Irish girls are proud to be, and as she rose to
escort him, clapped a wooden bowl over her
shoulder, as if it had been the expansive
cloak of the demon page whom we read of in
the Percy Reliques.

I have been thinking of all these things
and a great many more over tea and tobacco
in the Starosta's house in M. de Katorichassofl's
village. There Alexis and I are comfortably
seated during the noon-tide heats.
The Starosta's daughter would have washed
our feet for us, as Penelope's hand-maidens
did for Ulysses, or Fergus Mac'Ivor's duinhie
wassals for Waverley, if we had had any
inclination that way. Perhaps I had corns;
perhaps Alexis, already becoming Russianised,
had, like many of his patent leather
booted countrymen, no stockings on. It is
certain that we did not avail ourselves of the
footbath. The Starosta has informed us
several times and with as many profound
bows, that his house no longer belongs to
him, but that it, its contents, himself, his
children and grandchildren, are ours, and at
the absolute disposal of our excellencies.
Excellencies! By the long-winded,
multisyllabic, but mellifluous epithets he has
bestowed on Alexis he must have called him
his majesty, his coruscation, his scintillation,
his milky-way, by this time. The Russians
are great proficients in low bows, and to
bien savoir tirer la révérence is considered a
superlative accomplishment. A distinguished
Professor of Natural History attached to
the university of Moscow—a great savant
and a very taciturn man—once remarked to
me gravely, that his brother Waldemar made
the best bow of any boyard in the government
of Simbersk, and added: Ce garçon là
fera son chemin—and indeed this is a country
where, by dint of continuous and assiduous
booing, you may make surprising way in
fortune and dignity. If you will bow low
enough you may be sure to rise high in the
Tchinn; and if you don't mind grovelling a
little on your stomach, and swallowing a
little dust, there is no knowing to what
imperial employment you may aspire. I
think that Alexis has a secret admiration
and envy of Genghis Khan, owing
to the profoundly graceful bows that Tartar
chieftain is so frequently making. I don't mind
low bows. Perhaps if I knew an English duke
I should be inclined to make him very low bows
myself—at all events, I have compatriots who
would; but it is inexpressibly painful and
disgusting to a western traveller in Russia,
when he happens to be on a visit at a gentleman's
country house, to see stalwart bearded
men positively falling down and worshipping
some scrubby young seigneur. If a peasant
has the slightest favour to ask of his lord,
the promotion of his wife for instance from
the scullery to the fine-linen laundry, he
begins his suit by falling plump on his knees,
and touching the earth with his forehead.
Even in Petersburg, where Nous Autres do
not like to show the slave-owner's element
more than they can help, I have seen a
sprightly young seigneur keep a grey-haired
servitor full ten minutes on his knees before
him lighting his pipe—cheerfully calling him
swinia and durac (pig and fool) meanwhile,
and playfully chucking him under the chin
with the toe of his Kasan boot.

We have refused the refreshment of
vitchina, or dried pork, piroga, or meat pies,
and ogourtzhoff, or salted cucumbers; but
we have cheerfully accepted the offer of a
samovar, which, huge, brazen, and battered,
glowers in the midst of the table like the
giant helmet in the Castle of Otranto. We
have our own tea and cups in the tin-chest,
but the Starosta won't hear of our using
either. He has tea—and capital tea it is
—rather like tobacco in colour, and tasting
slightly as if it had been kept in a can-
nister in Mr. Atkinson the perfumer's shop;
besides this, he has, not tumblers for us
to drink our tea from, but some articles
he has the greatest pride and joy in
producing—porcelansky, he calls them, in a
voice quavering with emotion, as he takes
them out of the chest containing his
valuables. The porcelansky consists of two very
fair china tea-cups, one of them minus a
handle, but the loss supplied with a neat
curve of twisted iron wire, and both duly set
in saucers. One saucer is indubitable china;
it does not match the cup in size or
pattern, certainly, but let that pass; the other
is—the cover of one of those shallow
earthenware pots in which preserved meats
and anchovy paste are sold!  I turn the
familiar lid upside down, and there my eyes
are gladdened with the sight of a coloured
engraving burnt into the clay—the interior of
Shakespeare's house at Stratford-upon-Avon!
My thoughts immediately revert to Mr.
Quain's oyster-shop in the Haymarket, London,
and I burst out laughing, to the amazement
and abashment of the Starosta, who,
thinking I am ridiculing him for having
placed his saucer with the handsome part
underneath, hastens to explain to Alexis
that the cup won't maintain its position unless
the saucer is turned upside down, expressing
his regret, as the picture, which he assumes
to be a view of the Dvoretz Londoni-Gorod,
or, Palace of the City of London, is dolgo
harasho (very handsome indeed). Alexis, it
is needless to say, interprets all this; for my
Russ is of the very weakest, as yet. Yet I
cannot help a slight suspicion that my young
friend's Moscov is not of the most powerful
description, and that he makes very free
translations of the Starosta's discourse for
my benefit, and that, like the dragoman in
Eothen, he renders such a speech as " Your
mightinesses are welcome; most blessed among
hours is this, the hour of his coming," by
"The old fellow is paying us a lot of compliments.
We are welcome enough, that is
certain." The Starosta never saw Alexis