Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/98

82 Opium, hashish, cocaine, alcohol were all indulged in; religion was the worship of spiritual disease, as it is before the downfall of nations and empires.

The mad "feast during pest" was held secretly in magnificent palaces, and with each year it became ever more obvious that a tremendous catastrophe must ensue, with all its terrors. The crash came on October 17, 1917, when the people, the soldiers, and alien agents fell upon the nobles. The mad hatred of the mob then turned against the intelligentsia, which passed away without a trace, leaving the Russian people deprived of its moral leaders.