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From fishing Rasputin turned toward easier ways of making a living. He became an itinerant monk, a holy man, a mystic. A rôle he was able to play on account of his peculiar hypnotic powers. As a religious fakir he acquired influence over women of high degree, though his manners were coarse and his person was decidedly unclean.
With Rasputin he was plotting to create a clamour which would justify the Government in opening separate peace negotiations and throwing the Allies overboard. Unfortunately for him, however, the unions of zemstvos and of towns remained patriotic. So he prohibited their meetings in order to cause demonstrations and riots.
As for poor Yakowleff, he was, as Rasputin had plotted, prosecuted in London for fraud, and sentenced at the Old Bailey to a term of imprisonment. As the months went on, in the first half of 1914, I noticed that the acquaintanceship between Rasputin and his well-paid chemist-friend, Badmayev, became closer.
We had travelled by way of Helsingfors, Stockholm, and Hamburg, Rasputin being bearer of letters from the Tsaritza to the Kaiser and Kaiserin, assuring them of her continued good wishes and her efforts to secure a German conquest.
I kiss your dear hands. With Olga I ask your blessing. Your dutiful daughter, "A." It was thus evident that the Empress knew of what Rasputin gleefully called "The Perfume of Death." Ah! in how many cases, I wonder, was it used by the mock "saint" to stifle the truth and to sweep his enemies of both sexes from his path?
Rasputin drew his hand roughly from her, for she had seized it as she implored him to show her mercy. "There may be some extenuating circumstances in your case but I doubt it," he said. "There are!" she declared. "I grew to love the man. I was blind, mad, infatuated but now I hate him! Would that I could kill the man who wrought such disaster in our land!
The people had achieved their first victory over the "dark forces," and Stürmer, driven out, came one night to us, and, pacing the room, tore his beard and cursed both the Emperor and Empress. Then, turning upon Rasputin, he cried with a sneer: "And you, the holy Father and our divine guide, have been powerless to save us! Where are your miraculous powers?
In this, scourging played a considerable part, and as all sorts of illnesses and unsatisfied desires were attributed to the "demons," the number of cases treated by the "holy man" was almost incalculable. Even the prelates whom Rasputin ousted from their positions in some cases still continued to believe in him after his death.
Rasputin remarked, first glancing to see that the door was closed. "He must have something to occupy his shallow brain. That is why the Empress arranges the sittings. But Féodor," he added, "I must see this enemy of mine, Ivan Naglovski. He is not a person to be disregarded, and it seems from what you told me he has a number of important friends. We will discuss the matter to-morrow."
In the room Rasputin sat in his black robe and his big jewelled cross suspended by its chain, while I stood beside him. The Emperor, with a cigarette in his mouth, sat in a big arm-chair at his desk, tracing circles and squares upon a sheet of paper, his habit when distracted. Now and then he scratched his head.
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