It is
our Karma after the Revolution. Property shall avail us nothing.
Everything we have shall be taken from us. Look at this Chinese wall
taking away all our money. Think of that foolish contractor Gretchkin
and our costly datcha. Behold our sickly children. How much money have
we not spent trying to heal our children, eh, eh! Doctors have all
failed. Even a magic healer in the country failed."
"Tell me of him," I urged.
Varvara Ilinitchna went on only too gladly. She had found a listener.
"It was a peasant woman. She healed so many people that, though she
was quite illiterate, the medical faculty gave her a certificate
to the effect that she could cure. I know for a fact that when
specialists gave their patients up as hopeless cases, they recommended
her as a last resort. She was a miracle worker: she almost raised the
dead. You must know, however, that she could only cure rheumatism
cases. For other diseases there are other peasant women in various
parts of Russia. We went to this one and lived a whole summer with her
on a very dirty, dismal countryside. We were all bored to death, and
we came away worse than we went. And all such things cost much, I
assure you."
My hostess verily believed in the effect of the holy water on the
stormy waves, in the gracious influence of St.
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