Rasputin smiled at her words, and with that sinister calmness that characterised him in moments of chagrin, he replied:
"Pray do not distress thyself, O lady! Kokovtsov will assuredly not be long in office when the hand of Gregory is lifted against him."
"He must not remain long. He may get to know too much, as others have done. In Berlin his appointment will give the greatest offence," she said.
"I will ask the Almighty's intercession, for I see, O lady, that thou art nervous and unstrung. Compose thyself, I beg of thee. All will be well," and the "healer" crossed himself piously.
Truly, the condition of our dear land was in parlous state. A vogue for asceticism had sprung up, just as other vogues have become popular in other European countries.
As head of this circle of ascetic followers the monk had, with the connivance of Badmayev the herbalist, invented an expedient to deaden the flesh so as to render it benumbed as with cocaine. Hundreds of weak-minded women were flocking about him. Some of them were wives and daughters of the wealthy manufacturing class, but most were of the high aristocracy, who all regarded my employer as the Saviour of Russia, sent by Heaven to reform and deliver the "Holy" land from the toils of unrest and desolation.
We Russians are always idealists. That is our curse. Our religion is, unfortunately, an obsession, for any drunken scoundrel can become a "holy man" by simply making such declaration, and ever afterwards "sponging" upon his neighbours. Rasputin was but an example of this.
After all, it was but natural that, with the bevy of female devotees ever at his knees, he should attract the gossip of the scandalmongers. Much, indeed, of what they said was true, for I happen to know that personally.
But on that day at Tsarskoe-Selo I noted the Empress's agitation that Kokovtsov had been appointed, and began to suspect that the camarilla would take drastic action in order to defeat him. Indeed, when the Empress had left the room, Rasputin grew thoughtful in turn, and stroked his unkempt beard as he paced the floor, saying:
"Ah, Féodor! We must crush this jackanapes. I must see what we can do."