The Possessed

The Possessed (The Devils)

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett

“Strike me dead, the track has vanished,

Well, what now? We've lost the way,

Demons have bewitched our horses,

Led us in the wilds astray.

What a number! Whither drift they?

What's the mournful dirge they sing?

Do they hail a witch's marriage

Or a goblin's burying?”

A. Pushkin.

“And there was one herd of many swine feeding on this mountain; and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them.

“Then went the devils out of the man and entered into the swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake and were choked.

“When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the country.

“Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.”

Luke, ch. viii. 32-37.