It was as a healer for their son that Rasputin was first introduced to the Tsar and the Tsarina in November 1905. From the beginning, he seemed to possess some mysterious power by which he could check the internal bleeding. He prophesied that Alexis would not die, and that the disease would disappear when he reached the age of thirteen. Alexandra persuaded herself that God had sent Rasputin in answer to her prayers, and his visits to the palace grew more frequent as she came increasingly to rely upon him. It confirmed the prejudices of both Alexandra and Nicholas that a simple Russian peasant who was close to God should be able to do what was beyond all the doctors.
In the many books on this subject there is no final word on the secret of Rasputin’s gift of healing. It is widely testified that his presence had a remarkably soothing effect on both children and animals, and this might well have helped to stop Alexis’s bleeding. It is also known that he had been trained in the art of hypnotism, which may have the power to effect a physical change such as the contraction of the blood vessels. Rasputin himself once confessed to his secretary, Aron Simanovich, that he sometimes used Tibetan drugs or whatever else came to hand, and that sometimes he merely pretended to use remedies or mumbled nonsensical words while he prayed. This is reminiscent of faith healing and it may be that Rasputin’s most remarkable feat can be credited to such methods. In October 1912 the Tsarevich suffered a particularly bad bout of bleeding after accompanying his mother on a carriage ride near Spala, the imperial hunting estate in eastern Poland. The doctors were unable to do anything to prevent a large and painful tumour from forming in his groin, and they told the imperial family to prepare for his imminent death. It was generally thought that only a miracle, such as the spontaneous reabsorption of the tumour, could save the boy. The situation was considered so grave that medical bulletins on the condition of the patient were published for the first time in the national press, though no mention was made of the nature of his illness. Prayer services were held in churches across the land and Alexis was given the last sacraments, as he lay racked with pain. In desperation, Alexandra sent a telegram to Rasputin, who was at his home in Pokrovskoe. According to the testimony of his daughter, he said some prayers and then went to the local telegram office, where he wired the Empress: ‘God has seen your tears and heard your prayers. Do not grieve. The little one will not die.’ Within hours, the patient had undergone a sudden recovery: the bleeding had stopped, his temperature had fallen and the flabbergasted doctors confirmed that the danger had passed. Those who are sceptical of the power of prayer to heal through the medium of a telegraph cable may want to put this down to remarkable coincidence. But Alexandra was convinced otherwise, and after the ‘Spala miracle’ Rasputin’s position at her court became unassailable.31
Rasputin’s status at court brought him immense power and prestige. He became a maître de requêtes, accepting bribes, gifts and sexual favours from those who came to him in the hope that he would use his influence on their behalf. During the First World War, when his political influence was at its zenith, he developed a lucrative system of placements in the government, the Church and the Civil Service, all of which he boasted were under his control. For the hundreds of lesser mortals who queued outside his apartment every day — women begging for military exemption for their sons and husbands, people looking for somewhere to live — he would simply take a scrap of paper, put a cross on the letter head, and in his semi-literate scrawl write to some officiaclass="underline" ‘My dear and valued friend. Do this for me, Grigorii.’ One such note was brought to the head of the court secretariat by a pretty young girl whom Rasputin clearly liked. ‘Fix it up for her. She is all right. Grigorii.’ When the official asked her what she wanted, the girl replied that she wanted to become a prima donna in the Imperial Opera.32
It has often been assumed that because he accepted bribes Rasputin was motivated by financial gain. This is not quite true. He took no pleasure in the accumulation of money, which he spent or gave away as quickly as he earned it. What excited him was power. Rasputin was the supreme egotist. He always had to be the centre of attention. He loved to boast of his connections at the court. ‘I can do anything,’ he often said, and from this the exaggerated rumours spread of his political omnipotence. The gifts he received from his wealthy patrons were important to him not because they were valuable but because they confirmed his personal influence. ‘Look, this carpet is worth 400 roubles,’ he once boasted to a friend, ‘a Grand Duchess sent it to me for blessing her marriage. And do you see, I’ve got a golden cross? The Tsar gave it to me.’ Above all, Rasputin liked the status which his position gave him and also the power it gave him, no more than a peasant, over men and women of a higher social class. He delighted in being rude to the well-born ladies who sat at his feet. He would dip his dirty finger into a dish of jam and turn to one and say, ‘Humble yourself, lick it clean!’ The first time he was received by Varvara Uexküll, the wealthy socialite, he attacked her for her expensive taste in art: ‘What’s this, little mother, pictures on the wall like a real museum? I’ll bet you could feed five villages of starving people with what’s hanging on a single wall.’ When Uexküll introduced him to her guests, he stared intently at each woman, took her hands, and asked questions such as: ‘Are you married?’, ‘Where is your husband?’, ‘Why did you come alone?’, ‘Had you been here together, I could have looked you over, seen how you eat and live.’ He calculated that such insolence made him even more attractive to the guilt-ridden aristocrats who patronized him. Rich but dissatisfied society ladies were particularly attracted to this charismatic peasant. Many of them got a curious sexual excitement from being humiliated by him. Indeed the pleasure he gained from such sexual conquests probably had as much to do with the psychological domination of his victims as it did with the gratification of his physical desires. He told women that they could gain salvation through the annihilation of their pride, which entailed giving themselves up to him. One woman confessed that the first time she made love to him her orgasm was so violent that she fainted. Perhaps his potency as a lover also had a physical explanation. Rasputin’s assassin and alleged homosexual lover, Felix Yusupov, claimed that his prowess was explained by a large wart strategically situated on his penis, which was of exceptional size. On the other hand, there is evidence to suggest that Rasputin was in fact impotent and that while he lay naked with many women, he had sex with very few of them. In short, he was a great lecher but not a great lover. When Rasputin was medically examined after being stabbed in a failed murder attempt in 1914, his genitals were found to be so small and shrivelled that the doctor wondered whether he was capable of the sexual act at all. Rasputin himself had once boasted to the monk Iliodor that he could lie with women without feeling passion because his ‘penis did not function’.33
As Rasputin’s power grew so did the legends of his crimes and misdemeanours. There were damaging stories of his sexual advances, some of them unwanted, including rape. Even the Tsar’s sister, Olga Alexandrovna, was rumoured to have found herself the victim of his wandering hands. There were the drunken orgies, the days spent in bath-houses with prostitutes, and the nights spent carousing in restaurants and brothels. The most famous scandal took place at the Yar, a well-known gipsy restaurant, in March 1915. Rasputin had gone there with two journalists and three prostitutes. He became drunk, tried to grab the gypsy girls, and began to boast loudly of his sexual exploits with the Empress. ‘See this belt?’ he bellowed. ‘It’s her majesty’s own work, I can make her do anything. Yes, I Grishka Rasputin. I could make the old girl dance like this if I wished’ — and he made a gesture of the sexual act. By now, everyone was looking at Rasputin and several people asked if he really was the famous holy man. Rasputin dropped his pants and waved his penis at the spectators. The British agent, Bruce Lockhart, who was in the restaurant downstairs, heard ‘wild shrieks of women, broken glass and banging doors’. The waiters rushed about, the police were called, but no one dared evict the holy man. Telephone calls to increasingly high officials finally reached the Chief of the Corps of Gendarmes, who ordered Rasputin’s arrest. He was led away and imprisoned for the night. But the next morning orders came down from the Tsar for his release.34