"If it is thy wish, I will," replied the "saint" with some reluctance, for he knew too well that already he wielded an unbounded influence over the Tsaritza. The fellow whose record was the worst imaginable, and whose very nickname, "Rasputin," meant in Russian "the dissolute," was regarded by the Empress as possessed of divine power, and as saviour of Russia and protector of the Imperial family and its heir. "I hear that Alexis, Bishop of Kazan, has turned your enemy, and has written to the Holy Synod regarding your questionable monastery at Pokrovsky," remarked Theophanus. "It is very regrettable." "Bah! my dear friend. I have no fear," declared the man whose vanity was so overweening. "Soon you will see that Nicholas himself will do my bidding. I shall play the tune, and he will dance. All appointments will, ere long, be in my hands, and I will place one of our friends as Procurator of the Holy Synod." At the moment I was inclined to laugh at such bombastic assertion. Little, indeed, did I dream that within twelve months his prophecy would be fulfilled, and that the ex-horse-stealer, whose secretary I had become, would actually rule Russia through the lethargic weakling who sat upon the throne as Tsar Nicholas II. A week later I accompanied the Starets to have his first audience with His Majesty the Emperor at the Palace of Peterhof, that wonderful Imperial residence where the great Samson Fountain in gilded bronze throws up from the lion's jaws a thick jet seventy feet high, in imitation of Versailles, and where nearly six hundred servants were employed in various capacities. We passed the Marly Pond, where the carp were called by the ringing of a bell, and the Marly Cascade, where water runs over twenty gilded marble steps. Truly, the beauties of Peterhof were a revelation to the Starets and myself. On the previous day he had had audience of the Empress at Tsarskoe-Selo, but I had not been present, therefore I remained in ignorance of what had transpired. All I know is that he returned home and drank a whole bottle of champagne to himself, in full satisfaction--not that he cared for the wine, for his peasant taste favoured the fiery vodka. On entering Peterhof we were met by the valet Tchernoff, who greeted Rasputin very warmly with some meaning words, and said: "His Majesty is in his private cabinet expecting you. Come." Another valet took our hats and overcoats, and then Tchernoff led us up a great flight of marble stairs, and on through nearly a dozen panelled rooms with historic portraits, much like those I had once passed through at Fontainebleau, until he entered the blue drawing-room, a great, old-fashioned, eighteenth-century apartment adorned by a number of magnificent pictures by Saltzmann.