The Rasputin File (75 page)

10 Nov…. Once more, remember that for your reign, Baby & us you need the strength prayers & advice of our Friend … Protopopov venerates our Friend & will be blessed — Stürmer got frightened & for months did not see him — so wrong & he lost his footing. Ah, Lovy, I pray so hard to God to make you feel & realise, that He is our caring, were He not here, I don’t know what might not have happened. He saves us by His prayers & wise counsels…For me don’t make any changes till I have come.

She came to Headquarters, and Nicky let Protopopov remain. Once again he yielded.

And once again he grasped the hopelessness of the situation. He was very tired.

Meanwhile, the new prime minister, Trepov, was starting out exactly like the recently fallen Khvostov. He had decided to calm the seething Duma by sending Rasputin away from Petrograd. Knowing about Rasputin from rumours, Trepov made the same mistake Khvostov had made. He thought
he could buy Rasputin off. At his behest, Trepov’s relative General Mosolov went to see Rasputin. The general thought he knew how to talk to peasants. And he therefore brought some wine with him. Rasputin drank the wine. After which Mosolov suggested to Rasputin on Trepov’s behalf that he renounce all interference in the business of government and the appointment of ministers. And he offered him in the name of the generous prime minister 30,000 roubles a year. Or so Beletsky recounted in his testimony about the episode from Rasputin’s own words. Beletsky also told how it ended: Rasputin rejected the offer and immediately ‘informed the empress and the tsar of Trepov’s offer to buy Rasputin’s silence on everything that Rasputin considered not in the tsars’ interest’.

Those pathetic fools were proposing that Rasputin trade the place of adviser to the ‘tsars’ for sums he would have regarded as insignificant! Sums he had squandered and flung to the winds! Trepov thus immediately forfeited the tsarina’s confidence. And his fate was sealed. As Rasputin put it, ‘The Trepovs should not be kept on; their last name [suggesting ‘blather’] is unlucky.’

Meanwhile, an incredible thing had happened in the Duma. The monarchist Purishkevich, who was well known for his right-wing views — his bald head and pointed moustache were familiar throughout Russia from newspaper portraits — had given a speech that became famous at once.

‘… Who Has Remained A German On The Russian Throne’

From the rostrum of the Duma, Purishkevich, large, heavily breathing, a fanatical monarchist notorious for his endless baiting of the opposition, on 19 November came down with a thundering voice upon the Empress of All Russia and the peasant behind the throne.

At two o’clock the next morning an infuriated Protopopov conveyed to Headquarters by telegraph the most dangerous excerpts from the speech. I found his telegram in the archives. These excerpts would be struck from the newspaper version by the censor. But the next day it was precisely those excerpts that were being repeated by all Petrograd. For numerous copies of the speech were already making their way around the city.

Evil comes from those dark forces and influences that…have forced the accession to high posts of people unable to occupy them … From the influences that are headed by Grishka Rasputin (noise, voices, ‘True!’ ‘A disgrace!’) … I have not been able to sleep the last few nights — I give you my word…I have been lying with my eyes wide open imagining the
series of telegrams, notes, and reports that the illiterate peasant has written first to one minister and then to another… There have been instances where the non-fulfilment of his demands has resulted in those gentlemen, although strong and powerful, being removed from office … Over the two and a half years of the war I have assumed … that our domestic quarrels should be forgotten …Now I have violated that prohibition in order to place at the feet of the throne the thoughts of the Russian masses and the bitter taste of resentment of the Russian front that have been produced by the tsar’s ministers who have been turned into marionettes, marionettes whose threads have been taken firmly in hand by Rasputin and the Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna — the evil genius of Russia and the tsar…who has remained a German on the Russian throne and alien to the country and its people.

There wasn’t any further he could go!

One can imagine how the tsar read that speech. Now he definitely knew. They had left him just one choice: Alix or the throne. And he made his choice: her and private life. And he waited for the inevitable.

