Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/324

 CHAPTER XXXI

SAINTS AND PIRATES

HE population of the prison was, generally speaking, grey and uniform, though I did at times meet some very strange types, which could never have been found in ordinary life.

I have spoken of Daria the Black, whom I met the first day of my stay in a criminal prison. Lowering, always looking on the ground, always gathering some herbs, digging at some roots or plants growing in the prison yard, always in a hurry, a person of few words—such was this poison woman.

Conveyed to the prison from a great distance, she had no visitors such as the ordinary prisoner received; but I was told that from time to time longing seized her and that then at the next full moon she would sit at the window, grinding up some herbs and stones, and would whisper:

"Come! Come!"

It was said that on the next Sunday after these incantations a gipsy woman would appear during the visitors' hour, bringing some little gifts and dainties, and would spend her whole time telling fortunes, as she read them from palms or from a pack of old, greasy cards.

During my stay in the prison one of these visits occurred. The Black Daria with her incomprehensible telegraphy called to her the gipsy woman, who squatted 312