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the lower classes, who would ask assistance of any kind,
by falling flat on the face at her feet. Not only every
one who would beg, but every man or woman who would
ask a favor, falls on the knee before her and touches the
forehead to the dirt of the road. No remonstrances can
make them give up this custom. Significantly enough,
the striking of the forehead (to the earth) is even at the
present time the name of petitions to the Tsar
(chelo-bitnaya).
The superstition is as great as the ignorance.
In turbulent times it not infrequently assumes a
formidable character. When, in the time of the Tsar
Nicholas, the cholera broke out in St. Petersburg, the
common people ascribed such a mysterious origin to the
epidemic that they attacked in a frenzy some boys who
had been seen pouring the cholera into the Neva, and in
one of the market-squares they rose in a great revolt
against the police, because they had not arrested two
persons who had brought cholera powder into a house
to spread the contagion. It was on this occasion that
Nicholas, who was just driving past in his sleigh, and
witnessed the tumult, quelled it at once by raising his
arm in anger, and calling in a loud tone: “On your knees.”
This is the scene which is portrayed in relief on the base
of the memorial to him.
The superstition of the people still continues. In a
manufacturing region in middle Russia, where I was
staying, the lightning struck several times, or some other
misfortune happened, on Trinity Sunday. To avert the
wrath of Heaven, this year, the workmen asked the monks
in a cloister some miles away to lend them the miracle-working
image of “the Blessed Virgin with three hands,”
which in that district is regarded as endowed with holy,
supernatural power, and this picture was brought to the
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