Rasputin : the holy devil

Introduction

“THE HOLY DEVIL” is the title of a scurrilous pamphil let against Rasputin, from the pen of his opponent, the dreaded monk-priest Iliodor; the statements and accusations contained in it have contributed not a little to create the false picture in which Rasputin appears as a cunning charlatan, and even as the man mainly responsible for the ruin of the old Russia.

This picture, distorted with the hatred of an unsuccessful enemy, has hitherto served as a model for all portraits of Rasputin, and as such has been offered to the public. The con¬ fusion of the Revolution long rendered an impartial correction of it impossible, for, in the making of revolutionary catch¬ words, destined for the use of the day, veracity was of no ac¬ count whatever; efficacity in political warfare was all that mat¬ tered. From this point of view, it would scarcely have been pos¬ sible to have found a more suitable historical portrait than this, or one more eminently fitted to reveal the utter abomination of the old regime and its representatives.

For revolutionary Russia in its attack on a system such as tsarism, that undoubtedly had had its day, and that was, there¬ fore, corrupt in many respects, the distortion of persons and situations may appear, if not justifiable, at least excusable. But even without that motive lurking in the background, the bourgeois love of scandal and sensation seized on the figure of Rasputin, and did its part in drawing the untrue picture, which is also flat and uninteresting because it is in simple black and white, of a commonplace “devil in human shape.”

Immediately after the collapse, it became necessary to sup¬ ply the masses as quickly as possible with blood-curdling stories about the Imperial Court, in order to rouse and maintain in them the spirit of rebellion, and, for that reason, this figure of Rasputin was offered to the public as the one authentic por-

V

VI

INTRODUCTION trait. No critical investigation was made; and the utter unimag¬ inativeness of sensation-mongers, and the incapacity of the mob for critical thought, have brought it about that this convenient picture, so easy to grasp in its commonplace simplicity, has remained almost unchallenged.

Indeed, in order to give a semblance of historical truth to this false picture, an equally ill-founded life of Rasputin was concocted. With wonderful academic pedantry, a collection of false facts and dates, wrong names of persons and places, was put together with an air of exactness that is hardly ever to be met with in biographies founded on fact. Anyone who studies the literature on Rasputin comes up continually against a mass of seemingly precise information, which, by its apparent pre¬ cision, blinds the reader to the fact that it is without any foun¬ dation whatever. Freiherr von Taube alone, in his excellent book, refused to accept unquestioningly the reports about Ras¬ putin; he subjected them to critical examination, with the re¬ sult that his is the only work of any value on the subject.

One shy, quiet voice passed almost unheard in the chorus of lies about Rasputin: his daughter Matriona essayed in a short pamphlet the almost hopeless task of defending her fa¬ ther’s memory. Doubtless what the daughter called “The Truth about Rasputin” is only half the truth; her love and reverence caused her to leave out all the dark shadows and to depict only the kind and dearly loved being whom Matriona knew as her father. But how much nearer the truth is this picture, one¬ sided though it be ! Of course, Rasputin was not merely a sim¬ ple and lovable man; but he was that too; and this side of him not only outweighs many of his defects and weaknesses, but enriches and completes his personality, and makes him appear as a truly fascinating character, supremely interesting from the human, historical, and psychological standpoint.

It was the recognition, after an unprejudiced investigation of all the available material, that it was no longer possible to assign Rasputin with justice to either of those two common¬ place categories, charlatan or holy starets, that led the author to write this book. Rasputin was neither entirely bad nor en¬ tirely good, he was neither altogether a libertine nor a saint.

INTRODUCTION

Vll

He was a man of rich nature and exuberant vitality, endowed with many good qualities and cursed with many weaknesses, a man so many-sided, complex, and contradictory that an ade¬ quate delineation of his character calls for a far more exact and careful examination of all the pros and cons than anyone has yet attempted.

Believing that the contradictory and opposing elements in a human life are the one and only reality, the author has wrested his weapons from Rasputin’s enemy in order to use them in defence of this reality, and has chosen “The Holy Devil,” the title invented by Iliodor, as the title of his own book.

