by Teffi
4
Sometime after ten o’clock I arrived at Filippov’s.
Our host greeted me in the hall. After saying in a friendly way that we’d already met once before, he showed me into his study.
“Your friends arrived some time ago.”
In the small, smoke-filled room were some half a dozen people.
Rozanov was looking bored and disgruntled. Izmailov appeared strained, as if trying to make out that everything was going fine when really it wasn’t.
Manuilov was standing close to the doorway, looking as if he felt entirely at home. Two or three people I didn’t know were sitting silently on the divan. And then there was Rasputin. Dressed in a black woollen Russian kaftan and tall patent leather boots, he was fidgeting anxiously, squirming about in his chair. One of his shoulders kept twitching.
Lean and wiry and rather tall, he had a straggly beard and a thin face that appeared to have been gathered up into a long fleshy nose. His close-set, prickly, glittering little eyes were peering out furtively from under strands of greasy hair. I think these eyes were grey. The way they glittered, it was hard to be sure. Restless eyes. Whenever he said something, he would look round the whole group, his eyes pricking each person in turn, as if to say, “Have I given you something to think about? Are you satisfied? Have I surprised you?”
I felt at once that he was rather preoccupied, confused, even embarrassed. He was posturing.
“Yes, yes,” he was saying. “I wish to go back as soon as possible, to Tobolsk. I wish to pray. My little village is a good place to pray. God hears people’s prayers there.”
And then he studied each of us in turn, his eyes keenly pricking each one of us from under his greasy locks.
“But here in your city nothing’s right. It’s not possible to pray in this city. It’s very hard when you can’t pray. Very hard.”
And again he looked round anxiously, right into everyone’s faces, right into their eyes.
We were introduced. As had been agreed, my fellow scribes did not let on who I really was.
He studied me, as if thinking, “Who is this woman?”
There was a general sense of both tedium and tension—not what we wanted at all. Something in Rasputin’s manner—maybe his general unease, maybe his concern about the impression his words were making—suggested that somehow he knew who we were. It seemed we might have been given away. Imagining himself to be surrounded by “enemies from the press”, Rasputin had assumed the posture of a man of prayer.
They say he really did have a great deal to put up with from journalists. The papers were always full of sly insinuations of every kind. After a few drinks with his cronies, Rasputin was supposed to have divulged interesting details about the personal lives of people in the very highest places. Whether this was true or just newspaper sensationalism, I don’t know. But I do know that there were two levels of security around Rasputin: one set of guards whom he knew about and who protected him from attempts on his life; another set whom he was supposed not to know about and who kept track of whom he was talking to and whether or not he was saying anything he shouldn’t. Just who was responsible for this second set of guards I can’t say for certain, but I suspect it was someone who wanted to undermine Rasputin’s credibility at court.
He had keen senses, and some animal instinct told him he was surrounded. Not knowing where the enemy lay, he was on the alert, his eyes quietly darting everywhere . . .
I was infected by my friends’ discomfort. It felt tedious and rather awkward to be sitting in the house of a stranger and listening to Rasputin straining to come out with spiritually edifying pronouncements that interested none of us. It was as if he were being tested and was afraid of failing.
I wanted to go home.
Rozanov got to his feet. He took me aside and whispered, “We’re banking on dinner. There’s still a chance of him opening up. Filippov and I have agreed that you must sit beside him. And we’ll be close by. You’ll get him talking. He’s not going to talk freely to us—he’s a ladies’ man. Get him to speak about the erotic. This could be really something—it’s a chance we must make the most of. We could end up having a most interesting conversation.”
Rozanov would happily discuss erotic matters with anyone under the sun, so it was hardly a surprise that he should be so eager to discuss them with Rasputin. After all, what didn’t they say about Rasputin? He was a hypnotist and a mesmerist, at once a flagellant and a lustful satyr, both a saint and a man possessed by demons.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll do what I can.”
Turning around, I encountered two eyes as sharp as needles. Our surreptitious conversation had obviously disturbed Rasputin.
With a twitch of the shoulder, he turned away.
We were invited to the table.
I was seated at one corner. To my left sat Rozanov and Izmailov. To my right, at the end of the table, Rasputin.
There turned out to be around a dozen other guests: an elderly lady with a self-important air (“She’s the one who goes everywhere with him,” someone whispered to me); a harassed-looking gentleman, who hurriedly got a beautiful young lady to sit on Rasputin’s right (this young lady was dressed to the nines—certainly more than “a bit glamorous”—but the look on her face was crushed and hopeless, quite out of keeping with her attire); and at the other end of the table were some strange-looking musicians, with a guitar, an accordion and a tambourine—as if this were a village wedding.
Filippov came over to us, pouring out wine and handing round hors d’oeuvres. In a low voice I asked about the beautiful lady and the musicians.
The musicians, it turned out, were a requirement—Grisha sometimes liked to get up and dance, and only what they played would do. They also played at the Yusupovs’.
