Part 3

And immediately he said to him: "This is the way we placed it," and laid the flea under the melkoscope. "Look for yourself," said he, "there is nothing to be seen."

The left-handed man replies: "In that manner it is impossible to see anything, Your Majesty, because our work is far more secret, in comparison with such proportions."

The Emperor asked: "But how, then, must one do it?"

"It is necessary," says he, "to bring only one of its feet, in detail, under the melkoscope, and to scrutinize separately every heel wherewith it walks."

"Really, you don't say so," says the Emperor. "That is very powerfully small."

"It cannot be helped," replies the left-handed man, "if our work is only to be observed thus; and then all the marvel of it will be displayed."

They placed it as the left-handed man directed, and no sooner had the Emperor peeped through the upper glass, than he fairly beamed all over, took the left-handed man just as he was--unkempt, dusty, unwashed--into his arms, embraced him, and kissed him, and then turned to all the courtiers and said: "Do you see? I knew better than any one else that my Russians would not fail me. Please to look, for these rascals have shod the English flea with horse-shoes!"

XIV

All began to approach and look; the flea was actually shod with real shoes on all its feet, and the left-handed man declared that even this did not constitute the whole marvel.

"If you had a better melkoscope," said he, "which would magnify five million times, then you might deign to perceive that the maker's name is stamped upon each shoe."

"And is your name there?" asked the Emperor.

"Not at all," replies the left-handed man. "I worked at something finer than those horse-shoes. I forged the tiny nails with which the shoes are fastened on; for that no melkoscope whatever can be used."

The Emperor said: "Where is your melkoscope with which you could produce this marvel?"

And the left-handed man replied: "We are poor folk, and because of our poverty we have no melkoscope, but we have trained eyes."

Then other courtiers still, perceiving that the left-handed man's case had proved auspicious, began to kiss him, and Platoff gave him a hundred rubles and said: "Forgive me, good brother, for hauling you by the hair."

The left-handed man replied: "God forgives[24]--this is not the first time that that sort of thing has happened to me."

And he said no more, neither was there any time for him to speak at length, for the Emperor commanded that this shod nymfozoria should immediately be packed up and sent back to England, in the guise of a gift, so that they might understand there that this was in no way astonishing to us. And the Emperor ordered that a special Courier should carry the flea, a man learned in all tongues, and that the left-handed man should go with him, and that he himself should exhibit his handiwork to the Englishmen, and show what workmen we have in Tula.

Platoff made the sign of the cross over him: "May a blessing rest upon thee!" said he; "and I will send thee my own Caucasian vodka,--my _kizlyarki_--for the journey. Drink not a little, drink not much, but drink moderately."

And so he did--he sent it.

And Count Kiselvrode ordered that the left-handed man should be washed in the Tulyakoff public bath, that his hair and beard should be trimmed in a hairdresser's shop, and that he should be clothed in a State kaftan taken from a Court singer,[25] so that he might make a good appearance, and have some sort of rank conferred upon him.

When they had re-uniformed him in this manner, treated him to tea with Platoff's vodka for the journey, and had drawn in his leather belt as snugly as possible, in order that his bowels might not shake, they took him to London. And there foreign things happened to the left-handed man.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] The genuine Russian form of saying, "I forgive you."

[25] It would be difficult to devise an outfit more comically unsuited to the whole style and bearing of the squint-eyed, left-handed Tula gunsmith. The kaftan of a Court singer (member of the Imperial Choir) is made of cloth, the hue of an American Beauty rose, elaborately trimmed with broad gold galloon. All Choristers' kaftans in Russia have simulated angel-wings on the shoulders and back, as (in the language of the Cherubimic Hymn in the Liturgy) they represent the Cherubim. The leather belt is the crowning touch of absurdity.

