutkievitch, of the Imperial Guard. She saw him often in the vicinity of the Palace, and also when she went to church, and he used to smile at her.
“Holy Father,” she said one clay to Helidor, “what can I do? I love him. But alas! love is forbidden to me—for I am an Imperial princess. It is my torment.”
Helidor had tried to console her by saying that she was young, and that she would love many times before she found the man who was to be her husband. It was surely not strange that the handsome young Grand Duchess should be attracted by a handsome man, for after all, even Imperial princesses are human.
Helidor, who belonged to the Pravoslavny Church, under Bishop Teofan, saw Rasputin a few days later and incidentally mentioned the youthful infatuation of the young Princess.