“They’re very good. Quite unique. In a moment you’ll hear for yourself.” As for the beautiful lady, Filippov explained that her husband (the harassed-looking gentleman) was having a difficult time at work. It was an unpleasant and complicated situation that could only be sorted out with the help of the elder. And so this gentleman was seizing every possible opportunity to meet Rasputin, taking his wife along with him and seating her beside Rasputin in the hope that sooner or later he would take notice of her.
“He’s been trying for two months now, but Grisha acts as if he doesn’t even see them. He can be strange and obstinate.”
Rasputin was drinking a great deal and very quickly. Suddenly he leant towards me and whispered, “Why aren’t you drinking, eh? Drink. God will forgive you. Drink.”
“I don’t care for wine, that’s why I’m not drinking.”
He looked at me mistrustfully.
“Nonsense! Drink. I’m telling you: God will forgive you. He will forgive you. God will forgive you many things. Drink!”
“But I’m telling you I’d rather not. You don’t want me to force myself to drink, do you?”
“What’s he saying?” whispered Rozanov on my left. “Make him talk louder. Ask him again, to make him talk louder. Otherwise I can’t hear.”
“But it’s nothing interesting. He’s just trying to get me to drink.”
“Get him to talk about matters erotic. God Almighty! Do you really not know how to get a man to talk?”
This was beginning to seem funny.
“Stop going on at me! What am I? An agent provocateur? Anyway, why should I go to all this trouble for you?”
I turned away from Rozanov. Rasputin’s sharp, watchful eyes pricked into me.
“So you don’t want to drink? You are a stubborn one! I’m telling you to drink—and you won’t.”
And with a quick and obviously practised movement he quietly reached up and touched my shoulder. Like a hypnotist using touch to direct the current of his will. It was as deliberate as that.
From his intent look I could see he knew exactly what he was doing. And I remembered the lady-in-waiting and her hysterical babbling: And then he put his hand on my shoulder and said s
o commandingly, with such authority . . .
So it was like that, was it? Evidently Grisha had a set routine. Raising my eyebrows in surprise, I glanced at him and smiled coolly.
A spasm went through his shoulder and he let out a quiet moan. Quickly and angrily he turned away from me, as if once and for all. But a moment later he was leaning towards me again.
“You may be laughing,” he said, “but do you know what your eyes are saying? Your eyes are sad. Go on, you can tell me—is he making you suffer badly? Why don’t you say anything? Don’t you know we all love sweet tears, a woman’s sweet tears. Do you understand? I know everything.”
I was delighted for Rozanov. The conversation was evidently turning to matters erotic.
“What is it you know?” I asked loudly, on purpose, so that Rasputin, too, would raise his voice, as people often unwittingly do.
Once again, though, he spoke very softly.
“I know how love can make one person force another to suffer. And I know how necessary it can be to make someone suffer. But I don’t want you to suffer. Understand?”
“I can’t hear a thing!” came Rozanov’s cross voice, from my left.
“Be patient!” I whispered.
Rasputin went on.
“What’s that ring on your hand? What stone is it?”
“It’s an amethyst.”
“Well, that’ll do. Hold your hand out to me under the table so no one can see. Then I’ll breathe on the ring and warm it . . . The breath of my soul will make you feel better.”
I passed him the ring.
“Oh, why did you have to take it off? That was for me to do. You don’t understand . . .”
But I had understood only too well. Which was why I’d taken it off myself.
Covering his mouth with his napkin, he breathed onto the ring and quietly slid it onto my finger.
“There. When you come and see me, I’ll tell you many things you don’t know.”
“But what if I don’t come?” I asked, once again remembering the hysterical lady-in-waiting.
Here he was, Rasputin in his element. The mysterious voice, the intense expression, the commanding words—all this was a tried and tested method. But if so, then it was all rather naive and straightforward. Or, perhaps, his fame as a sorcerer, soothsayer and favourite of the Tsar really did kindle within people a particular blend of curiosity and fear, a keen desire to participate in this weird mystery. It was like looking through a microscope at some species of beetle. I could see the monstrous hairy legs, the giant maw—but I knew it was really just a little insect.
“Not come to me? No, you shall come. You shall come to me.”
And again he quickly reached up and quietly touched my shoulder. I calmly moved aside and said, “No, I shan’t.”
And again a spasm went through his shoulder and he let out a low moan. Each time he sensed that his power, the current of his will, was not penetrating me and was meeting resistance, he experienced physical pain. (This was my impression at the time—and it was confirmed later.) And in this there was no pretence, as he was evidently trying to conceal both the spasms in his shoulder and his strange, low groan.
No, this was not a straightforward business at all. Howling inside him was a black beast . . . There was much we did not know.
5
“Ask him about Vyrubova,” whispered Rozanov. “Ask him about everyone. Get him to tell you everything. And please get him to speak up.”
Rasputin gave Rozanov a sideways look from under his greasy locks.
“What’s that fellow whispering about?”
Rozanov held his glass out towards Rasputin and said, “I was wanting to clink glasses.”
Izmailov held his glass out, too.
Rasputin looked at them both warily, looked away, then looked back again.