The representation of Rasputin and his environment is based entirely on official documents, police records, diaries, letters, depositions of witnesses, and other adequately documented and authentic sources. The picture of Rasputin, in its seeming in¬ credibility, stands out from these documents with a vividness that nothing else could give to it; for they belong to an epoch which, for uneasy agitation, has scarcely a parallel in history. The men and women, too, whom we meet derive from a strange and a most peculiar state of society: for we are here dealing with Russian society immediately before the earthquake of the Bolshevik Revolution.

The author expresses his thanks to all those of the old and the new regime, to the Russian Government Departments, and to the curators of museums and of collections of manuscripts and pictures, who so kindly placed their records at his disposal. A special debt of gratitude is due to Percy Eckstein, the friend of the author, who gave him valuable help in completing the book.

Rene Fulop-Miller

Vienna — Hinterbrethl, Autumn, 1927.

Contents

PAGE

Introduction . .

CHAP.

Chapter I

A TALL peasant of about forty, broad-shouldered, of ro¬ bust but lean frame, clad in a peasant’s shirt of coarse linen bound with a simple leather girdle, and in wide trousers and heavy top-boots: such was Grigori Efimovich Rasputin when he appeared for the first time in the salon of the Countess Ignatiev, amid that circle of Petersburg society ladies, clerical dignitaries, monks, politicians, schemers, adventurers, char¬ latans, and Court toadies who met three times a week in the house of the aged Countess.

They had been awaiting, with lively curiosity, the arrival of the “new saint,” the “miracle-worker” from Pokrovskoe. And when he entered, peasant-like, with great noisy strides and un¬ gainly movements, and bowed his greetings, his coarse, even ugly face seemed at first to disappoint their anxious expecta¬ tions. His big head was covered with unkempt brown hair, care¬ lessly parted in the middle and flowing in long strands over his neck. On his high forehead a dark patch was visible, the scar of a wound.. His broad, pock-marked nose stood out from his face, and his thin pale lips were hidden by a limp, untidy moustache. His weather-beaten, sunburned skin was wrinkled xa.nd seamed in deep folds, his eyes were hidden under his pro¬ jecting eyebrows, the right eye disfigured by a yellow blotch. The whole face was overgrown by a dishevelled light brown beard. But the assembled company were accustomed to such ap¬ paritions and, at first, he made no unusual impression on them.

When, however, he went up to the guests one by one, seized their hands between his own broad, horny palms, and looked searchingly into their eyes, they all felt somehow disturbed. For those eyes had a peculiar urgency. Small, bright, and water-blue, they gazed from under the meeting, bushy brows; rest¬ lessly, as if all the while seeking something, they probed, tried, and penetrated everything within their range. If they rested for a moment on anyone they immediately became keen and piercing, as if they could see right to the bottom of the soul; the next instant they would suddenly assume an indescribable expression of understanding, kindness, and wise toleration.

His harsh peasant’s voice, too, could take on a beautiful, deep, and charmingly animated tone. When he spoke he put his head a little on one side, as priests are wTont to do when they take confessions, and his speech, then, like his glance, was filled with a thoughtful, monastic benevolence. At such moments the Countess’s guests felt him as a good and holy Father in whom they could trust implicitly.

But his glance and speech would change: it was as if an all-devouring sensual desire flamed up in this strange man, his eyes began to blaze, his voice became excited, violent and passionate, confidential and insinuating. His glances and words became lewd, cynical, and full of scarcely concealed suggestiveness, until, unexpectedly, his attitude again changed entirely, and he spoke of mystical and religious things with poetic ardour and genuine flaming enthusiasm.

As he spoke his unbeautiful face acquired an extraordinary animation. Sometimes the quick play of his features and ges¬ tures was almost theatrical. In these movements his horny peas¬ ant’s hands became visible: they were coarse but well formed with long, bony fingers.

Soon a wide circle of women from all classes of society, rang¬ ing from ladies of the highest rank down to servant maids, peasant women, and sempstresses, looked on Rasputin as a higher, divine being. Men, too, of all ranks and callings thronged round the miracle- worker — ministers and officials, brokers and spies. Grigori Efimovich was immoderately pam¬ pered, admired, and worshipped by them all.

