Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/170

154 on solemn occasions to the dark mysteries and celebrations in other towns, where her perversions, her hystero-mania, and pathos make a deep impression.

Equally popular is the pope Elias, a well read and eloquent profligate and epileptic, who knew how to excite the masses. In his younger days he was as a friar condemned to hard labour in Siberia for the murder of a monastery servant After the Bolshevik revolution he was able to return and to occupy a prominent position among the Diabolists.

At the present time diabolism in Russia numbers a great many professors, and disposes of large and ever increasing funds. A very energetic propaganda of this idea is being carried on in a number of special publications; and all of it, together with the magnificence of the ritual, is attracting ever greater numbers of men, who, amidst the hateful servility of Russian life, are searching for sensations, for some guiding light, for nervous excitement Because nowadays, prison, death, penalty, persecution, hunger, and misery do not move, do not excite the nerves any more.

People have become indifferent to almost everything, and they must needs live up to something. And they are attracted by sects, by profligacy, or morphia, or diabolism.

The internal politics of the Soviets favour the spread of vice, which is sapping family ties, which undermines society and civilisation. Thus Communism and all it conceals encounters ever less resistance and fewer ob-