Suddenly Izmailov asked, “Tell me, have you ever tried your hand at writing?”
Who, apart from a writer, would think to ask such a question?
“Now and again,” replied Rasputin without the least surprise. “Even quite a few times.”
And he beckoned to a young man sitting at the other end of the table.
“Dearie! Bring me the pages with my poems that you just tapped out on that little typing machine.”
“Dearie” darted off and came back with the pages.
Rasputin handed them around. Everyone reached out. There were a lot of these typed pages, enough for all of us. We began to read.
It turned out to be a prose poem, in the style of the Song of Songs and obscurely amorous. I can still remember the lines: “Fine and high are the mountains. But my love is higher and finer yet, because love is God.”
But that seems to have been the only passage that made any sense. Everything else was just a jumble of words.
As I was reading, the author kept looking around restlessly, trying to see what impression his work was making.
“Very good,” I said.
He brightened.
“Dearie! Give us a clean sheet, I’ll write something for her myself.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
I said.
He chewed for a long time on his pencil. Then, in a barely decipherable peasant scrawl, he wrote:
To Nadezhda
God is lov. Now lov. God wil forgiv yu.
Grigory
The basic pattern of Rasputin’s magic charms was clear enough: love, and God will forgive you.
But why should such an inoffensive maxim as this cause his ladies to collapse in fits of ecstasy? Why had that lady-in-waiting got into such a state?
This was no simple matter.
6
I studied the awkwardly scrawled letters and the signature below: “Grigory”.
What power this signature held. I knew of a case where this scrawl of seven letters had recalled a man who had been sentenced to forced labour and was already on his way to Siberia.
And it seemed likely that this same signature could, just as easily, transport a man there . . .
“You should hang on to that autograph,” said Rozanov. “It’s quite something.”
It did in fact stay in my possession for a long time. In Paris, some six years ago, I found it in an old briefcase and gave it to J.W. Bienstock, the author of a book about Rasputin in French.
Rasputin really was only semi-literate; writing even a few words was hard work for him. This made me think of the forest-warden in our home village—the man whose job had been to catch poachers and supervise the spring floating of timber. I remembered the little bills he used to write: “Tren to dacha and bak fife ru” (five roubles).
Rasputin was also strikingly like this man in physical appearance. Perhaps that’s why his words and general presence failed to excite the least mystical awe in me. “God is love, you shall come” and so on. That “fife ru”, which I couldn’t get out of my head, was constantly in the way . . .
Suddenly our host came up, looking very concerned.
“The palace is on the line.”
Rasputin left the room.
The palace evidently knew exactly where Rasputin was to be found. Probably, they always did.
Taking advantage of Rasputin’s absence, Rozanov began lecturing me, advising me how best to steer the conversation on to all kinds of interesting topics.
“And do please get him to talk about the Khlysts[3] and their rites. Find out whether it’s all true, and if so, how it’s all organized and whether it’s possible, say, to attend.”
“Get him to invite you, and then you can bring us along, too.”
I agreed willingly. This truly would be interesting.
But Rasputin didn’t come back. Our host said he had been summoned urgently to Tsarskoye Selo[4]—even though it was past midnight—but that, as he was leaving, Rasputin had asked him to tell me he would definitely be coming back.
“Don’t let her go,” said Filippov, repeating Rasputin’s words. “Have her wait for me. I’ll be back.”
/> Needless to say no one waited. Our group, at least, left as soon as we had finished eating.
7
Everyone I told about the evening showed a quite extraordinary degree of interest. They wanted to know the elder’s every word, and they wanted me to describe every detail of his appearance. Most of all, they wanted to know if they could get themselves invited to Filippov’s, too.
“What kind of impression did he make on you?”
“No very strong impression,” I replied. “But I can’t say I liked him.”
People were advising me to make the most of this connection. One never knows what the future holds in store, and Rasputin was certainly a force to be reckoned with. He toppled ministers and he shuffled courtiers as if they were a pack of cards. His displeasure was feared more than the wrath of the Tsar.
There was talk about clandestine German overtures being made via Rasputin to Alexandra Fyodorovna. With the help of prayer and hypnotic suggestion he was, apparently, directing our military strategy.
“Don’t go on the offensive before such and such a date—or the Tsarevich will be taken ill.”
Rasputin seemed to me to lack the steadiness needed to manage any kind of political strategy. He was too twitchy, too easily distracted, too confused in every way. Most likely he accepted bribes and got involved in plots and deals without really thinking things through or weighing up the consequences. He himself was being carried away by the very force he was trying to control. I don’t know what he was like at the beginning of his trajectory, but by the time I met him, he was already adrift. He had lost himself; it was as if he were being swept away by a whirlwind, by a tornado. As if in delirium, he kept repeating the words: “God . . . prayer . . . wine”. He was confused; he had no idea what he was doing. He was in torment, writhing about, throwing himself into his dancing with a despairing howl—as if to retrieve some treasure left behind in a burning house. This satanic dancing of his was something I witnessed later . . .