“We must pray,” Rasputin went on muttering.
“Do you know Madame E——?” I asked.
“The one with the little pointed face? I think I’ve glimpsed her here and there. But it’s you I want to come along and see me. You’ll get to meet everyone and I’ll tell you all about them.”
“Why should I come along? It’ll only make them all cross.”
“Make who cross?”
“Your ladies. They don’t know me; I’m a complete stranger to them. They’re not going to be pleased to see me.”
“They wouldn’t dare!” He beat the table with his fist. “No, not in my house. In my house everyone is happy—God’s grace descends on everyone. If I say, ‘Bathe my feet!’, they’ll do as I say and then drink the water. In my house everything is godly. Obedience, grace, humility and love.”
“See? They bathe your feet. No, you’ll be better off without me.”
“You shall come. I’ll send for you.”
“Has everyone really come when you’ve sent for them?”
“No one’s refused yet.”
Apparently quite forgotten, the lawyer’s wife sitting on the other side of Rasputin was hungrily and tenaciously listening to our conversation.
From time to time, noticing me looking at her, she would give me an ingratiating smile. Her husband kept whispering to her and drinking to my health.
“You ought to invite the young lady to your right,” I said to Rasputin. “She’s lovely!”
Hearing my words, she looked up at me with frightened, grateful eyes. She even paled a little as she waited for his response. Rasputin glanced at her, quickly turned away and said loudly, “She’s a stupid bitch!”
Everyone pretended they hadn’t heard.
I turned to Rozanov.
“For the love of God,” he said, “get him to talk about the Khlysts. Try again.”
But I’d completely lost interest in talking to Rasputin. He seemed to be drunk. Our host kept coming up and pouring him wine, saying, “This is for you, Grisha. It’s your favourite.”
Rasputin kept drinking, jerking his head about, twitching and muttering something.
“I’m finding it very hard to talk to him,” I said to Rozanov. “Why don’t you and Izmailov try? Maybe we can all four of us have a conversation!”
“It won’t work. It’s a very intimate, mysterious subject. And he’s shown he trusts you…”
“What’s him over there whispering about?” interrupted Rasputin. “Him that writes for New Times?”[5]
So much for our being incognito.
“What makes you think he’s a writer?” I asked. “Someone must have misinformed you… Before you know it, they’ll be saying I’m a writer, too.”
“I think they said you’re from the Russian Word,” he replied calmly. “But it’s all the same to me.”
“Who told you that?”
“I’m afraid I can’t remember,” he said, pointedly repeating my own words when he’d asked who had told me about the Khlysts.
He had clearly remembered my evasiveness, and now he was paying me back in kind: “I’m afraid I can’t remember!”
Who had given us away? Hadn’t we been promised complete anonymity? It was all very strange.
After all, it wasn’t as if we’d gone out of our way to meet the elder. We had been invited. We had been offered the opportunity to meet him and, what’s more, we’d been told to keep quiet about who we were because “Grisha doesn’t like journalists”—because he avoids talking to them and always does all he can to keep away from them.
Now it appeared that Rasputin knew very well who we were. And not only was he not avoiding us but he was even trying to draw us into a closer acquaintance.
Who was calling the shots? Had Manuilov orchestrated all this—for reasons we didn’t know? Or did the elder have some cunning scheme of his own? Or had someone just blurted out our real names by mistake?
It was all very insalubrious. What was truly going on was anyone’s guess.
And what did I know about all these dinner companions of ours? Which of them was from the secret police? Which would soon be sentenced to forced labour? Which might be a German agent? And which of them had lured us here? Which member of this upright company was hoping to use us for their own ends? Was Rasputin the weaver of this web—or the one being caught in it? Who was betraying whom?
“He knows who we are,” I whispered to Rozanov.
Rozanov looked at me in astonishment. He and Izmailov began whispering together.
Just then the musicians struck up. The accordion began a dance tune, the guitar twanged, the tambourine jingled. Rasputin leapt to his feet—so abruptly that he knocked his chair over. He darted off as if someone were calling to him. Once he was some way from the table (it was a large room), he suddenly began to skip and dance. He thrust a knee forward, shook his beard about and circled round and round. His face looked tense and bewildered. His movements were frenzied; he was always ahead of the music, as if unable to stop…
Everyone leapt up. They stood around him to watch. “Dearie”, the one who had gone to fetch the poems, turned pale. His eyes bulged. He squatted down on his haunches and began clapping his hands. “Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Go! Go! Go!”
And no one was laughing. They watched as if in fear and—certainly—very, very seriously.
The spectacle was so weird, so wild, that it made you want to let out a howl and hurl yourself into the circle, to leap and whirl alongside him for as long as you had the strength.
The faces all around were looking ever paler, ever more intent. There was a charge in the air, as if everyone was expecting something… Any moment!
“How can anyone still doubt it?” said Rozanov from behind me. “He’s a Khlyst!”
Rasputin was now leaping about like a goat. Mouth hanging open, skin drawn tight over his cheekbones, locks of hair whipping across the sunken sockets of his eyes, he was dreadful to behold. His pink shirt was billowing out behind him like a balloon.
“Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!” went “Dearie”, continuing to clap.
All of a sudden Rasputin stopped. Just like that. And the music broke off, as if that is what the musicians had intended all along.
Rasputin collapsed into an armchair and looked all around. His eyes were no longer pricking people; they seemed vacant, bewildered.
“Dearie” hastily gave him a glass of wine. I went through into the drawing room and told Izmailov I wanted to leave.
“Sit down for a moment and get your breath back,” Izmailov replied.
The air was stifling. It was making my heart pound and my hands tremble.
“No,” said Izmailov. “It’s not hot in here. It’s just your nerves.”
“Please, don’t go,” begged Rozanov. “Now you can get him to invite you to one of his rituals. There’ll be no difficulty now!”
By now most of the guests had come through and were sitting around the edges of the room, as if in anticipation of some sort of performance. The beautiful woman came in, too, her husband holding her by the arm. She was walking with her head bowed; I thought she was weeping.
I stood up.
“Don’t go,” said Rozanov.
I shook my head and went out towards the hall. Out of the dining room came Rasputin. Blocking my path, he took my elbow.
“Wait a moment and let me tell you something. And mind you listen well. You see how many people there are all around us? A lot of people, right? A lot of people—and no one at all. Just me and you—and no one else. There isn’t anyone else standing here, just me and you. And I’m saying to you: come to me! I’m pining for you to come. I’m pining so badly I could throw myself down on the ground before you!”
5
After its acquisition by Alexey Suvorin in 1876,