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HIS ORIGIN
69
told me the other day that her master and mistress often
receive a certain "old man "—a man of the people, quite
simple : but he is received with a great deal of fuss ; and
he has already been an enormous help to that family;
he has been able to help many others, as he is quite
intimate with the Tsar and Tsarina, who do everything
that he tells them. Allow me to beg my sister to speak
to the " old man " in your son-in-law’s favour!’ As you
may imagine," continued my friend, "I did not consent to
this curious suggestion ; but it is odd what rumours
there are about amongst the people ! It is evidently a
question of a new Papus or of another M. Philip, only
of Russian origin and in the popular style !"
While I was spending the winter of 1910-11 in St.
Petersburg, rumours and inquiries on the subject of
Gregory Rasputin had been the rage in society. It was
relatively known that this " old man " or " poor innocent "
was a native of Siberia, that he had formerly led a
particularly dissolute life ("Rasputin" is derived from
" rasputny " = dissolute person); that then suddenly he
became a " trezvennik," i.e. a preacher of temperance and
piety, and that, henceforth protected by a few great
ecclesiastical dignitaries, he was summoned by them to
St. Petersburg. There, through the " Montenegrins "—
the Grand-Duchesses Militza and Stana—and through
the salon—" little parish "—of Countess Sophie Ignatieff,
he finally worked his way up to the Court, where he finds
a patroness and so to speak an impresario in the person
of the divorced lady Vyrouboff, nee Taneieff. However,
as during this winter of 1910-11, the Empress Alexandra
did not shut herself up so completely as in former years,
and was apparently feeling quite well, which means that
she was behaving more or less normally, there was
much less open mention of Rasputin and the Vyrouboff;
moreover, the influence of these persons had not yet
extended to Government affairs.
But matters had assumed a very different aspect
during the year that I had spent out of Russia. It appears
that in the meantime a group of low "opportunists"
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