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Rasputin transmitted it to the empress through his secretary. Imagine what poor Alix felt! She did not show the letter to Nicholas, but the holy man’s guard was strengthened. The tsaritsa and her daughters themselves went to ask Rasputin not to receive any guests without her knowledge. They locked up his clothing and so on.

But the cunningly artless holy man outwitted the “accursed aristocrats.”

Vera Leonidovna:

“It was a puzzling intrigue in the spirit of my favorite play, Masquerade. Dmitry and Felix dreamed it up. Felix was an old enemy of the holy man. Through Mania Golovin he let it be known he was looking to reconcile with the holy man. It was all done very realistically. The holy man knew that Felix wanted to join the Guards; but the tsar, who did not want homosexuals, opposed it. So through poor, unsuspecting Mania, who was certain she was going to reconcile the holy man and her friend Felix, Felix asked the holy man to put in a word for him with Alix, which Rasputin agreed to do. That fateful evening, Grigory was going to see Felix in his palace for a complete reconciliation. He had been promised wine and dancing, of which he was passionately fond. One day I’ll tell you how marvelously he danced. That evening he had promised to heal Princess Irina.… The legend about the holy man lusting after Irina was created later by the assassins themselves: ‘Grigory’s filthy intentions toward the daughter of Sandro himself.’ All this was supposed to vindicate the assassins. Subsequently there was a legend about how Rasputin had been poisoned with potassium cyanide, but it wasn’t poison that took him. In fact, the person who gave him the poison didn’t want to take a sin on his soul, so he gave him a harmless powder.… When Felix realized the poison wasn’t working, he shot him and Rasputin fell. A second legend arose that Felix killed him and he rose up. In fact, he was only wounded. Felix wasn’t a murderer, and he was nervous. Rasputin was lying motionless on the pelt of a white bear, and Felix was with him in the room. Rasputin evidently came to and hurled himself on Felix to strangle him, bellowing horribly, like a wounded beast. Imagine what Felix must have felt when the ‘corpse’ fell on him! Horrified, Felix froze, and Rasputin was able to flee the cellar for the courtyard. He was killed right by the gate, with a revolver, and evidently not completely, because when they rolled him onto a portière to load him into Grand Duke Dmitry’s automobile he opened his eyes—and none of them ever forgot that inexpressible look. They had tried to kill Rasputin in the half-cellar.”

She (telegram): “Dec. 18th 1916. In your name I order Dmitrii forbidden to leave his house till yr. return. Dmitrii wanted to see me today, but I refused. Mainly he is implicated. The body still not found. When will you come?”

I am leafing through the diaries of the grand duchesses. Olga’s diary: “December 17.… Father Grigory has been missing since last night. They are looking everywhere. It is terribly hard. The four of us slept together. God help us!…

“December 18.… Ania is staying with us, since Mama is afraid for her.… We have finally learned that Father Gregorii was killed, probably by Dmitrii, and thrown from the bridge by Krestovskii. He was found in the water. No words can say how hard it is. We sat and drank tea, and the whole time we felt that Father Gregorii was with us.”

Did Dmitry kill him? This was the end to all her hopes. This is why “No words can say how hard it is.”

He (telegram): “18 Dec, 1916.… I have only just read your letter. Am horrified and shaken. In prayers and thoughts I am with you. Am arriving to-morrow at 5 o’clock.”

——

Was Rasputin’s prediction only a muzhik’s cunning or was it dictated by the Holy Devil’s dark power? Or both? This drunken, insanely debauched muzhik who had trampled the luxurious floors of their palaces truly was a precursor. The precursor of those hundreds of thousands of terrible muzhiks who would trample their palaces and murder them—and throw their corpses, like carrion,