Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

242A MUSCOVITE WITCH.

without any effect; he, being determined to get to the bottom of so singular an affair, had recourse to the Russian remedy par excellence, and sentenced the possessed woman to be flogged. This treatment did not fail to produce its effect.

At the twenty-fifth stroke the sufferer asked for mercy, and swore to tell the truth; which truth was, that she had married a man whom she did not love; and that to avoid working for his benefit she had pretended to be possessed. The enactment of this comedy suited her indolence, and at the same time restored the health of a multitude of sick people, who repaired to her full of faith and hope, and returned cured.

Sorcerers are not scarce among the Russian peasants, with whom they supply the place of physicians: these rogues perform numerous and complete cures, as is corroborated even by the scientific practitioners ! TVbat a triumph for Molière ! and what a vortex of doubt for all the woi`ld! . , . Imagination! . . . who can tell if imagination is not a lever in the hands of God to raise creatures of limited ¡:>owers above themselves ? For my own part, I carry doubt to a point that brings me back to faith ; for I believe, against my reason, that the sorcerer can cure even unbelievers, by means of a power whose existence I cannot deny, and yet know not how to define. By recourse to the word imagination, our learned men dispense with explaining the phenomena which they can neither refute nor comprehend. Imagination is to certain metaphysicians what the nerves are to certain medical men.

An anecdote here occurs to me which will show