The daughter of the great Russian poet Anna Feodorovna Tyutcheva (1829-1889) was at court from 1853 to 1866: first as a maid of honor under Maria Alexandrovna, the heir's wife, then, after Alexander II ascended the throne, under the empress; since 1858 - governess with Alexander's only daughter Maria and his younger sons Sergei and Paul.
Her diaries (originally written in French) provide a detailed picture of the life of the imperial court. In the middle of the 19th century, the enthusiasm for spiritualism swept Europe, not bypassing Russia.
One of the most famous mediums was considered the Scotsman Hume (Daniel Dunglas Hume), whose skills included juggling coals from a burning fireplace, moving objects at a considerable distance and levitation - soaring in the air. Hume was extremely modest and was never caught cheating, gaining a reputation as the greatest medium of all time. In the end, Hume finally gave up on public display of his abilities. He was married to the sister of the famous chemist AM Butlerov. Died of tuberculosis; buried in Paris, but he was buried according to the Orthodox tradition. The famous medium has repeatedly demonstrated his outstanding abilities to the Russian royal court. The records of A. F. Tyutcheva about his sessions are not devoid of skepticism and irony.
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July 10, 1857
The arrival of Yuma the table-turner. A session in a large palace in the presence of twelve persons: the Emperor, Empress, Empress Mother, Grand Duke Constantine, Crown Prince of Württemberg, Count Shuvalov, Count Adlerberg, Alexei Tolstoy, Alexei Bobrinsky, Alexandra Dolgoruka and me.
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We were all seated around a round table, with our hands on the table; the sorcerer sat between the empress and the grand duke Constantine. Soon, perfume knocks were heard in various corners of the room. Questions began, which were answered by knocks corresponding to the letters of the alphabet.
Meanwhile, the spirits acted sluggishly, they announced that there were too many people, that it would paralyze them and that Alexei Bobrinsky and me should be expelled. Subsequently, they fell in love with Bobrinsky, but they kept a grudge against me forever.
We were removed to the next room, from where, however, we very well heard everything that was happening.
The table rose to the height of a half-arch above the floor. The Empress Mother felt a hand touch the flounces of her dress, grabbed her hand and took off her wedding ring. Then this hand grabbed, shook and pinched everyone present, except for the Empress, whom she systematically bypassed. She took the bell from the hands of the sovereign, carried it through the air and gave it to the Prince of Württemberg.
All this caused cries of fright, fear and surprise. I heard everything from the other room, and a melancholy came over me. I had no doubt that the devils themselves were playing playfully here.
I must say that the sight of Hume during the session made a stronger impression on me than anything else. In ordinary times, Hume's face is rather insignificant: small, feminine, indefinite features, an almost stupid look: nothing that attracts attention, except for a great youthfulness. But during the seance, some kind of inner fire seems to radiate from him through the deadly pallor that covers his features; his eyes are wide open, fixed at one point and shine with a phosphoric shine, his mouth is half-open, like a man who breathes with difficulty, and his hair, as the revelations of spirits occur, slowly rise up from fright and stand on his head, forming a kind of halo horror. Then this little man, soft and inconspicuous, takes the form of a Pythia on a tripod.
He says that he suffers greatly during the sessions. Looking at him, you absolutely do not get the impression that he is a charlatan and sets himself the task of deceiving you. He is very taciturn, often talks about God and religion, and on the advice of the "spirits" of the table even switched from the Anglican confession to Catholicism.
The facts are too obvious to be disputed, and since I believe in the devil, I say that the devil wants to take possession of gullible people, arranging for them an invisible and mystical world, crudely materialized, into which one can penetrate without purifying the soul., but through all sorts of manipulations, magnetic fluids and lies …
Meanwhile, Hume and his spirits had such great success that the seance was repeated the next day at the Grand Duke Constantine's in Strelna; in addition, many more sessions took place, which the sovereign was passionately carried away.
November 2, 1857
This week on Tuesday was the evening at the Empress Maria Alexandrovna. Baron Lieven, the Adlerberg couple, Prince Gorchakov and Count Bobrinsky were present. They talked about ghosts, about magnetism - always a favorite topic of conversation in the presence of Bobrinsky.
