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In the Pitti and the Uffizi in Florence, in the great gallery in Siena; in Venice, Rome, and Milan hung dozens of portraits resembling closely that of Gregory Novikh, the man who, to my own knowledge as I intend to here show, betrayed Russia, and destroyed the Imperial House of Romanoff. In that look I had foreseen in him something terrible; I had read the whole of his destiny in his glance.
His gaze for the moment overwhelmed me. Once or twice in my life as it comes to most men I have met with that expression in the countenances of those I have come across: it presaged crime, and the prophecy, alas! has been verified. Crime was in Gregory Novikh. Perhaps Rasputin as the world called him and as I will call him knew that crime was in him. I think he did.
Had there been anything serious against me I doubt whether I should have occupied, as I did for some years, the post of confidential secretary to "Grichka," that saintly unwashed charlatan whose real name was Gregory Novikh, and whom the world knew by the nickname of "Rasputin." Of my youth I need say but little.
Religion of all creeds has its esoteric phases, and our own Greek Church is certainly not alone in its "cranks." "Rajevski, this is the Starets, Gregory Novikh," said the General, who was in uniform with the cross of St. Andrew at his throat. I stood for a few seconds astounded.
Such a figure could have played a part in no other than a court of Oriental pattern, and such the Russian court was. Gregory Novikh was a Siberian by birth, the son of a common, illiterate mujik, as illiterate and as ignorant as his father. Early in life, while still a common fisherman, he showed abnormal qualities.
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