Weeks went by. The usual meetings of the monk's "sister-disciples" were held at the house in the Poltavskaya, and often in the presence of a stranger or a female novice about to be admitted to the cult he pretended to speak to Alexandra Feodorovna over his mock telephone.
Every action of the monk was that of an arrogant and erotic swindler. His intelligence was, however, extremely perceptive, and he was not wanting in finesse of the mujik order, combined with a sense of foresight that was utterly amazing. These, with his suave manner, his affectation of deepest piety, and his wonderful fascination over women of every age and every class, had now brought him to the position of the power behind the Throne.
He already ruled Russia. Tsar and Tsaritza were his puppets, so cleverly did he play his cards, yet as he frequently remarked to me in the weeks that followed:
"Kokovtsov is against me. We are enemies. He must go."
I knew that if the Premier had an enemy in Grichka, then the statesman was doomed.
Now, the plot which Rasputin formed against the new Prime Minister was an extremely clever and subtle one.
While it was being carried out I often met Vladimir Nicholaievitch, who was naturally compelled to curry favour with the Father, and consequently sometimes visited him even against his inclination, no doubt. He was a long, rather narrow-faced, bearded man, with a pair of deep-set eyes and a secretive air, subtle by temperament, and keenly alive to his own interests as well as those of the Empire.
His one sin in the eyes of Alexandra Feodorovna was that he hated Germany.
"He once lost money in a German financial concern," Rasputin declared to me one day with a laugh. "That is why he cannot bear the Germans."
The Premier, risen from the middle-class, was a dandy who never looked one in the face, and whose eyes were ever upon his own clothes, as though expecting to find specks of dust upon them. He was always immaculately dressed, and his newly-acquired manners were so perfect that I often wondered if he carried a book of etiquette in his pocket.