lievers and their prophetess were delivered up to the rigours of the
justice of this world, which called down upon their heads in turn the
catastrophe of the "day of judgment."

CHAPTER XXII

THE SELF-MUTILATORS

The thirst for perfection, the ardent desire to draw near to God,
sometimes takes the form of an unhappy perversion of reason and common
sense. The popular soul knows no hesitation when laying its offerings
upon the Altar of the Good. It dares not only to flout the principles
of patriotism, of family love, and of respect for the power and the
dogmas of the established church, but, taking a step further, will even
trample underfoot man's deepest organic needs, and actually seek to
destroy the instinct of self-preservation. What even the strictest
reformers, the most hardened misanthropists, would hardly dare to
suggest, is accomplished as a matter of course by simple peasants in
their devotion to whatever method of salvation they believe to be in
accordance with God's will. Thus came into existence the
self-mutilators, or _skoptzi_, victims, no doubt, of some mental
aberration, some misdirected sense of duty, but yet how impressive in
their earnestness!

The sect having been in existence for more than a century ought perhaps
to be excluded from our present survey; but it has constantly
developed, and even seemed to renew its youth, so merits consideration
even if only in the latter phases of its evolution.

The _skoptzi_ were allowed, at the beginning of the twentieth century,
to form separate communities, and the life of these communities under
quite exceptional social conditions, without love, children, marriage
or family ties, offers a melancholy field for observation. Indeed,
these colonies of mutilated beings, hidden in the depths of Siberia,
give one a feeling as of some monstrous and unfamiliar growth, and
present one of the most puzzling aspects of the religious perversions
of the present age.

After being denounced and sentenced, and after performing the forced
labour allotted to them--a punishment specially reserved for the
members of sects considered dangerous to orthodoxy--the _skoptzi_, men
and women alike, were permitted to establish their separate colonies,
like those of Olekminsk and Spasskoie.

The forced labour might cripple their limbs, but it did not weaken
their faith, which blossomed anew under the open skies of Siberia, and
seemed only to be intensified by their long su