On the other hand, the liberal parties in the country began to be seriously alarmed at the importance which this uncouth peasant was assuming, and they it was who helped by the anxiety which they openly manifested to set the general public thinking about him more than it ought to have done. In the Duma the name of Rasputin was mentioned with something akin to horror, and allusions without number were made concerning the “Dark Powers,” as they were called, who were grasping in their hands the conduct of public affairs. The “Prophet” began to be mentioned as the scourge of Russia long before he had become one. His followers, on the contrary, made no secret of his ever-growing importance, and invented on their side any number of tales absolutely devoid of truth and tending to prove that nothing whatever was done in regard to the management of state affairs without his having been previously consulted. Who consulted him no one knows, and no one could tell. Certainly it was not the Emperor, who had, when the “Prophet” once or twice had attempted to touch upon this point in his presence, rebuked him most sharply; certainly it was not the Empress, who at that time had never yet cared for politics, whether foreign or domestic. It was also not the ministers, and most certainly it was not the leaders of any party in the Duma, because all parties there were agreed as to one thing, and that was a thorough detestation of Rasputin and of the whole crew which surrounded him and without which he could not exist. Who consulted him, then? No one knew, and very probably no one cared to know. But the fact that he was consulted was an established one, most probably due to the efforts of those persons in whose interests it lay to represent him as the deus ex machina without whom nothing could be done in general, and upon whom everything more or less depended.