XV

The Courier travelled so very swiftly with the left-handed man, that they halted nowhere to rest between Petrograd and London, but merely drew their belts tighter at every posting-station, so that their bowels and their lungs might not get mixed up together; but, as an allowance of liquor at will had been appointed to the left-handed man after his interview with the Emperor, at Platoffs instance, he sustained himself on that alone, without eating, and sang Russian songs all through Europe, making only a refrain in foreign fashion, "Aï, people, _c'est très juli_."[26]

As soon as the Courier brought him to London, he presented himself to the proper persons and delivered the casket, but placed the left-handed man in a chamber at a hotel; but there the latter speedily grew bored, and felt a desire to eat. He knocked on the door, and pointed out his mouth to the servant who waited on him, and the man immediately conducted him to the food-reception room.

There the left-handed man seated himself at the table, and sat, and sat; but how to ask for anything in English he did not know. But after a while he found out. Again he simply tapped upon the table with his finger, and pointed at his mouth; the Englishmen guessed, and served him, only they did not always bring what he wanted, but he did not take what did not suit him. They brought him a hot studing in fire[27] of their preparation. Says he, "I know not whether that can be eaten," and he would not taste it; so they changed it, and brought him another dish. And thus, also, he would not drink their brandy, because it was green, as though mixed with copperas, but chose the most natural things of all, and waited for the Courier in the coolness behind the bottle-room.

And those persons to whom the Courier had delivered the nymfozoria examined it that very moment with the most powerful melkoscopes, and immediately put a description in the public news, so that an announcement[28] of it might come to general notice on the following day.

"And we wish to see that master-workman himself at once," said they.

The Courier led them to the chamber, and thence to the food-reception room, where our left-handed man had already grown fairly red in the face, and said: "Here he is!"

The Englishmen immediately began to clap the left-handed man on the shoulder, _slap-slap_, and on the hands, as with an equal.

"Comrade," said they, "comrade,--good master,--we will talk with thee hereafter, in due time, but now we will drink to thy success."

They called for a great deal of liquor, and gave the first glass to the left-handed man, but he would not drink first: "Perhaps they wish to poison me out of vexation," he thought.

"No," says he, "that is not proper etiquette. Even in Poland no one is greater than the host--drink first yourselves."

The Englishmen tested all the liquors in his presence, and then began to pour out for him. He rose, crossed himself with his left hand, and drank to the health of them all.

They noticed that he crossed himself with his left hand, and asked the Courier: "What is he--a Lutheran or a Protestant?"

The Courier replied: "No, he is neither a Lutheran nor a Protestant, but of the Russian faith."

"But why does he cross himself with his left hand?"

The Courier said: "He's left-handed, and does everything with his left hand."

The Englishmen began to be more amazed than ever, and set to pouring liquor into the left-handed man and the Courier, and thus they went on for three days, and then they said: "Now, that's enough."

But they took a symphony of water with airfixe, and having completely freshened themselves up, they began to interrogate the left-handed man; Where and what he had studied, and to what point he was acquainted with arithmetic?

The left-handed man replied: "Our learning is single: we can read the Psalter and the Polusonnik, but we know no arithmetic whatever."

The Englishmen exchanged glances and said: "This is astounding!"

But the left-handed man replied: "That's the way with us everywhere."

"But," they inquire, "what sort of a book in Russia is that 'Polusonnik'?"[29]

"That," says he, "is a book concerned with this--that if there is anything touching on fortune-telling which King David has not clearly set forth in the Psalter, then people are able to divine the completion in the Polusonnik."

They say: "That's a pity; 't would be better if you knew at least the four ordinary rules of arithmetic,--they would be far more useful to you than the entire Polusonnik. Then you would be able to grasp the fact that in every machine there is a calculation of powers, and although you are very clever with your hands, you have not taken into consideration that such a tiny machine as the nymfozoria is calculated with the most exact accuracy, and that it cannot carry its shoes."

To that the left-handed man agreed. "As to that," says he, "there is no dispute--that we have not gone in for science, but only we are faithfully loyal to our Fatherland."

