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Just before the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 the “saint” had been stabbed by a peasant girl whom he had wronged, and was being nursed by his wife and daughters at Pokrovskoe (Tobolsk province). Here he received the only letter that he ever had from Nicholas II, and here he boasted that if he had been in Petrograd at the time, he would have stopped the war. Nicholas and Alexandra had no suspicion that “Grishka” was a German agent. On this portrait, the “saint” has inscribed some of his pious reflections, translated as follows: “What of tomorrow? Thou art our Guide, O God. How many Thorny paths in this Life?”

ALEXANDRA’S DESPAIR OVER RASPUTIN’S DEATH

Facsimile of a letter in which the Empress for once betrays her feelings. The closing sentence, written disjointedly, refers to his “murder” which occurred a week before, and her anxiety for the safety of the Tsar, showing that she knew of a plot against his life. “Besides everything, try for a moment to realise what it is to know a friend in daily, hourly danger of also being foully murdered. But God is all mercy.”