Rasputin’s external appearance changed in accordance with the improvement in his social position. He wore costly blouses of pale blue, brilliant red, mauve, or light yellow silk, made specially for him by the most distinguished ladies of the Court and Society, and embroidered with flowers. The plain leather girdle of the peasant gave place to a silk cord, raspberry-

I. RASPUTIN BLESSING HIS WOMEN DISCIPLES

2. RASPUTIN (PAINTING BY KRARUP)

coloured or sky-blue, with big tassels; he wore trousers made of striped English cloth or of black velvet, and boots of the softest leather. In winter, he was wrapped in an expensive fur coat, with a beaver cap on his head and English snow-boots on his feet.

But even in these fine clothes, to which admiring women had accustomed him, he in no way changed his careless, forthright, peasant nature. In spite of everything, he continued to be the muzhik with the unkempt hair and beard, dirty hands, and the native, even unseemly, speech of the peasant.

All the characteristics which had made him seem coarse and common on his first entry into the drawing-rooms of St. Peters¬ burg underwent a peculiar transfiguration in the eyes of his credulously enthusiastic women worshippers. While they ner¬ vously awaited his coming a stifling atmosphere of overwrought excitement hung over the expectant company. When at last the door opened and revealed Rasputin on the threshold, a tremor passed through all present, as at the announcement of a miracu¬ lous event. If he stopped before the women to kiss them three times with bowed head after the manner of the wandering monks, they thrilled with the ecstasy of a religious experience, and called him by names proper only to a saint. They were convinced that God revealed Himself in his words, that the Holy Ghost met them in the glance of his little, water-blue eyes, that his touch transmitted even to their sinful bodies the grace dwelling in him, and that his kisses and embraces sanctified each one of his faithful disciples.

Sometimes he would rise in the midst of the conversation and, a propos of nothing, call on the women to sing him those melan¬ choly folk songs that recall Church music, and of which he was particularly fond. Then he took a few paces forward, remained standing in the midst of the assembly, stuck his hands in his silk girdle, and began to rock himself slowly in time to the singing. Next, he stamped noisily on the parquet floor with his peasant’s boots, and began to dance. With circling motions he seductively drew nearer to the women and invited them to dance with him; his beard waved, his boots set the time, and his keen eyes took stock of his partner, who followed his glance confusedly and ecstatically, as if spellbound. The rest of the men and women sat attentive and absorbed in a circle about them, and looked upon the dancing peasant as if they were taking part in a religious service.

Many people, of course, attempted to withstand Rasputin s magic. They tried to keep their heads, and fought with all their might against his compelling influence. But even the few who succeeded, and continued to see the human being with his com¬ mon features, small, cunning eyes, and unkempt beard, could not quite escape his mysterious power.

Some spoke of hypnotism, and tried to break the strange spell of the miracle- worker with a dry, scientific word; but this was of little avail against the living impression of Rasputin’s per¬ sonality.

‘‘How peculiar his eyes are,” confesses a woman who had made efforts to resist his influence. She goes on to say that every time she met him she was always amazed afresh at the power of his glance, w7hich it was impossible to withstand for any considerable time. There was something oppressive in this kind and gentle, but at the same time sly and cunning, glance; people were helpless under the spell of the powerful will which could be felt in his whole being. However tired you might be of this charm, and however much you wanted to escape it, somehow or other you always found yourself attracted back and held.

A young girl who had heard of the strange new saint came from her province to the capital, and visited him in search of edification and spiritual instruction. She had never seen either him or a portrait of him before, and met him for the first time in his house. When he came up to her and spoke to her, she thought him like one of the peasant preachers she had often seen in her own country home. His gentle, monastic gaze and the plainly parted light brown hair around the worthy simple face, all at first inspired her with confidence. But when he came nearer to her, she felt immediately that another quite different man, mysterious, crafty, and corrupting, looked out from be¬ hind the eyes that radiated goodness and gentleness.