When Purishkevich’s speech was read to Rasputin, he reacted just as Alix had expected him to; in Gospel fashion, he forgave. But he also understood that the ‘tsars’ ‘ spirits needed to be kept up, and he sent a telegram to Headquarters. ‘19 November 1916. Purishkevich cursed impertinently but not painfully. My calm remains, it is not destroyed.’ And in order to preserve their calm as well, he predicted that authority would remain with the ‘tsars’. ‘God will strengthen you. Yours is the victory and yours is the ship. No one else has the authority to board it.’ Thus, he promised them a radiant future — a couple of months before the revolution. He reiterated the same thing to ‘Mama’, who at the time was with her hospital train. ‘22 November … Believe and do not be afraid of fear, give all that is yours to the Wee One [the tsarevich] intact. As the father has received it, so shall his son.’

In an unusually coherent note to Voiekov (the palace castellan), Rasputin wrote, ‘If you aren’t used to it, even kasha is bitter, let alone Purishkevich and his abusive mouth. Such wasps have multiplied now in the millions. We friends have to stand as one. Although a small circle, yet one of like-minded people. In them is malice, and in us the truth. Grigory Novy.’ But Rasputin confirmed here the most terrible thing that Purishkevich had talked about: ‘such wasps have multiplied in the millions.’

Felix Yusupov, who was in the gallery during Purishkevich’s speech, had listened to it with the greatest interest.

The next day Purishkevich woke up even more famous. As he would
describe in his — diary, ‘The phone rang all day on 20 November with congratulations… Among the callers, one identifying himself as Prince Yusupov particularly interested me. He asked if he might visit me to clarify some matters relating to Rasputin’s role that he preferred not to discuss over the phone. I asked him to come by at 9 a.m.’

‘You Too Must Take Part In It ’

The day that he went to see Purishkevich, Felix sent Irina a letter at their estate in the Crimea. Felix was then living in Petrograd, where he was receiving military training at the Corps des Pages. ‘The young people’s half’ of the Yusupov palace on the Moika Canal was being remodelled, and Felix was staying at the palace of his father-in-law, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich.

Warm rains were falling in the Crimea. The grand-ducal estates were deserted. Of all the brilliant society that had earlier sought refuge there from the dank Petrograd autumn, only Zinaida Yusupova and Irina had stayed on in the empty palace.

All that time the ‘young people’ — Irina and Felix — had been exchanging letters with constant assurances of love quite similar to those in the letters of Alix and Nicky. And even though their love did not at all resemble that of the ‘tsars’ (if only because of a few special old attachments of Felix’s), it was the accepted style for letters of that kind. And they followed the style. Illnesses and melancholia, judging by their letters, did not abandon Irina, that delicate beauty. But Felix’s most recent letter forced her to forget all about her ailments.

In that letter, instead of the customary words of love, Felix told her about the murder being planned. A murder that he had decided to take a passionate part in. (He had sent the letter with someone he trusted.)

‘I’m terribly busy working on a plan to eliminate Rasputin. That is simply essential now, since otherwise everything will be finished. For that, I often see M[unya] Gol[ovina] and him [Rasputin]. They’ve grown quite fond of me and are forthcoming about everything with me.’ And then he wrote the most surprising thing for her: ‘You too must take part in it. Dm[itry] Pavl[ovich] knows all about it and is helping. It will all take place in the middle of December, when Dm. comes back…How much I want to see you before that. But it will be better if you do not come earlier, since the rooms won’t be ready until 15 December, and not even all of them… and you won’t have anywhere to stay … Not a word to anyone about what I’ve written.’

And in conclusion he said, ‘Tell my mother to read my letter.’

For Zinaida Yusupova was very likely in on the conspiracy.

By 20 November, before Felix’s meeting Purishkevich, the plan worked out by Felix and Dmitry to assassinate Rasputin had been prepared and already put into play.

Carnal Passion?

After Rasputin’s death, his maid Katya Pechyorkina testified during her interrogation that the first time that Felix came to Rasputin’s apartment was on ‘20 November, the day of the Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin’. Since it was a church holiday, she remembered the date exactly. And Felix had not come by himself but with Maria Golovina.

As Golovina testifies in the File, ‘Felix … was complaining about chest pains … I advised him to go and see Rasputin at his apartment … The prince and I went together twice at the end of November and the beginning of December. And he remained with [Rasputin] less than an hour.’

