The Shadow of the Gloomy East. Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski

I can see it. … I behold it in the scarlet, blood-soaked vapours and smoke."

      The peasants stood in gloomy silence and profound thought. The soothsayer himself was silent; there was the hissing sound of flames in the hearth, the light crackling of the burnt curdling clots of blood, the quicker breathing of the throng, and the rustle of the ​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 ​had left home for a long journey and had failed to "send any news of himself.

      The woman handed over her ring, which the soothsayer dropped into the basin, uttering a conjuration and bending over the vessel. Muttering some words, the witch blew on the water, the surface of which quivered and was ruffled. For a long while we could not see anything, till at last I had the impression as if the inside of the ring were a tiny window in a little wall, behind which was a big room. I noticed all the details of the furnishing and the general plan of the room, when all of a sudden an elderly man with a quiet and smiling face entered. I saw clearly every feature of his face and his dress. Suddenly he turned pale, seized his breast, and fell to the ground. A dusk began to settle on his prostrate figure. The ring seemed now like an opening made in the bottom of the basin. The fortune-teller and her client looked pale and agitated. The witch shook her head with a wail of despair and whispered:

      "Bad omen, very bad omen! … He will die … no! … He is dead. … There's no doubt! …"

      By a strange coincidence the augury proved true. Next day my friend received a telegram saying that her husband had died suddenly of heart failure, after he had successfully settled his affairs and intended to leave for home the same day.

      Footnotes

       Table of Contents

      1 ↑ The Orochons are nomads, hunters of a Mongolian tribe which is almost extinct to-day.