He sat down opposite her, edged quite close up to her, and his light blue eyes changed colour, and became deep and dark. A keen glance reached her from the corner of his eyes, bored into her, and held her fascinated. A leaden heaviness over¬ powered her limbs as his great wrinkled face, distorted with desire, came closer to hers. She felt his hot breath on her cheeks, and saw how his eyes, burning from the depths of their sockets, furtively roved over her helpless body, until he dropped his lids with a sensuous expression. His voice had fallen to a pas¬ sionate whisper, and he murmured strange, voluptuous words in her ear.

Just as she was on the point of abandoning herself to her seducer, a memory stirred in her dimly and as if from some far distance; she recalled that she had come to ask him about God. As she gradually awoke more clearly to the original purpose of her visit, the heaviness disappeared from her limbs, and she began to struggle in his toils.

He was at once aware of the increasing inner resistance, his half-shut eyes opened again, he stood up, bent over her, lightly stroked her girlishly parted hair, and pressed a passionless, gentle, fatherly kiss on her forehead. His face distorted with desire became smooth again, and was once more the kindly face of the wandering preacher. He spoke to his visitor in a benevolent, patronizing tone, his right hand raised to his fore¬ head in blessing. He stood before her in the attitude in which Christ is depicted on old Russian ikons; his glance was again gentle and friendly, almost humble, and only in the depth of those little eyes still lurked, almost invisible, the other man, the sensual beast.

Painfully disappointed and confused, the girl rose, stammered a few words of farewell, and left Rasputin’s house. In her heart she carried with her the terrifying question, Was this man a saint or a libertine?

Another woman, a St. Petersburg society lady, declared with scorn to the French Ambassador that Rasputin had filthy hands, black nails, and a dirty beard. “Faugh,” she cried when she spoke of him. But she had to confess that, after a few words, it was impossible for anyone to be indifferent to the glimmering, inscrutable change in Rasputin’s glance, bearing, and words, the cleverness, mystery, goodness, violence, familiarity, ardour, poetry, and attraction of his nature.

Rasputin’s influence was not, however, confined to women. The French Ambassador himself was impressed the first time he met him. M. Paleologue had received unfavourable reports of Rasputin from his agents; he regarded him as a corrupt charlatan, and hated him particularly for urging Russia to make peace.

Once, while the Ambassador was visiting a lady of his ac¬ quaintance, the door of the reception room suddenly opened with a great uproar. Rasputin came in, boisterously embraced the lady of the house, and talked with her for some time. Paleologue meanwhile watched him with the mixture of strained attention and distrust that a diplomat usually accords to a suspicious political character. He recorded that the miraculous monk had an “ordinary face,” but that its whole expression was concentrated in his eyes, which were as blue as flax. The Am¬ bassador was fascinated for the moment, and had to admit that Rasputin’s eyes were at once penetrating and caressing, child¬ like and cunning, direct and yet remote, and that when his talk became more animated, it seemed that his pupils “became magnetic.”

M. Gilliard, the French tutor of the Crown Prince, met the despicable charlatan and hated opponent of war only once, in the antechamber of the imperial apartments, as Rasputin was leaving the Palace. A strange, unpleasant sensation took pos¬ session of the tutor. As his glance crossed that of Rasputin he formed the firm conviction that he was in the presence of a powerful and dangerous man. Profoundly disturbed, he made haste to escape from Rasputin’s eyes, and at once left the room.

But even the man who had hated Rasputin from the begin¬ ning, who set out with the preconceived opinion that the existence of this miracle-worker was a disaster for Russia, that Prince Yusupov who coolly and deliberately wormed his way into Rasputin’s favour in order to prepare a murderous attack upon him — even he had difficulty in escaping the charm that Grigori Efimovich exercised.

When he saw him for the first time, heard his voice for the first time, all the horrible and repulsive things he had previously been told about this man seemed to be confirmed by the sight of him. This peasant, so coddled by women, inspired him with profound disgust: his features were coarse and lacked all trace of refinement; the laugh with which he turned to his audience seemed unwholesome, sensual, and cruel. His face recalled a sly, rank satyr; everything about him aroused suspicion and mistrust.

