Читать книгу Modern Saints and Seers - Jean Finot - Страница 14

A sect no less extraordinary than the last was that of the Stranglers (douchiteli). It originated towards the end of 1874, and profited by a series of law cases, nearly all of which ended in acquittal. The Stranglers flourished especially in the Tzarevokokschaisk district, and first attained notoriety under the following circumstances.

A large number of deaths by strangling had been recorded, and their frequency began to arouse suspicion. Whether they were due to some criminal organisation, or to a series of suicidal impulses, the local police were long unable to decide, but in the end the culprits were discovered.

Were they, however, in reality culpable?

The unfortunate peasants, after much reflection, had come to the conclusion that death is not terrible, but that what is indubitably to be feared is the last agony—the difficult departure from terrestrial life. They decided, therefore, to come to the assistance of the Death Angel, and, when any sufferer approached the final struggle, his neighbours or relatives would carry him off to some isolated spot, tie up his head firmly but kindly in a cushion—and soon all was over.

Before, however, they had recourse to such drastic measures, they would inquire from the wizards (or znachar) of the district, doctors being almost unknown, whether the invalid still had any chance of recovery, and it was only after receiving a negative reply that the pious ceremony took place. We say "pious" because there is something strangely pathetic in this "crowning of the martyrs," as the peasants called it. Arising in the first place from compassion, the motive for the deed was, after all, a belief in the need for human sacrifice. The invalid who consents to give up his life for the honour of heaven accomplishes thereby an act of sublime piety; but what merit has he who dies only from necessity?

The corpses were buried in the forest and covered with plants and leaves, but no sign was left that might betray them to the suspicious authorities. When a member of the community disappeared, and the police made inquiries, they always had the greatest possible difficulty in finding his remains. Sometimes even his nearest relations did not know where the "saviours of his soul" had hidden him.

But there was one thing that marked the discovery of a dead Strangler. His body never bore any trace of violence, and as dissection always proved, in addition, the existence of some more or less serious disease, the sham "murderers" were eventually left in peace. A small local paper, the Volgar (April, 1895), from which these facts are taken, reports that several actions brought against them ended in their acquittal.

Lord Avebury recounts that certain cannibal tribes kill those of their members who have reached the stage of senile decay, and make them the substance of a more or less succulent repast. These savages act, no doubt, whether consciously or unconsciously, from some perception of the misery and uselessness of old age, but the Russian peasants cannot be compared to them. The Stranglers are not moved by any unconscious sentiment. Their belief is the logical application of a doctrine of pessimism, whose terrible consequences they have adopted, although they know not its terminology. What is the life of a moujik worth? Nothing, or nearly nothing. Is it not well, then, to accelerate the coming of deliverance? Let us end the life, and, snapping the chains that bind us to mortals, offer it as a sacrifice to heaven! So reason these simple creatures, inexorable in their logic, and weighed down by untold misery.