It was in vain that Grand Duke Nicholas and others informed the Empress what Rasputin really was, and told her of his depraved life and his false miracles, it was in vain that they told her that he and his friends would destroy Russia--all these efforts of persuasion were of no avail.
In vain, also, Grand Duke Nicholas implored the Emperor to banish from the Court all those Germans by whom he was surrounded, telling him bluntly, “If you do not do so, the House of Romanoff is doomed.”
As for Rasputin, feeling himself tracked down like a wild beast, he continued to terrorize the Empress on the subject of the Tzarevitch, saying: “If any misfortune happens to me, the Tzarevitch will die too, and that exactly forty days, hour for hour, after me.” Many people disappeared and died in a mysterious manner, many dramas took place even in the “Saint’s” house--and some of these, it was said, were by his own hand--but he always succeeded in suppressing the scandal.
A young woman returned from Petrograd, who had the good sense not to become his victim, has told me how she was invited not very long before his tragic end to a tea-party at which the scoundrel was to be present. He entered the room not only with a most self-satisfied air, but one which tried to be also mystical, and began to speak to each of the young women in his hideous jargon, staring with that hypnotic look, which made each one of them his own, at the same time kissing each on the lips, with an incredible and repulsive audacity, as if it were due to him. The witness in question avoided the same fate but with difficulty, upon which the “Saint” took on a puzzled anxious expression, and began to turn round, saying that he felt a current of antipathy in the room and came to a stop in front of her.
From the moment she entered the room Rasputin did not appear to be at ease, no doubt because of that contrary current.
He seemed to this young woman to be a coarse creature, not even knowing how to express himself; naturally with no manners, and repulsive in his fatuousness; less than well cared for in his appearance, in fact--abject. Only one thing about him was right--of very fine quality--his linen. The Empress, it is said, gave him these very fine shirts; and, when her children were ill, it is said that she insisted that they should wear the “holy tunics” of the “Saint” so that they should not get worse.