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Updated: May 14, 2025
A fortnight passed. Of Kouropatkine we saw little. He had, at last, assisted by the traitor Stössel and at Germany's instigation, succeeded in forcing war with Japan, and the streets of the capital were filled with urging, enthusiastic crowds bent upon pulling the Mikado from his throne.
The fact is that Teofan knew that Rasputin was possessed of a marvellous hypnotic power, and, being aware of the vogue of hypnotists at Court, saw in the Starets an able assistant by whom to gain power in the immediate entourage of Their Majesties. Thus, quite unconsciously, he was furthering the plans of Kouropatkine and Stürmer, who were receiving money from Berlin.
The gathering was characteristic of Petrograd in those times of Russia's decadence, when Germany was preparing for war. The fight with Japan had already been engineered through Kouropatkine as a preliminary to the betrayal and smashing of our Empire. Of the conflict with the Mikado I have no concern.
With the women of the aristocracy he was well-known, but to the Imperial Court he had not risen. Yet, being a protégé of Kouropatkine, matters were no doubt being arranged, although I was, of course, in ignorance of the traitorous plans in progress.
I did not blame the Okhrana or the Chief of Police of Kazan. They had both acted in good faith. Yet I remembered that I was the catspaw of Kouropatkine and of Stürmer, either of whom could easily order my release. And that was what I awaited in patience, although in terror. Days went by hopeless, interminable days.
This, I presume, I carried out entirely to his satisfaction, for on two other occasions I was sent to Italy with messages to a certain Baron Svereff, a rich Russian financier living in San Remo, and with whom no doubt Kouropatkine was engaged in traitorous dealings.
His hands were hard, his fingers knotty, his face was of a distinctly criminal type, and yet in my bewilderment I remembered that General Kouropatkine had declared him to be sent by the Almighty as the Protector of Russia. His conversation was coarse and overbearing, and interlarded by quotations from Holy Writ.
At the time I naturally believed that Stürmer and his friend Kouropatkine were both convinced that it would be to the advantage of Russia if the holy man gained admission to the Imperial Court as spiritual guide to Nicholas II. Such a widely popular figure had the Starets become, and so deeply impressed had been the people of Moscow and Warsaw, where he had performed some mysterious "miracles," that there were hundreds of thousands of all classes who, like the two Ministers of the Crown who sat in that room, really believed that he was possessed of Divine power.
On the night of the declaration of war with Japan, Kouropatkine brought to Peterhof the French medium Jules Verrier, who received a handsome fee for pretending to get into touch with the spirit of Peter the Great, who declared that Russia, in declaring war, had carried out his wishes.
We have therefore decided that our Father shall go to Kazan, and be found by the Empress praying before the shrine beseeching the Almighty to grant Her Majesty her fond desire. He will appear to her a perfect stranger uttering exactly the same prayer as that in her mind." "They will not speak," Kouropatkine added.
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