Prince Yusupov had hardly ever beheld anything more re¬ pellent than those little, almost colourless, eyes, set too close to¬ gether in their unusually deep sockets. They often seemed to be lost in their hollows, and then it was not easy to decide whether they were open or shut. Only an uncanny, uneasy feel¬ ing told the Prince that Rasputin was watching him.

But, at the same time, the proud young aristocrat was forced to recognize clearly that there was something unusual in this hated peasant face, and that a strong, mysterious, almost super¬ natural power lurked in the glance of those unpleasant eyes.

Yusupov was later to learn the full power of Rasputin’s gaze. With the object of insinuating himself into his enemy’s con¬ fidence, he visited him in his own house on the pretext of asking him for medical advice. The young Prince, on an impulse of curiosity, obeyed all Rasputin’s instructions, followed him into his bedroom, and lay down on the sofa. At first, when Rasputin was trying to put him to sleep by gazing at him and making stroking movements, Yusupov still retained the power of cool ob¬ servation, and concluded that the whole healing process of the miracle-worker was nothing but “hypnotism of the worst kind.”

Rasputin gazed fixedly into his eyes, slowly stroked his breast, neck, and head, and then knelt down and began to pray, laying his hands lightly on Yusupov’s head. He remained in this attitude for a while, then rose and continued the hypnotic strok¬ ing. Yusupov set his will against this treatment, but had soon to recognize that a strange warmth was spreading over his whole body, and complete paralysis taking possession of it.

His tongue no longer obeyed him, and he tried in vain to utter a sound or to rise. His limbs lay there lifeless, as if made of lead. Close in front of him he saw Rasputin’s eyes, big and powerful. They shone with a kind of phosphorescent glimmer; two tapering rays radiated from them, fused and became a cir¬ cle of fire, which now approached, now receded. Yusupov’s eyelids became heavier and heavier, and slowly dropped; he was on the point of falling asleep and yielding to the will of the nauseous charlatan; but summoning the last remnant of his energy to resist, and struggling despairingly, he finally suc¬ ceeded in breaking the spell. He left Rasputin’s house with the firm determination to destroy this man as soon as possible.

Chapter II

GRISHA, the little son of the carter, Efim Andreevich Rasputin, of Pokrovskoe, loved being in the stable. There he could squat for hours on the low balk under the lan¬ tern, and gaze with bright, wide-open eyes at the great beasts, and listen with indrawn breath to the scraping of their hoofs and the snorting of their nostrils. Out on the village street Grisha was a wild and unruly, even alarming, youngster, a ringleader in all the pranks of the peasant children. But as soon as he entered the stable behind his father or one of the men, in his long, wide trousers of white canvas, he became transformed. His childish face took on a peculiar seriousness; his eyes were all eager attention, and his whole countenance had an intense look, as if he must display especial dignity and manliness. With firm, measured steps he marched in behind the grown-ups, feel¬ ing that he was entering a holy place where you had to be quiet and serious, as in church.

Best of all were the times when he was allowed to remain alone with the horses. Then he crept up softly and cautiously, and raised his little body on tiptoe, until he was able to stroke and caress the warm bodies of the beasts with his outstretched hand. At such times he showed a tenderness which he never dis¬ played either to his parents, his brothers and sisters, or any¬ body else in the world. Often he would run cautiously to the door and peer out into the yard to see if anyone were coming. Then with the agility of a monkey he climbed up onto the wooden manger, seized the iron bars of the hay rack, and boldly swung himself onto the back of one of the horses. He pressed his hot cheeks to the animal’s neck, and carried on long, wonderful, and tender conversations in a language which his child’s heart had invented, and which no one understood but himself and the horses.

ii

To be with the horses was the boy’s greatest happiness. He loved the dim light from the stable lantern hanging slantwise from the wall, that strange half-darkness, in which could be dis¬ tinguished here and there only the shining of a horse’s coat or a heap of straw. He breathed in the smell of the stable, and he was never tired of touching the steaming bodies of the animals with hand or cheek. However much he enjoyed running about the meadows with the peasant lads or watching his father sitting angling with the other fishermen on the bank of the Tura, he would have given up all these pleasures for his horses, whom he looked upon as his dumb comrades and secret allies. And it soon came about that Grisha learned to give better advice in any difficulty about horses than the most experienced old carters of Pokrovskoe, so that when anything out of the ordinary hap¬ pened to their beasts, they more than once sent for Grisha Efimo¬ vich.

