Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/117

Rh ily to the "Old Man's" grave proved the genuine and profound sorrow for the "holy father," whose life was so mysteriously bound up with the fate of the dynasty.

Speaking of the mysterious ties which existed between the Romanov dynasty and Gregor Rasputin, I remember a legend which was very popular in old Moscow and particularly alive during the war of 1812, after Napoleon's conquest of the Kremlin.

When the Romanov dynasty, in the person of the youthful Tsar Nicolai Teodorovich, was elected to the Russian throne, the solemnity was held in the Ipatiev Monastery, built by the Ipatiev, a rich family of traders in Kostroma. During the procession one of the epileptics of the name Grishka became mad and started to shout prognostications:

"The house of Romanovs will reign long centuries over us. It will attain glory and power. It will perish tinder the Ipatiev roof after 'Grishka'!"

The history of the dynasty corresponds with this augury, which was at first incomprehensible to its contemporaries.

The dynasty reigned for more than three hundred years, achieved glory and power, and perished after Grishka (Rasputin) under the roof of the Ipatiev's in Yekaterinburg, where the descendants of the founders of the Ipatiev Monastery were removed from Kostroma.

In 1812 there appeared in Moscow a "prophet"