But the Englishmen say to him; "Stay with us, we will transmit to you great instruction, and you will turn out a wonderful master-expert."

But to that the left-handed man did not agree: "I have parents at home," says he.

The Englishmen offered to send his parents money, but the left-handed man would not accept it.

"We," says he, "are devoted to our country, and my daddy is already an old man, and my mother is an old woman, and they are used to going to church in their own parish, and besides, I should be very lonely all by myself, for I am still in the vocation of a bachelor."

"You'll get used to it," say they,--"accept our law[30] and we will marry you off."

"That," replies the left-handed man, "can never be."

"Why so?"

"Because," he replies, "our Russian faith is the most correct, and as the ancestors have believed, so, also, should the descendants believe."

"You do not know our faith," say the Englishmen; "we hold to the same Christian law and the same Gospels."

"The Gospels," replies the left-handed man, "are, indeed, the same among all, but our books are thicker than yours, and our faith is more complete, also."

"How do you make that out?"

"Because," he replies, "we possess all the visible proofs."

"What proofs?"

"These," says he: "that we have God-sent holy images, and grave-oozing heads,[31] and relics, but you have nothing, and even no extra holidays, nothing beyond Sunday; and for the second reason, even if I were married to an Englishwoman, it would confuse me to live with her."

"Why so?" they ask. "Do not scorn her--our women also dress very neatly and are good housewives."

But the left-handed man says: "I don't know them."

The Englishmen reply: "That's not a weighty matter--you can learn to know them: we will arrange a grendezvous for you."

The left-handed man was abashed. "Why," says he, "worry the girls vainly?" and he refused. "A grendezvous," says he, "is a matter for the gentry, and not suitable for such as me, and if folks were to hear of that at home, in Tula, they would ridicule me greatly."

The Englishmen became curious: "But if you don't have grendezvous," say they, "how do you manage in such cases to make a pleasing choice?"

The left-handed man explained to them our position. "With us," says he, "when a man wishes to display a more particular intention with regard to a girl, he sends the confabulation-woman, and when she makes the proposal, then we go together, very politely, to the house, and we look the girl over, not in secrecy, but in the presence of all her relatives."

They understood, but answered that they had no confabulation-women, and such a custom was not in practice, but the left-handed man said: "That's all the more agreeable, because if you are going to occupy yourself with such a matter, it must be with a definite intention, and as I do not feel that towards a foreign nation, then why torment the girls?"

He pleased the Englishmen in these arguments, also, so that they again began to clap him on the shoulders and the knees, with pleasantness, and asked: "We would just like to know, out of mere curiosity: what defect have you observed in our girls, and why do you shun them?"

Thereupon the left-handed man answered them frankly: "I accuse them of no defect, but what does not please me is that their dress sort of flutters about them, and one cannot make out what they have on, and for what purpose; first there is some sort of thing or other, and underneath there's another pinned on, and on their arms are some sort of leglets or other. Their plush cloak is exactly like an ape--a sapajou."

The Englishmen burst out laughing and say: "Where's the objection in that?"

"There's no objection," replies the left-handed man, "only I'm afraid it would make me blush to watch and wait while she is getting herself out of all that."

"Is it possible," say they, "that your fashion is better?"

"Our fashion," he replies, "in Tula is simple: every woman wears a roundabout,[32] and even the greatest ladies wear our roundabouts."

They also showed him to their ladies, and there they poured tea for him, and inquired: "Why do you frown?"

He replies: "Because," says he, "we are not used to taking it very sweet."

Then they gave him a lump of sugar to nibble at, in Russian fashion.

They argued with him that it could not be as nice that way, but he said: "To our taste it is more tasty thus."

In no way could the English disconcert him, or make him feel attracted by their manner of life, and merely succeeded in persuading him to remain their guest for a short time, by promising that during that time they would take him about to divers factories, and show him all their art.

