THE EXORCISM

Along the village street, between rows of white-plastered cottages, a strange procession is moving along, with wild howls.

A crowd of people is walking along, walking slowly, in dense ranks,—moving like a huge wave, and in front of it strides a miserable little horse, a comically woolly little nag, with head drooping low. As it lifts a fore foot, it shakes its head strangely, as though it wanted to thrust its woolly muzzle into the dust of the road, and when it moves a hind foot, its crupper settles down toward the earth, and it seems as though the horse were on the point of falling.

Bound to the front of the peasant cart, with a rope about her wrists, is a small, entirely nude woman, almost a girl in years. She walks rather strangely—sideways, her head, with its thick, dishevelled hair of a dark chestnut hue, is raised and thrown a little backward, her eyes are opened widely and are gazing off into the distance with a dull, unintelligent look, which has nothing human about it. Her whole body is covered with blue and dark-red spots, both circular and oblong; her left breast, elastic, maidenly, is cleft, and from it the blood is dripping.... It forms a crimson streak on her body, and down along the left leg to the knee, while on her lower leg it is concealed by a light-brown coating of dust It seems as though a long, narrow strip of skin had been flayed from the woman's body, which must have undergone a prolonged beating with a club,—it is monstrously swollen and horribly blue all over.

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The woman's feet, small and well-shaped, hardly tread the dust; her whole body is terribly bent over, and sways from side to side, and it is impossible to understand how she can still stand on her legs, thickly covered, like her whole body, with bruises, why she does not fall to the ground, and, suspended by her arms, is not dragged after the cart along the hot, dusty road....

And in the cart stands a tall peasant in a white shirt, a black lambskin cap, from beneath which, intersecting his brow, hangs a lock of bright-red hair; in one hand he grasps the reins, in the other a whip, and methodically bestows one lash upon the back of the nag, and one upon the body of the little woman, already beaten until it has lost the semblance of a human being. The eyes of the red-headed man are suffused with blood, and gleam with evil triumph. His hair blends with their greenish hue. His shirt-sleeves, stripped up to the elbow, display strong, muscular arms, thickly overgrown with reddish hair; his mouth, filled with sharp, white teeth, is open, and from time to time the peasant shouts hoarsely:

"Gi-ive it to her ... the wi-itch! Hey! Gi-ive it to her! Aha! Here goes!... Isn't that the thing, comrades?...."

And behind the cart and the woman bound to it, the crowd surges on in billows, shouting, howling, whistling, laughing, shouting the hunting cry ... teasing.... Wretched little boys are running alongside. Now and then one of them darts ahead, and shouts foul words in the woman's ear. Then a burst of laughter from the crowd drowns all other sounds, and the piercing whistle of the whiplash through the air.... Women are walking[Pg 191] there, with excited faces, and eyes sparkling with satisfaction.... There are men, also, who shout something disgusting to the man in the cart.... He turns round toward them, and roars with laughter, opening his mouth very wide. A blow with the whip on the woman's back.... The long, thin whip curls round her shoulders, and now it lashes her under the armpit. Then the peasant who is flogging her draws the lash strongly toward him; the woman utters a shrill cry, and, throwing herself backward, falls on her back in the dust. Many of the crowd spring toward her, and hide her from sight with their bodies, as they bend over her.

The horse stops short, but, a moment later, moves on again, and the unmercifully beaten woman moves along with the cart as before. And the wretched nag, as it paces slowly onward, keeps shaking its woolly head, as though it wanted to say:

"See how vile a thing it is to be a beast! They can force you to take part in every sort of abominable thing!"

And the sky, the sky of the south, is perfectly clear,—there is not a single cloud, and from it the summer sun lavishly pours out its burning rays.

This, which I have written above, is not an allegorical description of the persecution and torture of a prophet, who has no honor in his own country,—no, unfortunately, it is not that! It is called an "exorcism." Thus do husbands punish their wives for infidelity; this is a picture from life, a custom,—and I beheld it in the year 1891, on the 15th of July, in the village of Kandybóvko, Government of Khersón.