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Updated: May 2, 2025
We arrived back in Petrograd on the following Friday morning, but although the Empress sent a messenger to the Gorokhovaya urging the monk to go to Peterhof at once, as she desired to consult him, he disregarded her command and did not even vouchsafe a reply. Indeed, Rasputin treated the poor half-demented Empress with such scant courtesy that I often stood aghast.
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.
The chief duty of the officers, then, was to act as escort to members of the royal family when they took formal outings, or made short journeys to Peterhof or such of the country palaces as were within driving distance of the Hermitage. Also, certain mornings of each week were spent at the riding-school; and others in the practice of fencing and shooting, or the perusal of the drill manual.
"If the truth leaks out that you have seen either Her Majesty or myself, then I shall instantly become your enemy, and not your friend," the monk declared. "Only Monsieur Hardt knows," the girl said. "It was he who took me to Peterhof." "You may rely upon the silence of both my friends," Rasputin assured her, and a moment later I conducted her downstairs and out into the street.
The gay party were riding at a rapid rate over the beautiful shore road, looking out upon the Bay of Cronstadt, when they were met by a messenger from Peterhof, sent to inform them that the empress had suddenly disappeared during the night. Peter, upon receiving this surprising intelligence, turned pale as ashes, and alighting, conversed for some time anxiously with the messenger.
Through rooms with painted ceilings we were conducted, through the Shell Salon the walls of which were inlaid with shells, the friezes being of minerals and precious stones across the Marble Room, and then along an endless, thickly carpeted corridor, which reminded me of one at Peterhof leading to the Empress's private apartments, until the baron saluted a sentry, passed him, and a little farther on knocked discreetly at a polished mahogany door, that of the Kaiser's private workroom.
At noon these approached Peterhof led by their veteran commander, Munich. This energetic officer urged an immediate march upon St. Petersburg. "Believe me," said Munich, "you have many friends in the city. The royal guard will rally around your standard when they see it approaching; and if we are forced to fight, the rebels will make but a short resistance."
That year Countess Lidia Ivanovna declined to settle in Peterhof, was not once at Anna Arkadyevna's, and in conversation with Alexey Alexandrovitch hinted at the unsuitability of Anna's close intimacy with Betsy and Vronsky. Alexey Alexandrovitch sternly cut her short, roundly declaring his wife to be above suspicion, and from that time began to avoid Countess Lidia Ivanovna.
We rode along the bustling mall, crowded with men and women on horseback, with numbers of gorgeously arrayed native servants and chuprassies of the Government offices hurrying on their respective errands, or dawdling for a chat with some shabby-looking acquaintance in private life; we passed by the crowded little shops on the hill below the church, and glanced at the conglomeration of grain-sellers, jewellers, confectioners, and dealers in metal or earthen vessels, every man sitting knee-deep in his wares, smoking the eternal "hubble-bubble;" we noted the keen eyes of the buyers and the hawk's glance of the sellers, the long snake-like fingers eagerly grasping the passing coin, and seemingly convulsed into serpentine contortion when they relinquished their clutch on a single "pi;" we marked this busy scene, set down, like a Punch and Judy show, in the midst of the trackless waste of the Himalayas, as if for the delectation and pastime of some merry genius loci weary of the solemn silence in his awful mountains, and we chatted carelessly of the sights animate and inanimate before us, laughing at the asseverations of the salesmen, and at the hardened scepticism of the customer, at the portentous dignity of the superb old messenger, white-bearded and clad in scarlet and gold, as he bombastically described to the knot of poor relations and admirers that elbowed him the splendours of the last entertainment at "Peterhof," where Lord Lytton still reigned.
We are now in the full blaze of summer, the days are exquisite, the sky blue and brilliant.... It couldn't be lovelier in Italy even, and you are staying in the stifling, baking town, and walking on the burning pavement. What induces you to do so? You might at least move into some summer villa out of town. They say there are bright spots at Peterhof, on the sea-coast.
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