Alexander II_ The Last Great Tsar - Edvard Radzinsky [76]
He: “16 June, 1915. My beloved Sunny, I thank you with all my heart for your sweet, long letter.… With regard to Danilov, I think that the idea of his being a spy is not worth an empty eggshell.”
She: “June 17th 1915. My very own darling,… Wify ought to send you bright & cheery letters, but its difficult, as am feeling more than lowspirited & depressed these days—so many things worry me. Now the Duma is to come together in August, & our Friend begged you several times to do it as late as possible.… Here they will try to mix in & speak about things that do not concern them. Never forget that you are & must remain an authocratic Emperor—we are not ready for a constitutional government. N[ikolasha]’s faults & Wittes it was that the Duma exists, & it has caused you more worry than joy.… Forgive my writing all this, but I feel so utterly miserable, & as tho’ all were giving you wrong advises & profitting of your kindness. Hang the Headquarters.… You are remaining still long away, Gr. begged not—once all goes against his wishes my heart bleeds in anguish & fright;—Oh, to keep & protect you fr. more worries & miserys, one has enough more than the heart can bear.”
She had already received news: Nikolasha was planning to bring charges against Rasputin. Good Nicky might not understand, he might believe him!
Meanwhile, the spy business had already reached Rasputin’s vicinity. Was he really a German spy? Of course not. He served the family loyally. But he had a problem: Alix kept demanding new predictions, and he could not err. Therefore Rasputin put together his own think tank in his apartment on Gorokhovskaya: sharp operators and industrialists—“smart men.” He was sharing military information with them that came from the tsar, which he discussed with them, whereupon the cunning man grasped what his next prophecy should be. Of course, since one of those “smart men” could have represented German intelligence on Gorokhovskaya, proof was evidently not impossible to find. But the commander-in-chief took the usual route: instead of patiently preparing an espionage case, he bit at what the Holy Devil had held out to him—the scandal at the Yar restaurant—and fell into Rasputin’s trap. Familiar with the peripeteiae of the Moscow scandal, the commander of the Gendarme Corps, Dzhunkovsky, prepared a report on Grigory’s escapades, which Nikolasha rushed out.
She: “June 22nd.… My enemy Dzhunkovsky … has shown that vile, filthy paper (against our Friend) to Dmitri who repeated all to Paul.… Such a sin; & as tho’ you had said to him, that you have had enough of these dirty stories & wish him to be severely punished.… You see how he turns your words & orders round—the slanderers were to be punished & not he [Rasputin]—& that at Headquarters one wants him to be got rid of (this I believe)—ah, its so vile.… If we let our Friend be persecuted we & our country shall suffer for it.… Ah, my Love, when at last will you thump with your hand upon the table & scream at Dzhu[n]kovsky & others?… One does not fear you … they must be frightened of you.… If Dzhunkovsky is with you, call him, tell him you know … he has shown that paper in town & that you order him to tear it up & not to dare speak of Gregory as he does & that he acts as a traitor & not a devoted subject, who ought to stand up for the Friends of his Sovereign, as one does in every other country. Oh my Boy, make one tremble before you.… You are always too kind & all profit. It cannot go on like that.”
Indeed, the commander-in-chief made a long report to the tsar. Big, ferocious Nikolasha shouted in the red-hot heat of his train car. At first all his accusations were quite familiar to the tsar: Rasputin’s debauchery and so on.
But then the commander-in-chief’s speech became frightening: German agents had access to Rasputin