Read Secret Lives of the Tsars Online
Authors: Michael Farquhar
Secret Lives of the Tsars (39 page)
“I have cherished the memory all down the years. I never saw Nicky again.”
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1
Alexandra’s grandmother Queen Victoria carried the hemophilic gene, which was then passed down matrilineally to many of her numerous descendants—Tsarevitch Alexis being one.
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2
“Derevenko was so patient and so resourceful, that he often did wonders in alleviating the pain,” recalled Anna Vyrubova. “I can still hear the plaintive voice of Alexei begging the big sailor, ‘Lift my arm,’ ‘Put up my leg,’ ‘Warm my hands,’ and I can see the patient, calm-eyed man working for hours to give comfort to the little pain-wracked limbs.” The sailor, however, would soon reveal another, darker side (see following
chapter
).
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3
By strict definition, a
staretz
was an
aesthetic
holy man, something Rasputin most certainly was not. But he was often referred to as such by his contemporaries and so will be here as well.
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4
“The poor child lay in pain, dark patches under his eyes and his little body all distorted and the leg terribly swollen,” Olga recalled of one occasion. “The doctors were just useless … more frightened than any of us … whispering among themselves.” The next morning, after a visit from Rasputin, Olga observed, “The little boy was not just alive—but well. He was sitting up in bed, the fever gone, the eyes clear and bright, not a sign of any swelling in the leg.”
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5
Prime Minister Peter Stolypin also described Rasputin’s hypnotic glare, though in a less than glowing account: “He ran his pale eyes over me, mumbled mysterious and inarticulate words from Scriptures, made strange movements with his hands, and I began to feel an indescribable loathing for this vermin sitting opposite of me. Still, I did realize that the man possessed great hypnotic power, which was beginning to produce a fairly strong moral impression on me, though certainly one of revulsion. I pulled myself together.”
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8
Dowager Empress Marie had moved to Kiev in the midst of the government turmoil with the declaration that she “would not remain a witness of the shame any longer.” It was a move her daughter-in-law, the empress, eagerly welcomed: “It’s better Motherdear stays on at Kiev where the climate is milder and she can live more as she wishes and hears less gossip.”
*9
Despite the obvious dangers to his health, the tsarevitch often accompanied his father during the war, and stayed with him at headquarters. “It is very cosy to sleep by his side,” Nicholas wrote to Alexandra of one father-son sojourn in October 1915. “I say prayers with him every night since the time we were on the train; he says his prayers too fast, and it is difficult to stop him. He was tremendously pleased with the review; he followed me, and stood the whole time while the troops were marching past, which was splendid. Before the evening we go out in a car … either into the wood or on the bank of a river, where we light a fire and I walk about nearby. He sleeps well, as I do, in spite of the bright light of his [icon lamp]. He wakes up early in the mornings between 7–8, sits up in bed and begins to talk quietly to me. I answer him drowsily, he settles down and is quiet until I am called.”
Nicholas II (1894–1917): A Bloody End
When I perish they will perish.
–R
ASPUTIN
By the end of 1916, Russia was seething with discontent. Bread lines were long, supplies scarce. The government was run by a band of rogues and incompetents, all personally selected at the whim of Empress Alexandra and her peasant cohort. Calls for violence were increasing. “To prevent a catastrophe, the Tsar himself must be removed, by terrorist methods if there is no other way,” shouted the socialist Alexander Kerensky. Indeed, Nicholas II would lose his throne in the throes of revolution, and, along with his family, face imprisonment, degradation, and eventually slaughter. But first there was the matter of Rasputin, the so-called Holy Devil, to be resolved
.
On December 2, 1916, an archconservative monarchist by the name of Vladimir Purishkevich rose to speak before his colleagues in the Duma. The subject was Rasputin, and in the rousing oratory for which he was renowned, Purishkevich denounced “the evil genius of Russia”—the very devil threatening to destroy both the tsar and the nation. “It requires only the recommendation of Rasputin to raise the most abject
citizen to high office,” he thundered. “The Tsar’s ministers … have been turned into marionettes, marionettes whose threads have been taken firmly in hand by Rasputin and the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.” Then, in a concluding flourish greeted with wild applause, he challenged his peers:
“If you are truly loyal, if the glory of Russia, her mighty future which is closely bound up with the brightness of the name of Tsar mean anything to you, then on your feet, you Ministers. Be off to Headquarters and throw yourselves at the feet of the Tsar and beg permission to open his eyes to the dreadful reality, beg him to deliver Russia from Rasputin and the Rasputinites big and small. Have the courage to tell him that the multitude is threatening in its wrath. Revolution threatens and an obscure
moujik
[peasant] shall govern Russia no longer.”
While the rest of the audience stood and roared its approval, one man in the observation gallery remained seated, “pale and trembling,” as one witness noted, seething with inspired indignation. His name was Prince Felix Yussoupov, scion of one of Russia’s wealthiest families, a cross-dressing playboy,
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1
and a relative of the Romanovs through marriage to the emperor’s only niece, Irina (daughter of Nicholas’s sister Xenia). The day after Purishkevich’s speech, an excited Yussoupov met with him privately to discuss the Rasputin problem.
“What can be done?” Purishkevich asked, recounting the conversation in his diary.
