“How awful of you to wear these red ribbons,” he said.
“Ah,” replied the old woman. “I _know_ why I wear red.”
“And she knew full well,” said Rasputin, gloomily, when describing the incident to me. “Red is the colour of blood--and blood will soon be as plentiful as her scarlet ribbons.”
Everyone who loved the Imperial Family was horrified at the ever increasing scandals; the wildest reports, mostly lies, with a sub-stratum of truth were current, and Rasputin was even said to have been sinning in Petrograd when he was actually in Siberia. It was impossible to persuade the Empress that popular feeling was against her. True, she heard what was said, and she occasionally read what was imputed to her, but she paid no attention to gossip or to mendacious paragraphs. She was obsessed by her religion, and she sent me and Anna Virouboff on a pilgrimage to Tobolsk in the summer of 1916. A new saint had been recently canonized at Tobolsk, and the Empress had made a vow to go thither herself, or to send a substitute. Anna asked me to consent, as she was afraid to travel alone, and, as the Empress begged me to go, I could do no less than prove my devotion to her wishes.
When I arrived at Petrograd I discovered that Rasputin was to travel with us. I could not help thinking that, in view of popular feeling, it was most ill-advised to advertise the expedition, but I dared not suggest this. We left Petrograd in the greatest publicity.... A special saloon carriage was attached to the train ... it was a progress of publicity, wires were sent in advance all along the line to announce our advent, and crowds thronged the stations to catch a glimpse of us.
At last, late in the evening, we arrived at Tumen, and from thence we took the steamer to Tobolsk. Little did I dream that, in a year’s time, the Imperial Family were to make the same pilgrimage--of which the whole journey was to prove indeed a Via Dolorosa! They, too, were to see the black and swiftly flowing river, and the wild Tartar villages on its banks, and, like myself, they were to see the city on the mountain, with its churches and houses sharply silhouetted against the fast darkening sky.
We were received at Tobolsk by the Governor, the chief officials, and the Church dignitary, Varnava, and we were afterwards taken to our quarters in the Governor’s house, where I slept in the little room which the Emperor, a year later, used as his study.