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Updated: May 16, 2025
"Of course, because it is the safest meeting-place, but I did not know that matters were to be freely discussed before her." "Then you do not trust the woman?" remarked Rasputin. "You are like myself, I never trust women," and he grinned. "Shall we drop our conversation when she returns?" Azef reflected for a few moments. "No," he said. "She knows most of the details of the affair.
I noticed that Azef seemed very uneasy at her presence, and presently sent her from the room to ask for a telephone call. The instant she had gone he exclaimed in a low voice: "It is a pity to have spoken before Paula! She knows too much. One day, when it suits her, she may reveal something unpleasant concerning us." "But you made the appointment here, at her house!" Kiderlen-Waechter protested.
In his turn, this man, in order to maintain his perilous equilibrium, had to do work for both the police and the revolutionaries, and accept whatever either gave him to do as it came, because it was necessary he should give them assurances of his fidelity. Only imbeciles, like Gapone, let themselves be hanged or ended by being executed, like Azef, because of their awkward slips.
The man's name was Evno Azef, upon whom unfortunately the French Government bestowed the Legion of Honour. Before he went to Paris, Azef was a close friend of Rasputin and of Stürmer. He was a criminal of the worst type, an expert in crime, though he was a recognised agent of the Russian Political Police.
Next day, in consequence of a telephone message, I left with Rasputin for Paris, where we put up at the Grand Hotel, being visited on the day following our arrival by Azef, who, dressed differently, I would certainly have passed in the street unrecognised.
The attempt upon Admiral Dubassof, in which Count Konovnicin met his death; the attempt upon General Guerchelman, Governor-General of Moscow; the assassination of General Slepzof at Tver, with half a dozen other murders of the same kind, were all the work of Azef. Why? Because both Azef and General Guerassimof, chief of the Secret Police, were in the toils of Germany.
With him was no less a person than the German Foreign Minister, Kiderlen-Waechter. Our visitors were the two Men Behind the Throne of Imperial Germany. Standing with them was that man of kaleidoscopic make-up, the great Azef himself. That meeting was indeed a dramatic one.
If only he would return to Russia, then he would not be long at liberty. That I assure you." "He is in Paris. Could we not send him a message that his daughter Vera who married young Tchernof last year has been taken suddenly ill, and thus summon him at once to Vilna? Once on Russian soil he could be arrested." Azef smiled.
After Azef had left, Rasputin flung himself into his easy chair, and as he lit a cigarette remarked to me: "Ah, Féodor! What a man! There is nothing he is unable to accomplish." "He is very daring," I remarked. "No, it is not daring it is deep cunning. He has the police at his back; I have Alexandra Feodorovna so we win always.
That she was not so devoted to "Nikki" as she pretended is well known to everyone who was at the Imperial Court at the time. Happily, however, the plot failed because of circumstances which Azef could not control.
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