Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/106

 CHAPTER XIII

URING the fiery, obstinate struggles of the reactionary forces with those of the revolution, in which both reaction and revolution overlooked the arrival of a new common foe—Communism—there appeared on the political horizon of Russia phantoms which one would think could be born only in the imagination of the creator of the Apocalypse.

One of the first was the former horse-thief, drunkard and profligate, Grishka Rasputin. The very name of Rasputin, which means "profligate," seemed, however, to contradict the part which the mysterious adventurer played and with the by-names which he soon acquired, such as "the holy old man," "spiritual father," "wonder-worker," "giver of bliss," etc.

An illiterate peasant from the province of Tobolsk, a habitual drunkard, Rasputin engaged with a band of gipsies in horse-stealing, and was many a time pursued by the peasants and police. At last one day, after an unsuccessful expedition, he was nearly captured, but escaping at the last moment, he hid in a secluded monastery, whose Prior was the severe ascetic, but psychically abnormal Pimen.

While in the monastery Brother Gregor learnt a