nds,
also for sale. The shopmen ask outrageous prices, but do not expect to
be paid them.

"How much the kerosinka?" I asked in sport.

"Ten shillings," said an old, sorrowful-looking Persian.

I laughed sarcastically, and was about to move away. The Persian was
taking the oil-stove to bits to show me its inward perfection.

"Name your price," said he.

I did not want a kerosene stove, but for fun I tried him on a low
figure--

"Sixpence," I said.

"Whew!" The Persian looked about him dreamily. Did he sleep, did he
dream?

"You don't buy a machine for sixpence," said he. "I bought this
second-hand for eight-and-sixpence. I can offer it to you for nine
shillings as a favour."

"Oh no, sixpence; not a farthing more."

I walked away.

"Five shillings," cried the Persian--"four shillings."

"Ninepence," I replied, and moved farther away.

"Two shillings." He bawled something more, inaudibly, but I was
already out of hearing. I happened to repass his stall accidentally
later in the morning.

"That kerosinka," said the Persian--"take it; it is yours at one
shilling and sixpence."

I felt so sorry for the unhappy hawker, but I could not possibly buy
an oil-stove. I could not take one as a gift; but I looked through
his old books and there found, in a tattered condition, _The Red
Laughter_, by Leonid Andreef, a drama by Gorky, a long poem by
Skitaletz, and a most interesting account of Chekhof's life by
Kouprin, all of which I bought after a short haggle for fivepence,
twenty copecks. I was the richer by my visit to his stall, for I found
good reading for at least a week. And the old Persian accepted the
silver coin and dropped it into an old wooden box, looking the while
with melancholy upon the unsold kerosinka.

VIII

A TURKISH COFFEE-HOUSE

It sometimes happens that, entering a house, one enters not simply
into the presence of a family but into that of a nation. So it was
when I was received in a Little-Russian deacon's cottage in a village,
on the Christmas Eve on which I first came to Russia. I came not to
the deacon but to Russia itself, and when the Christmas musicians
came and played before me it was not only Christmas music, or village
music, that I heard, but the voice of a whole countryside and the song
of a whole national soul. It sometimes happens that, looking at a
picture, one sees not only its local and obvious beauty, but its
eternal significance and message--that is a simila