THE drama of life has its own laws everywhere. In the palaces of princes and bankers and in the thatched cottages of the peasants. Hatred, treason, revenge, betrayed love, criminal instincts are not confined to the towns; they are to be found in the little villages, lost in the wilderness, the mountains or marshes. There still remain visible traces of dark paganism or Mongolian psychology, of a nomad, of the destroyer and annihilator who exterminates for the sake of extermination and destruction.
More often than not the drama ends with a stab of the knife or a hit with an axe or club. But this method of settling accounts causes police intervention, court inquiry and sentence, and the man breathing with vengeance employs other means: he invokes the assistance of the "viedunya," an old woman who boasts expert knowledge of all kinds of poisons.
These Russian village Locustas are excellent botanists, and the science—gradually falling into desuetude—of the various peculiarities of different grass leaves, herbs, flowers, and roots, is being carefully preserved among the "witches." These women roam the fields,
47
