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A hundred times I debated within myself whether it were best to remain silent, and not reveal my past career in the Department of Political Police, or to state the absolute facts and struggle by that means to obtain a hearing and escape. One fact was patent. General Kouropatkine and Boris Stürmer both trusted in my silence, while the rascal monk had found in me a catspaw who had remained dumb.
Manuiloff, the catspaw of both Stürmer and Rasputin, and who was well paid to do any dirty work allotted to him, did not quite understand. "You denounce him eh?" he asked. "There are reasons, of course." "Of course there are reasons, you fool, or I should not bring you here at this hour to tell you of the conspiracy against the Throne. I make the allegation; you must furnish the proofs.
It is a lie; we all knew that the war has been conducted abominably, that Rasputin and Stürmer were plotting, that the administration was greatly inclined to graft, all gossip of the town. But no one whom I had seen since the execution of the monk was aware of the real fact: the revolution was in the air.
"He fears to meet Stürmer!" he cried to me. "He is leaving him in the lurch." And this he did, for the next day the fate of Russia trembled in the balance, while the Black Monk went about to the Ministers in frantic haste, hoping and plotting to turn public opinion again in his favour.
"But if I am denounced, you also will be discovered as my associate, as well as Stürmer, Fredericks, and our other friends." "That is why the Empress urges you to resort to the 'perfume," said the much-decorated traitor. "Yes, but how?" asked Rasputin. "There is no time." "There is sufficient." "What do you suggest?" asked the monk.
Sturmer proposed to his Cabinet the dissolution of the Duma, but failed to obtain the support of a majority. Then he determined to get the Czar's signature to a decree of dissolution.
I knew of that miracle, an outrageous fraud which had been perpetrated upon an assembly of ignorant peasants by means of a clever conjuring trick in which Rasputin's friend, the chemist Badmayev, and another, had assisted. Stürmer had been laughing heartily over it at Rasputin's house on the previous night. "God hath given me strength," replied the monk simply, and with much humbleness.
Some members opposed the suggestion, whereupon Stürmer resolved to execute it upon his own initiative. In Rasputin's room, and in my presence, he drew up a document to that effect, but to make it law it required the Tsar's consent, and Nicholas was far away. It was Stürmer or the Duma.
The result was his appointment to the cabinet. At first it was hoped that Protopopoff would prove the sign of surrender of the autocracy; that a liberal element was to be introduced into the administration through him. But the new minister showed himself in close harmony with Sturmer, and presently this last hope was destroyed. With Protopopoff a new idea was introduced into the Government.
The people knew what was meant, namely, that the Germanophile Stürmer was to negotiate a premature peace, and this within three weeks of his downfall! The whole Empire was agog at the news, yet Rasputin remained calm and silent, believing that his clever plot would be successful.
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