The peasant was in high glee.

“Look what I’ve found for you,” said he.  “Who could have expected that to be waiting outside for you?  Several days I have looked at that bedstead and thought, ’What the devil is that skeleton?  Whence?  Whither?’ Now I understand it well.  It is a bed, the bed of the Englishman on the long journey....”

The mattress was fixed to an ancient bed frame—­one could not call it bedstead—­with twisted legs that gave under weight and threatened to break down.  We brought the “contrapshun” in.

“Splendid!” said my host.

“Impossible,” I thought, trying to press down the prickly wire where the mattress was torn.

“No doubt you are hungry,” my friend resumed.  I assured him I was not in the least hungry, but despite my protestations he ran off to bring me something to eat.  I felt sorry; for I thought he might be bringing me a substantial supper, and I had already made a good meal about an hour before.  What was more, he lived at some distance, and I did not care to trouble the good man, or for him to waken up his wife who by that hour was probably sleeping.

However, he was gone, and there was nothing to be done.  I laid some hay on the creaking sorrow of a bed, and endeavoured to bend to safety the wilderness of torn and rusty wire.  I spread my blanket over the whole and gingerly committed my body to the comfortable-seeming couch.  Imagine how the bed became an unsteady hammock of wire and how the contrivance creaked at each vibration of my body.  I lay peacefully, however, looked at the array of cement barrels confronting me, and waited for my host.  I expected a plate of chicken and a bottle of wine, and was gradually feeling myself converted to the idea that I wouldn’t mind a nice tasty supper even though I had made my evening meal.

What was my astonishment when the good man returned bearing a square-foot slice of black bread on which reposed a single yellow carrot!  I looked curiously at the carrot, but my host said, “Nitchevo, nitchevo, vinograd”—­“Don’t worry, don’t worry, a grape, that’s all.”

He had also brought a kerosene lamp, which, however, lacked a glass.  He stood it on one of the grey barrels and turned it monstrously high, just to show his largeness of heart, I suppose.  I got up and turned it down because it was smoking, and he waved his hand once more deprecatingly, and turning the wick up and down several times, signified that I was to do with it exactly as I pleased.  He left it smoking again, however.

I put the thought of a good supper out of my mind and looked at the black bread with some pathos, as who would not after conjuring before the eyes a plate of chicken and a bottle of wine?  However, it was indeed nitchevo, to use the Russian phrase, a mere nothing.  I averred I was not hungry and put the bread in my pack, of which I had made a pillow, and simulating comfort, said I thanked him and would now go to sleep.  My host understood me, but was not less original in his parting greeting than in the rest.  He shook hands with me effusively, and pointed to the roof.