Rasputin by Frances Welch Page A

to Rasputin continued to grow. The Speaker of the Duma, Alexander Guchkov, was known for resorting to fist fights during sessions, but he was uncharacteristically restrained in his first speech against Rasputin, referring to him discreetly as ‘dark forces’. The Man of God was not fooled, writing a plaintive note: ‘Dear Papa and Mama! Now the accursed demon gains strength. And the Duma serves him, there are a lot of revolutionaries and Yids in it… And Guchkov, their lord… slanders and makes a discord…’
    On March 9, Guchkov made further discord with a more direct speech attacking Rasputin as ‘an enigmatic tragicomic figure, a kind of ghost or relic of age-old ignorance.’ He continued to rage: ‘By what avenues has this man achieved his central position? By having seized such influence that even the supreme bearers of State and Church power bow down before it!… Just think who is lording it at the summit!’ The Tsarina was furious, snapping back: ‘Guchkov needs to be on a high tree.’
    The Tsar’s mother, once so anxious about the Court mystic M. Philippe, was consumed with worry about the increasingly public controversy surrounding Rasputin. She arranged to meet her son and daughter-in-law for an urgent discussion and emerged believing she had carried the day. The Tsar’s sister, Grand Duchess Xenia, wrote in her diary: ‘Mama is so pleased that she said everything… Alex [the Tsarina] defended Rasputin, saying he was a remarkable man and Mama should meet him… Mama merely advised them to let him go now… Alex declared that it was wrong to yield… Butthey were still very grateful to Mama for having spoken so frankly. And she even kissed Mama’s hand.’
    It is hard to gauge what affect, if any, the Dowager’s words had upon the Imperial couple. It seems very unlikely that either was truly grateful for the Dowager’s ‘frankness’. The Tsar’s diary entry is particularly non-committal: ‘Mama came for tea; we had a conversation with her about Grigory.’
    But shortly afterwards, the Tsar asked the fearsome Mikhail Rodzyanko, President of the Duma, to launch an investigation into Rasputin’s life. In the course of several subsequent inquiries, Rodzyanko would hear of at least one woman petitioner instructed by Rasputin to return in a décolleté dress in order to secure her husband’s promotion. As Rasputin would put it: ‘All right, I’ll see to it. But come again tomorrow in an open dress with naked shoulders. Otherwise don’t bother.’
    Rodzyanko was under no illusion about the sensitive nature of his final report. Before seeing the Tsar, he steeled himself with a prayer in the Kazan Cathedral. The Tsar’s response to Rodzyanko’s brave denunciation is not recorded in any detail. But when Rodzyanko raised the thorny issue of women in the bath-house, the Tsar retorted that communal bathing was ‘accepted among the common people’. Rodzyanko seemed to make headway when he produced a picture of Rasputin dressed as a priest and the Tsar commented: ‘This time he’s gone too far.’ But the principal outcome of the report was to drive a wedge between Rodzyanko and the Tsar. The Tsar eventually refused to see him and cut him dead at a service commemorating the Battle of Borodinoin Moscow in 1912. As Rodzyanko explained grimly: ‘His dissatisfation with me was my report on Rasputin.’
    It was during this same year that the 24-year-old Englishman, Gerald Hamilton, the model for Isherwood’s Mr Norris, paid Rasputin two visits. Hamilton saw nothing of any ‘dark forces’ and was, in fact, deeply impressed by Rasputin, particularly when he saw him performing a cure on a young epileptic boy. ‘The boy was brought forward by his mother and sat in a chair. Rasputin first looked at him; then he put his hands on him, muttering prayers.