But what a wonderful place the stable became for him after that evening on which his father first read aloud to him, from the big book with its beautiful pictures, the story of the birth of the Christ-child! Grisha listened to every word of the tale of Saint Joseph, Mary, and the new-born infant, who lay in the crib when the three Kings of the East came to worship him. Hence¬ forward, everything in his father’s stable, the great wooden manger and the dimly glimmering lantern, was full of a myste¬ rious meaning which only he knew and of which he spoke to no one.

Once, when old Efim was not at home, Grisha stole into the big room, climbed on a chair, and reached down from the chim¬ ney-piece the big book with its wealth of pictures from which his father had read to him. He turned over the heavy folio in its thick covers until he found the picture which showed the stable with the crib and the Christ-child in colours of blue, red, and gold. He waited impatiently for the evening, when he could beg his father after supper to read aloud to him again, and, sitting on old Efim’s knee, he looked eagerly at the pictures, while his father read to him the rest of the life of the Christ-child, how he grew up and became the Saviour of the world.

Evening after evening Efim Andreevich, in response to the boy’s entreaties, had to reach down the big book. Soon Grisha knew all the pictures; and as he listened to his father reading aloud, painfully tracing with his finger word by word and line by line, he himself learned the letters and the art of combining them to form words. So Grisha grew up between two equally mysterious words: on the one side the stable with its marvels,

and on the other the big book with the beautiful pictures and the black signs.

When Grisha was twelve a catastrophe occurred in his life, the effects of which were long felt. He was playing with his elder brother Misha on the bank of the Tura, when Misha suddenly fell backwards into the stream. Without reflection Grisha sprang in after him, and both boys would have been drowned if a pass¬ ing peasant had not rescued them. Misha fell ill the same day of a serious inflammation of the lungs, and died almost imme¬ diately. Grisha’s life was saved; but he was so shaken by this accident that he fell into a heavy fever. He recovered rapidly, and was soon playing again and busy with his beloved horses, but there was a change in him. His face, once so plump and rosy, was now hollow-cheeked and pale; and although in the even¬ ings it was covered with a reddish flush, this was not the fresh ruddiness of health, but the hectic stain of fever. His nature also underwent a peculiar change, which caused his parents no little anxiety. No one could say exactly what was really wrong, and even the village herbalist could give no advice; and the lad again fell into violent fever and semiconsciousness, a condition that lasted several days and even weeks.

There was nothing to be done but to make up a bed for the invalid in the “black half,” the dark part of the big kitchen. In winter as it now was, while outside the Siberian storms blew from the fields through the village street, this was the warmest and most comfortable place in the house. Besides, the kitchen was everybody’s favourite spot, so that someone was always there to keep an eye on the sick child.

At twilight the peasants from the neighbourhood used to assemble and seat themselves on the broad benches round the big stove. The hosts handed round schnapps and Siberian sweetmeats, and the talk went on until late into the evening, about everything that had happened in the village itself and the news that penetrated to Pokrovskoe from the neighbouring market towns.

On one of these evenings they were all talking in whispers, because Grisha was very ill again. To the anxiety of the house¬ hold, he had lain for hours completely apathetic, with his pale face turned to the wall and his eyes closed. So his parents and their guests lowered their voices, though they had a particularly important affair to discuss that evening. The night before, a crime had been committed of a kind calculated to excite the minds of all the peasants of Pokrovskoe in the highest degree. One of the poorest carters of the village had had his one horse stolen from the stable, and the poor man was in misery and de¬ spair. The kindly peasants of Pokrovskoe, old and young, had searched from early morning for the thief and his booty, but all their efforts had been fruitless.