Rasputin's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page A

I have to get back,” I said, quickly forming a plan. “We arrive in Pokrovskoye in the morning, but will you come visit me later? At our home?”
    “Just tell me where, just tell me when.”
    “Anyone in the village can tell you where we live. Wait outside our gate at five. Papa always goes to the post office late in the afternoon. I’ll go with him, and you can greet us when we return. I’ll see that Papa invites you to join us for supper.”
    “That would be a great honor.”
    “And don’t forget your poetry!” I said, as I scurried off.
    “Of course.”
     
    I should have known better. I should have known his intentions were anything but honorable. Then again, how could I have guessed?
    At home the following day, I rehearsed in my head how I was going to introduce Papa to Sasha and get him invited to our table. I’d never had a young man call on me. Then again, maybe the moment was lost and Sasha wouldn’t keep his word a second time.
    Finally, sometime after four, Papa rose to go to the post office, and I leaped at the chance to accompany him. After he had dictated his telegrams to the clerk, we returned home, my arm looped in his. Of course, by then I was nearly faint with anticipation. In fact, I couldn’t believe it when Papa and I turned the corner past the spinster Petrovna’s little hut and there, in a cluster of six or seven people gathered by our gate to beg Papa’s blessing, stood Sasha, neatly dressed, his hair combed. Thrilled, my hand came up in a small, impulsive wave. As if in embarrassment, he glanced away.
    Nearing our home, the sad group of petitioners broke into a pathetic chorus.
    “Father Grigori!”
    “Help me, Father!”
    “Lord have mercy!”
    At first I noticed no one except Sasha, of course, but then I saw one man on crutches, a woman in mourning dressed entirely in black, and, then, most terribly, a small disfigured woman, her nose ravaged and half eaten away.
    “Father Grigori! Father Grigori!” she called pathetically. “Help me, please!”
    Sasha, a stern look on his face, came up alongside this poor woman and helped her, pushing aside the others and nudging her to the front. When she was just steps from my father, Sasha even held back the others, keeping her approach clear and free. But rather than seeking to kiss my father’s hand or falling at his knees for his blessing, this poor woman with the hideous nose reached into the folds of her dress and pulled out a long arching knife.
    “Death to the Antichrist!” she screamed as she lunged forward, plunging the blade into my father’s stomach.
    Right before me I saw the long knife disappear completely into Papa, cutting him from navel to sternum, and I screamed so loudly that my own ears were deafened. My father, groaning like a wild animal, jerked back, and blood sprayed from him like a fountain. He stumbled away, and as I reached to grab him I saw a mound of pink entrails boil outward.
    Again the attacker charged at Papa, her knife raised high, her voice a scream. “Death to the Antichrist!”
    In the pandemonium, I searched for Sasha and saw him falling away as the other supplicants rushed forward to my father’s defense. Before the madwoman could strike again, the small crowd of people grabbed her and threw her to the ground, whereupon they immediately began to beat her, mercilessly, their hands and fists and heels and crutches raining down on her.
    But still the crazy woman screamed, “I must kill him, kill him!”
    And as my father collapsed on the dirt lane, blood and more gushing from him, I caught a brief glimpse of Sasha, not coming to our aid but dashing away. Dear God, I thought, he’s fleeing!
    In the end, it was only the swift actions of Mama and Dunya that saved Papa’s life. Sturdy Siberian women, they rushed from our house, my mother already barking orders. Within moments she had commandeered three men to carry Papa inside, whereupon Mama and Dunya threw the dinner dishes from the long table as if