Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/55

Rh stuffed owls and lizards, dried bats, frogs, and vipers, were met some common woman, a fat bourgeois butcher, a demi-mondaine, a Minister or a Grand Duchess.

It was a mania, a disease, which had its roots deep in the nature of the people.

Arabian wisdom read in coffee-grounds had also many disciples. Before the fall of the dynasty, this science was assiduously cultivated in the palace of Count Kleintnichel by a devoted crowd of those whose prosperity and magnificence depended on the grace of the throne, and who endeavoured to divine the fortunes of the "adored" Romanovs on the surface of black sediments. Once I witnessed this kind of soothsaying in the house of a high official, whose wife, a titled lady, was a devout believer in the secret arts and invited a sorceress of reputation, Irma Galesco.

In the darkened boudoir, scantily lit by a shaded lamp, the Roumanian gazed for a long time on the coffee-grounds which were served in three cups. She examined it from above, then against the light, rippling the surface with a puff of her breath or touching it with a swift and professional move of a long black feather. The main items of the proceedings were the constant murmurings of an incomprehensible incantation. After a prolonged inspection of the contents of the cups, the sorceress poured it all into a shallow white vase, added a pinch of herbs, and continued