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The inhabitants of Maisons who have come to see the wedding procession." "Really? Ah! really? Well, they haven't bad taste. They will see a pretty woman and a handsome uniform." And the General swelled out his breast as he used to do in the great parades of the time of Nicholas, and the reviews in the camp of Tsarskoe-Selo.
It was about a week after I heard of the execution of the Governor of Kaluga that I happened to be at Tsarskoe-Selo again with my evil-faced master, being busy writing in the luxurious little room allotted to him. Madame Vyrubova had been with us, discussing the condition of health of the heir to the throne, when, after she had left, there entered quite unexpectedly the Emperor himself.
Having heard much of the woman's scandalous past, I naturally regarded her with considerable curiosity. She was a woman of destiny. Petrograd had not long before been agog with the scandal following her marriage with a young naval officer, who had gone to the Baltic, and unexpectedly returning to his wife's room in the palace at Tsarskoe-Selo, had been shut out by the Empress herself.
One afternoon, while in the handsome room set apart for Rasputin's use at Tsarskoe-Selo, I was sitting writing at his dictation, when there suddenly entered the Emperor, who had just come in from one of his frequent solitary walks in the park.
"My discoveries are several, and of an interesting nature. First, a person named Hardt, who is often resident in Petrograd, is the secret courier of the Empress between Potsdam and Tsarskoe-Selo. Secondly, a sum of one hundred thousand marks was paid by the Dresdner Bank on March 11th last to the account of one Boris Stürmer, who has an account in Riga at the Disconto Gesellschaft.
The Empress, who had been searching Russia high and low for the pious Father beside whom she had knelt in Kazan, had at last discovered him, and he received a command to an audience at the Palace of Tsarskoe-Selo. The monk, his eyes shining with glee, showed me the letter from Count Fredericks, Minister of the Court, and said: "You must accompany me, Féodor."
On Friday night, when, as usual, we had returned from Tsarskoe-Selo in one of the Imperial motor-cars, I was told that a lady was waiting to see the Starets, but she would give no name. She was persistent that she must see him, and had already waited nearly three hours. When I entered the waiting-room, a small chamber at the end of a corridor, I found it to be the wife of the condemned man.
Being at Tsarskoe-Selo, and conducting the Starets's correspondence, I know how deep was the intrigue to keep out and discredit the Minister of Finance, Vladimir Nicholaievitch Kokovtsov, who was known to be the only strong man who could succeed Stolypin. The whole machinery of the pro-German propaganda had been set to work from Berlin to prevent the mantle of Stolypin falling upon Kokovtsov.
We passed the Marly Pond, where the carp were called by the ringing of a bell, and the Marly Cascade, where water runs over twenty gilded marble steps. Truly, the beauties of Peterhof were a revelation to the Starets and myself. On the previous day he had had audience of the Empress at Tsarskoe-Selo, but I had not been present, therefore I remained in ignorance of what had transpired.
Then they drew a knout and administered to the rascal a sound drubbing, afterwards binding him with rope and shutting him up in a neighbouring stableyard, attired only in his underwear! His clothes they packed up in a cardboard box and delivered to Yatchevski, who, having sealed it, sent it by special messenger to Tsarskoe-Selo, where it was delivered into the Empress's own hands.
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