Book of Fates

“…For a masquerade in the Noble Assembly, Lermontov was dressed as an astrologer with a huge book of fate under his arm; in this book the role of cabalistic signs was played by Chinese characters, which I cut out of black paper, and which were traced in a colossal form from a tea box and pasted on each page; under the letters were poems assigned to various acquaintances whom he was likely to meet at the masquerade.” From the memoirs of A. P. Shan-Girey, a second cousin of the poet, who lived in the house of E. A. Arsenyev in Moscow, when M. Yu. Lermontov was preparing for the New Year, 1832