Many people are born with irregular heartbeats, but Gasputin’s heart had a more unusual deviation. Before he died in 1859, he had predicted exactly what would happen to Russia and to the rest of the world. He was born in 1798 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. His father was a priest, who expected Gasputin would also become a priest, so he taught his son everything. As a boy, Gasputin read everything he found, but when it came time to join the seminary, Gasputin said no. Instead, he went into the woods. It was springtime. He had with him a leather-bound notebook. When he came back the notebook was full of numbers. These numbers were the complex keys to the rhythms of his heart. Over the next seven years, Gasputin produced the first three books, every book, chapter, and verse dictated by the beating of his heart. These books told the hidden stories of how the elite had risen to power. Gasputin was given a mansion a generous income, and many servants, most of whom were there to report on him. But volumes 4 through 7 were not about the elite. They told stories that had never been heard before. These volumes proscribed the control and exploitation of Russia’s natural resources and the manipulation of Russia’s diplomatic relations. In the National Gallery, Gasputin’s portrait pictures him sitting like Buddha but with two fingers on his right wrist.
Tales