Hume returned with his spinning tables and pounding spirits. Bobrinsky was present at one of his sessions, where Hume introduced him to communion with Mongo-Stolypin, who had just died. The spirit grabbed Bobrinsky by the right leg and made him turn around with the chair on which he was sitting. Extremely playful for the spirit!
I would like to imagine another world a little more serious than ours, but those who "from there" come back seem to be very playful. All these hands, walking over your feet and tickling them, all these empty answers to empty questions seem to me not very worthy of spirits freed from the flesh. The most terrible thing is that with the most skeptical mind, the one who was present at the sessions cannot deny something really supernatural, since quackery is excluded here. There are no preparations, no devices - everything is in sight and everything is open.
Hume keeps himself completely aloof. He himself is so simple, so natural, one might say, even a little stupid for a person who is always in communion with spirits. He does not explain anything, does not try to convince; he only states a fact, the accomplishment of which he does not know.
He refers him to the souls of the dead, and I refer rather to the elementary souls, to those whom Blessed Augustine calls the spirits of lies in his City of God - to the vain, curious, crafty, empty, always in error and trying to lure with him and a person; dwelling in the lowest layers of the earthly atmosphere, to the spirits of the air, of which the Apostle Paul speaks. In ancient times they passed themselves off as gods, in the Middle Ages they manifested themselves as sorcerers, and in our time they have turned into knocking spirits and invisible hands.
I think it is a sin to deal with them, and even more so is insane, because they want to distract us from God; for this purpose they use the language of religion.
Despite this belief, I find it very difficult not to succumb to the curiosity that these kinds of experiences inspire me. Fortunately, during Yuma's session with the Empress, the spirits themselves asked that I be removed …
November 5, 1857
In the evening the Tsar had a seance with Hume. The Empress, not wanting to attend, went to the Empress Mother to read the Grimm. The session was attended by Alexander Adlerberg, Ivan Tolstoy, adjutant Gorchakov and Counts Vladimir and Alexei Bobrinsky.
The sovereign and empress told me the details about the session. The table suddenly rose, spun around and knocked, beating out the beat of the hymn "God Save the Tsar." The thumping of the spirit was heard: three times for yes, once for no, five times for the letters of the alphabet. All those present, even the skeptics Gorchakov and Vladimir Bobrinsky, felt the touch of mysterious hands and saw how they quickly ran across under the tablecloth.
The Emperor says that he saw the fingers of his hand, transparent and luminous. Lieven claims that their touch is a cross between material touch and a slight electric shock.
Only the Tsar and Alexei Bobrinsky received the revelation of the spirits present: as during the first seance in Peterhof, it was supposedly the spirit of Emperor Nicholas and the spirit of the little Grand Duchess Lina (Alexandra, 1840-1843 - Ed.), Both of them answered the Tsar's questions, pointing with knocks the letters of the alphabet, as the emperor marked them with a pencil on the paper lying in front of him.
… For my part, I am increasingly coming to the conviction that these are low spirits, spirits of the air, who seek to deceive and deceive people who are unsteady in faith. I will not believe that a soul redeemed by the Savior after its death can tinker with tables and pinch people to convince them of its immortality.
A very strange thing happened to me tonight. In the room of the Grand Duchess there is a clock with a mechanism and three monkeys playing different instruments. This watch is wound rather tightly with a large key, and as soon as it is wound, the monkeys begin to play. We haven't started this thing for days.
At night I wake up from a loud noise; gradually I understand that it comes from the wheels of the mechanism and that all the monkeys are in motion. The noise was so strong that it woke up the Grand Duchess and the chamber-frau in the next room.
Hume said in the evening during the seance that the spirits will continue to manifest themselves at night and that this is a form of manifestation worthy of such stupid spirits as his spirits are.
6 November
Bobrinsky told me that he was very scared at the last session, and the sovereign told me that he shouted and turned terribly pale at every touch of the spirit.
From the book by A. Tyutcheva "At the Court of Two Emperors". Published by M. and S. Sabashnikovs, Moscow, 1928