"And then," said they, "we will take him to his ship, and _deliver him alive in Petrograd_."

To this he agreed.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] A very bad rhyme in the original.

[27] Plum-Pudding.

[28] The old gunsmith contrives to say "scandal."

[29] Literally, "The Half-Dreamer."

[30] The usual expression for "join our Church."

[31] In the Catacombs at Kieff are a number of chrism-exuding skulls.

[32] He probably means a garment like the _sarafan_, composed of many straight breadths gathered into a narrow band at the arm-pits, and suspended by straps over shoulders; or the ancient Russian gown, without gathers, cut with gores from neck to heel. What he manages to say is, that they wear lace gowns--or something approximating that.

XVI

The Englishmen took charge of the left-handed man, but sent the Russian Courier back to Russia. Although the Courier had a rank[33] and was skilled in divers languages, they took no interest in him, but they did find the left-handed man interesting, and set about taking him everywhere and showing him everything.

He inspected all their products, and their metal foundries, and their soap and saw-mills, and all their domestic arrangements pleased him exceedingly, especially those pertaining to the maintenance of the workingman. Every laborer among them is always well fed, clothed not in rags but each in a capable every-day waistcoat, and shod with stout boots with iron caps, so that their feet might never receive any shock from anything. And they work not at haphazard but after training, and understand their business. In front of every one of them hangs a multiplication table, and close by his hand is an erasing-board;[34] whenever an artisan does anything, he looks at the multiplication table, and verifies it with surety, and then writes down one thing on the board and erases another, and brings it into accuracy: what is written in figures turns out just so in fact. And when a holiday comes, they assemble in pairs, each takes a slender rod in his hand, and they go off to enjoy themselves in honorably dignified fashion, as is fitting.

The left-handed man gazed his fill at their manner of life and all their labors, but devoted most attention of all to one object which caused the Englishmen great amazement. He was not so much absorbed in their manner of making new guns as in the condition of the old ones. He kept going about and uttering praises, and saying: "And this, also, we can do." But when he came across an old gun, he would thrust his finger into the barrel, draw it along the walls, and sigh; "This," says he, "is incomparably finer than ours."

The Englishmen could by no means divine what it was that the left-handed man was commenting upon, but he inquired: "Cannot I find out whether our Generals ever beheld this or not?"

They say to him: "Some of them have been over here, and they must have seen it."

"But how were they," says he, "with gloves or without gloves?"

"Your Generals," say they, "are always in full dress; they always go about in gloves, and, of course, they did so here, also."

The left-handed man said nothing, but all at once he began to get uneasy and bored. He pined, and pined, and said to the Englishmen: "I thank you sincerely for all your hospitality, and I am very content here with you, and all that it was necessary for me to see I have seen, and now I desire to return home as speedily as possible."

They could by no means detain him longer. It was impossible to let him go home by land, because he did not know all the languages, and it was not good to sail upon the sea, because it was the autumn season, and stormy; but he insisted: "Let me go."

"We have looked at the buremeter,"[35] they said. "There is going to be a storm--you may be drowned: for this is not like your Gulf of Finland, but this is the regular Dryland Sea."[36]

"That makes no difference," he replied: "'t is all the same to me where I die; God's will be done. But I desire to return to my native land as speedily as may be, because otherwise I may acquire a sort of madness."

They did not detain him by force; they crammed him with food, rewarded him with money, gave him gifts to remember them by--a golden watch with a repeater[37]--and against the sea chill on his late autumn road they gave him a frieze great-coat, with a weather-hood for his head. They clothed the left-handed man very warmly, and conducted him to a ship which was due to sail for Russia. There they installed the left-handed man in the very best manner, like a real gentleman; but he did not like it, and was ashamed to sit shut up with the other gentle-folk; so he went off to the deck, sat down under the tarpaulin, and asked: "Where is our Russia?"

