Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/58

42 rushes in the lake. From afar came the chuckling of wild ducks settling down to sleep, the lowing of a stray cow, and the barking of a dog. The summer night was filled with mystery, which buries crime and every outburst of primitive passion, and it seemed to listen to the unspoken thoughts of this benighted crowd which stood flooded with the crimson glare of the open fire. My mind was involuntarily carried away, back into olden times, when perhaps on the self-same spot was raised the wooden image of the god Perkunas, while the priests, clad in white linen garments, their heads wreathed, shed the blood of consecrated beasts. The fire burning upon the altar then illuminated by its glare, just like now, the terrified crowd which, just like now, resembled a gathering of crimson-bathed phantoms.

Thus proceeded the soothsaying, and a few days afterwards the peasant mob seized the doctor and his assistants who were sent to fight the epidemics, clubbed them to death, and threw their bodies into the boggy river. Police inquiries were instituted, after which new crowds of sullen peasants, whose only crime was spiritual darkness, went to prison or Siberia.

Still another time, near Petersburg, in the town of Gdov, I witnessed fortune-telling by water.

The diviner poured water into a glass basin and asked the client for her wedding ring. She wanted to find out what had happened to her husband, who