triple row, at the sides, the different spirituous
liquors on draught; at the back, sealed bottles,
of various capacity, are ranged on steps
directly behind the gaping aperture. In the
front or public portion of the izba, the only
furniture consists of a fixed bench running
completely round the wall, two or three
empty casks, and a table near the corner
under the Holy Picture. Most village inns
are dark enough; and you scarcely ever see
there, on the naked, rough-hewn, wooden
walls, those coarse brightly-coloured pictures,
called loubotchnyïa (made of bark), which
you meet with in almost every Russian
hut.

A numerous company was already assembled.
At his counter, and masking with his
broad person the opening, and the pyramid of
sealed bottles in the background, stood,
in ample shirt of printed muslin, and with a
sweet smile on his plump cheeks, Nikolaï
Ivanytch pouring out, with his white fat hand,
a couple of glasses of brandy for his two friends,
Morgatch and Obaldouï, who had just entered.
Behind him, in a corner, near a window, you
could catch a glimpse of his wife, who
assisted her husband in attending to the
customers. In the midst of the room stood a
spare, but well-made man, some three-and-
twenty years of age, dressed in a long blue
cotton caftan. He had the look of a journeyman
tradesman and a jolly fellow, although his
complexion did not announce a robust state of
health. His flabby cheeks, his large restless
grey eyes, his straight nose and flexible
nostrils, his white square forehead fringed with
curls of yellow hair which he turned behind his
ears, his rather thick but fresh and expressive
lips; in short, all his features revealed a
fiery and impassioned character. He was in
great agitation: he opened and shut his eyes;
he breathed interruptedly; his arms trembled
as in a fever-fit; and, in fact, he was in a
fever,—the neuralgic fever, with which all are
acquainted who have to speak or sing before
an audience that expect to witness wonders.
This artist was Jachka, or James, surnarned
the Turk. Near him was a man forty years
of age, with broad shoulders, plump cheeks,
and low forehead, narrow Tartar eyes, short
flat nose, square chin, and black hair, as
brilliant and hard as the bristles of a brush. On
beholding this dark and leaden visage, with
its pale lips, in the calm and meditative state
which it now exhibited, you felt that it could
easily assume a ferocious character, and that
it had already worn that expression under
other circumstances. Without making the
least movement, this man looked slowly round
him, as the ox looks from under the yoke. He
was dressed in some sort of old surtout with
flat brass buttons; a well-worn black silk
cravat was tied round his thick, muscular
neck. His acquaintance called him The
Savage Gentleman, or Dîkï-Bârine. Oppo-
site him, in the corner of the bench beneath
the place of the Holy Pictures, was seated
the rival of Jachka, The Speculator, of the
town of Jizdra. He was a man of middle
stature, but well formed, some thirty years of
age, with a freckled face, broad and one-sided
nose, small bright eyes that did not match in
colour, and a soft silky beard. He had a
bold, restless look; he kept his hands tucked
underneath his thighs, conversed indolently,
and kept tapping the floor sometimes with
one foot, sometimes with the other, which
displayed his boots with narrow red tops, that
were not wanting in a certain degree of
elegance. In the opposite corner, to the right
of the door, there was seated a stranger of
the peasant class, in an old grey smock-frock,
with a wide slit on the right-hand shoulder.
My arrival, I easily remarked, at first somewhat
disconcerted Nikolaï Ivanytch's cus-
tomers; but after they saw that the master
of the house saluted me as an old acquaintance,
they were more at their ease, and
ceased to pay any regard to my presence. I
called for some beer at the same table and in
the same corner with the peasant in the torn
smock-frock.

"Well; what are we waiting for? " cried
Obaldouï, tossing off a glass of brandy at a
single gulp, and accompanying his exclamation
with violent jerks of his arms; without
which he seemed unable to articulate a word.
"It is time to begin, Eh! Jachka?"

"I am quite ready," said The Speculator,
with a smile, and in a calm and confident
voice.

"And so am I," murmured Turc-Jachka,
with perceptible uneasiness; " but, brothers,
let me clear my throat a little."

"Pooh, pooh! You shufiie the cards too
long. Begin," said Dîkï-Bârine, resolved to
listen instead of talking.

The Speculator thought a little, shook his
head, and stepped a few paces forward.
Jachka gazed at him with all his eyes. The
singer, standing between the counter and the
corner he had left, half shut his eyes, and
warbled in a very high falsetto, a national air
which is scarcely approachable except by
voices of the greatest purity, and which can
hit with certainty the highest notes. The
man's voice was sweet and agreeable. He
played with it as if it were a pretty toy
glittering with rubies, which he made to turn
and spin to exhibit its brilliancy. After each
of his pauses, which scarcely allowed him
breathing time, he repeated the subject with
extraordinary boldness and splendour.

Any dilettante would have been charmed to
hear what I heard; although a German would
have groaned and murmured. He was a real
Russian tenore di grazia. He would have
been appreciated at Milan, Venice, and Naples,
and as a ténor léger, at Paris. The air he
sung was a joyous dance-tune, the words of
which—as far as I could catch them through
the interminable flourishes, the added consonants,
the re-duplicated vowels that served to
carry grace-notes, and the exclamations that