That is, Felix visited Rasputin’s apartment the very same day that he called Purishkevich. And that visit must have helped Felix carry out the most important part of his plan — gaining Rasputin’s complete confidence.

Felix very briefly described to the investigator in charge of the inquiry concerning Rasputin’s murder the mysterious process of treatment itself: ‘At the end of November I went to Rasputin’s apartment along with Golovina. Rasputin made some hypnotic passes over me and it did seem to me that there was a certain relief.’

He gave a much more detailed account after his emigration to Paris.

After tea Rasputin admitted me to his study, a little room with a leather sofa, several chairs, and a large desk. The elder ordered me to lie down on the sofa and gently moved his hands over my chest, neck, and head…and then he got down on his knees and after placing his hands on my head, started mumbling a prayer. His face was so close to mine that I saw only his eyes. He remained in that position for a little while. Then he stood up in an abrupt movement and began to make passes over me with his hands. Rasputin’s hypnotic power was enormous. I felt a strength enter me in a warm flow and take hold of my entire being, my body grew numb, and I tried to speak but my tongue would not obey me. Only Rasputin’s eyes shone before me — two phosphorescent beams. And then I felt awaken in me the will to resist the hypnosis. I realized I had not let him subordinate my will completely.

Surviving in the archive of the Russian Federation, however, is the diary of someone who knew Felix well. And who has expressed in it a number of interesting thoughts regarding Rasputin’s ‘healing’. That person is Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich. After Rasputin’s assassination he tried to get a little more out of Felix.

‘Felix laid out the whole story for me. Grishka had taken a liking to him at once … and soon afterwards came to trust him — to trust him completely. They saw each other almost every day and talked about everything … and Rasputin even initiated him into his schemes, not being shy at all about such revelations.’

And reflecting on Rasputin’s sudden faith in Felix who had the day before been a detractor, the grand duke raises an essential question: ‘I cannot understand Rasputin’s psyche. How, for example, is one to explain Rasputin’s boundless trust in the young Yusupov — the trust of someone who trusted no one at all … afraid that he would be poisoned or killed?’ Nikolai Mikhailovich was quite right to be astonished. Rasputin, as we know, was extremely afraid of assassination attempts.

The grand duke explains that trust this way:

It remains to propose something rather incredible, and that is that [Rasputin] was infatuated with and had a carnal passion for Felix that darkened the strapping peasant and libertine and led him to his grave. Did they really just talk during their endless conversations? I’m convinced there were physical manifestations of friendship in the form of kisses, mutual touching, and, it may be, even something more cynical. Rasputin’s sadism is not open to doubt. But just how great Felix’s carnal perversions were is still little understood by me. Although before his marriage there were rumours in society about his lasciviousness.’

Thus, the grand duke is dubious about the ‘healing’ which in the language of the
Khlysty
and of Rasputin signified exorcising the demon of lechery. In this case, the demon of which the universal healer from the Siberian village had presumably undertaken to heal Felix was his lust for men. It’s possible that the mysterious prehistory of their relationship, ending in a slap, had from the very beginning assured Felix of Rasputin’s enthusiasm for the ‘healing’. But, as the grand duke wrote, one thing at least is clear: it was after those encounters that ‘Rasputin came to trust Felix completely’.

During those encounters, however, Felix was already preparing for the murder.

Arriving for his treatments, he went up to Rasputin’s apartment by the back stairs, thereby avoiding the agents who were guarding the elder.
Explaining to Rasputin and Golovina why he wanted to come to see Rasputin only by the back stairway was easy: Felix’s family were enemies of the elder, and he did not want conflicts in his family. Thus, he got Rasputin used to his secret arrivals at his apartment. As the maid noted during the same investigation, ‘The “Little One” came by the back door.’

The Mystery Of Rasputin’s Guard

The maid, Katya Pechyorkina, mentioned only two appearances by Felix, both of them with Maria Golovina. It’s likely, however, that Felix came to the back door much more frequently, and that Rasputin tried to make sure that there were no witnesses to those visits for ‘treatment’.