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Updated: May 28, 2025
We were breakfasting with Madame Vyrubova's sister at her house just off the Nevski. With us was Boris Stürmer and two minor officials of the Court, and we were awaiting the coming of the Tsaritza's favourite lady in waiting. At last she arrived from Tsarskoe-Selo bearing a parcel for Grichka, which she gave him merrily, saying: "The Empress has made this for you with her own hands.
"Welcome back, my dear Rajevski!" he exclaimed, coming towards me and shaking my hand warmly. "We only knew yesterday where you were. Those fools in Kazan spirited you away, but that idiot the Chief of Police has been to-day dismissed the service for his meddling. I do hope you are none the worse for your adventure," he added with concern. "Surely Grichka knew of my arrest!" I said.
At the moment Theophanus was in ignorance of the deeply laid plot to draw the Empress beneath the spell of the Starets whom the inferior classes all over Russia as well as the well-to-do believed was leading such a saint-like, ascetic life in imitation of Christ. Truly, Grichka dressed the part well, and gave himself the outward appearance of saintliness and godliness.
That it was used to remove poor Botkine, Rasputin afterwards admitted to me. Such were the methods of the camarilla who were ruling Russia! TRULY, our Russia was a country of blood and tears under the last of the Romanoffs. Its creed and its motto was "Gallows and Siberia!" No man's life was safe under a régime run by scoundrels, of whom "Grichka," my chief, was the worst.
There was but little public rejoicing, however, for Russia was, at the moment, plunged into grief over the disastrous result of her attack upon Japan. Nevertheless, the event more than ever impressed upon the neurotic Empress that Grichka was possessed of some mysterious and divine influence. Her Majesty believed entirely in his saintliness, and her faith in the power of his prayers was complete.
None knew, however, that that private telephone by which the charlatan so impressed his visitors was merely a fake one, its wires not extending farther than the end of the garden. Grichka sometimes when alone rehearsed those conversations, until he succeeded in producing a perfect series of answers which would strike the hearer as a most intimate conversation concerning either Emperor or Empress.
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.
On arrival we drove up the hill to the great Preobrazhensky Monastery where Rasputin, as became a holy man, sought hospitality and was immediately very warmly welcomed, while I afterwards went on to the Hotel Frantsiya, in the long busy Vozkrensenkaya, where I took a room in order to watch the arrival of Alexandra Feodorovna, who would travel incognita, and of whose coming I was to give warning to Grichka.
So five more silly, neurotic and, of course, wealthy women were to be initiated into the mysteries of the mock saint's religion. Grichka had no use for those whose pockets were not well lined, for he was accumulating vast sums from those weak, fascinated females who believed in his divinity as healer and spiritual guide.
The Bishop, a big, over-fed man, had a long chat with the Starets in my presence. "Her Majesty was very much impressed by you, my dear Grichka," said the well-known cleric to the man who, having pretended to abandon his profligate ways, had parted his hair in the middle and become a pilgrim. "She has daily spoken of you, and you are to be commanded to audience with the Tsar.
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