Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/110

94 radiant veil which emerged from the mysterious black profundity of those piercing pupils.

"It's not a man, it's the devil," said someone among the spectators.

"It's Rasputin!" explained another. "What do you want?"

"The impure power," whispered a pious lady.

"The powerful, holy man of God!" protested immediately several voices.

The crowd dispersed. New visitors took their place.

My third encounter with Rasputin was amidst fatal circumstances.

A reporter of the paper which I edited telephoned through to me that Rasputin had been killed, and that the authorities were searching for his body. After a few hours I learned that the body was found. I went to the spot at once. Just before I arrived the corpse was lifted through a hole cut In the ice on the Little Neva River. He was dressed in a magnificent fur coat and a black silk shirt; on one leg I noticed a high jute snow-shoe upon a patent leather boot His head was bare. His face was smashed, one eye injured, and his throat bore signs of strangling fingers. He was the victim of political, perhaps personal vengeance, sprung on him by the Grand Duke Dimitri, Count Sumarokov-Elston, and the Deputy to the Duma Vladimir Purishkevich.

The artist Rayevski, who painted Rasputin—at the request of the Empress Alexandra, his portrait was