“Eliminate Rasputin,” Yussoupov replied with “an enigmatic smile” and unblinking, intensely focused eyes.
“That’s easy to say,” countered the Duma member. “But who will carry out such a deed when there are no decisive or resolute men left in Russia?”
“One cannot count upon the government,” Yussoupov answered. “But it is possible to find such people in Russia nevertheless.”
“You think so?
“I am confident of it,” was the reply, delivered with an icy calm, “and one of them stands before you.”
Soon enough, the two men made a murderous pact. To help carry out the deed, Yussoupov recruited his friend (and reputed lover) Grand Duke Dmitri, who after the exile of his father Paul
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2
had been semi-adopted by his older cousin, the emperor. A young officer named Ivan Sukhotin and an army doctor, Stanislav Lazovert, completed the assassins circle. The plot was simple—though in execution it turned out to be anything but. The victim would be lured to one of Yussoupov’s palaces with the promise of meeting his beautiful wife, Irina, who was actually visiting the Crimea, and there the hated
staretz
would be slain.
Rasputin long had intimations of his own violent demise, which were often accompanied by warnings to the imperial family that if anything happened to him they would share his fate. “When I perish they will perish,” he once predicted. Shortly before his death he wrote to the tsar, “I shall be killed. I am no longer among the living. Pray, pray, be strong, think of your blessed family.”
Despite this gloomy forecast, Rasputin happily went off to his assassin’s palace on the night of December 29,
1916—freshly bathed and dressed in his finest attire to meet the lovely Irina. A lethal reception awaited him, though certainly not the one his killers planned.
Yussoupov had spent weeks cultivating his victim. “My intimacy with Rasputin—so indispensable to our plan—increased each day,” he later wrote. And by the time of the murder the two appeared to be old pals. Rasputin was delighted, in fact, to add to his list of prominent acquaintances a man of such position and wealth, a powerful friend who was even willing to personally pick him up and drive him to his fateful date.
Killer and prey arrived shortly before midnight to a cellar room in the palace specially prepared for the murder. There was a cozy fire already burning in the hearth, and a tray full of Rasputin’s favorite cakes—each previously laced by Lazovert with what he assured the conspirators was enough cyanide to kill several men. Just in case, though, the wine was spiked as well. Irina was giving a party, Yussoupov told Rasputin, and she would meet them just as soon as she saw off the last of her guests. Meanwhile, the other assassins were waiting upstairs, playing “Yankee-Doodle” on the phonograph to provide a soundtrack for the grand duchess’s imaginary soirée.
Alone with the target, Yussoupov nervously offered him some of the cakes, which Rasputin proceeded to gobble down with slurping gulps of tainted wine. Instead of dropping dead, though, the
staretz
became mirthful and, spotting a guitar in the corner of the room, asked the prince to play some of the Gypsy music he favored so much. While Yussoupov all but sputtered out one song after another, Rasputin merrily tapped along, showing no ill effects from the poison whatsoever. After two and a half hours of this, Yussoupov wrote, “my head swam.”
In desperation, he excused himself under the pretext of
checking on Irina and ran upstairs to consult with the other killers. Lazovert was useless, having already fainted twice from the tension, while Grand Duke Dmitri suggested they give up and go home. Purishkevich objected, however. They couldn’t just let Rasputin leave with all that cyanide surging in his system. What if he inconveniently expired somewhere else? “You wouldn’t have any objections if I just shot him, would you?” the agitated Yussoupov finally asked the group. “It would be quicker and simpler.”
With Purishkevich’s revolver hidden behind his back, Yussoupov went back downstairs to find Rasputin clearly intoxicated from the poisoned wine—but most assuredly not dead. He suggested a visit to the Gypsies: “With God in thought, but mankind in the flesh,” the lecherous mystic said with a wink. The prince replied that it was too late to go out for such a romp and instead directed Rasputin’s attention to a crystal and silver crucifix standing in a richly ornate cabinet. The holy man declared that he actually preferred the cabinet to the cross, to which Yussoupov answered, “Gregory Efimovich, you’d far better look at the crucifix and say a prayer.” With that, the assassin fired at Rasputin’s chest; he dropped “like a broken marionette” on the white bearskin rug. The deed was done, or so it seemed.
Hearing the shot, the others rushed downstairs. Lazovert felt for a pulse and found none. Rasputin was then lifted off the carpet to avoid staining it with his blood, after which the other conspirators left the room to make preparations for the disposal of the body. Yussoupov was alone with what he thought was the corpse when one of Rasputin’s eyes flickered open, quickly followed by the second. “I saw both eyes,” recounted the prince—“the green eyes of a viper—staring at me with an expression of diabolical hatred.”
As Yussoupov stood there in frozen terror, Rasputin suddenly bolted up and seized his would-be murderer by the throat, tearing at his clothes. Horrified, the prince broke away and fled up the stairs, the
staretz
in pursuit like an enraged wounded beast. Purishkevich recalled hearing a “savage, inhuman, cry,” followed by his accomplice’s frightened command, “Purishkevich, fire, fire! He’s alive! He’s getting away!” Then, near the stairway, he saw Yussoupov, his eyes “bulging out of their sockets,” as he “hurled himself towards the door … [and into] his parents’ apartment.”