The Englishman whom he asked pointed or nodded his head in the right direction, and he turned his face thither and gazed impatiently towards his native land.

When they emerged from the harbor into the Dryland Sea, his longing for Russia became so great that it was impossible to soothe him in any way whatever. The dash of the waves became terrible, but still the left-handed man would not go below to the cabin--he sat there under the tarpaulin, pulled up his hood, and gazed towards his Fatherland. Many times did the Englishmen approach to invite him to come below to a warm place; but he, in order that they might not annoy him, even began to fend them off by means of a lie.

"No," he answered, "I feel better outside--but under cover the rolling of the ship gives me porpoises."

Thus he never went below the whole time, until a certain occasion, and thereby greatly pleased a certain half-skipper,[38] who, to the misfortune of our left-handed man, was able to speak Russian. This half-skipper could never overcome his amazement that a Russian landlubber could so withstand all rough weather.

"Fine fellow!" says he. "Russian--let's have a drink!" The left-handed man drank. And the half-skipper says: "Again!"

So the left-handed man drank once more, and they became tipsy.

And the half-skipper questions him: "What secret are you carrying from our kingdom to Russia?"

The left-handed man replies: "That is my affair."

"If that is so," replies the half-skipper, "then let's make a bet after the English fashion."

The left-handed man asks: "What sort of a bet?"

"This sort: That neither of us shall drink anything alone, but always together, evenly; what one drinks, that the other also must drink, without fail, and the one who outdrinks the other wins."

The left-handed man reflects: "The sky is clouded, my belly is swelling; I am greatly bored; the way is long, and my native land is not visible beyond the waves; 't will be more merry to make this wager."

"Good," says he; "done!"

"Only, it must be on honor."

"Don't bother yourself on that score."

So they agreed, and shook hands on it.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] Evidently, an Imperial Messenger.

[34] Apparently, a slate. The point is, that Russians still perform all their calculations on the ancient abacus, with marvellous rapidity, and look upon pen-and-paper or slate-and-pencil as a slow, cumbrous process.

[35] By this twist of pronunciation the word becomes "storm-meter."

[36] The North Sea. The Mediterranean, literally translated, is "Sredizemnoe"--Midland. Therefore the old gunsmith twists this into "Tverdezemnoe."

[37] The old gunsmith uses a word which sounds fairly right, but means "a disturber."

[38] By substituting an _l_ for a _d_ the old gunsmith turns "under-skipper" into "half-skipper."

XVII

Their wager began on the Dryland Sea, and they drank until they came to Dunamund on the Gulf of Riga, but they always kept even, and did not yield to each other; and they kept so accurately even that when one of them, gazing at the sea, beheld an imp crawling out of the water, the same thing instantly revealed itself to the other. Only, the half-skipper beheld a red-headed imp, whereas the left-handed man declared that he was as swarthy as a Moor.

The left-handed man said: "Cross yourself and turn away--here is a friend from the Abyss;" and the Englishman disputed, and declared that it was a "sea-puss."

"If you like," says he, "I'll toss you into the sea, and be not afraid--it will give you back to me immediately."

And the left-handed man replied: "If that is so, then throw me."

The half-skipper took him by the slack of the breeches, and carried him to the rail.

The sailors saw this, stopped them, and reported to the Captain, and he ordered them both to be locked up downstairs, and that they should be given rum and liquor and cold food, so that they might eat and drink and carry out their wager; but hot studing with fire[39] was not to be given to them because it might set fire to the spirits inside them.

And thus they were brought, in confinement, to Petrograd, and neither had won the wager from the other; and there they were placed on separate carts, and the Englishman was carried to the house of the Ambassador, on the English Quay, while the left-handed man was taken to the police station.

And from that time on their fates began to differ greatly.

FOOTNOTE:

[39] "Studen" means "cold." The gunsmith converts it into hot plum-pudding with blazing brandy.

XVIII