“It happened like this.  We were away at Vladikavkaz, and Vassily, the watchman, was living in the house with his wife and family, looking after it in our absence.  There came a storm one evening.  No one paid any attention at first, but it became so bad in the night that even Atheists were at their prayers.  At three o’clock in the morning all the villagers were up and dressed and watching it.  They were afraid, not only for our house, but for the rest of the village:  no one remembered such a storm.  As for our datcha, being as it is the nearest to the sea, the waves were already washing stones and mortar away.  Vassily worked as hard as man could, shifting the furniture, taking out his household things, and trying to save the house.  The villagers helped him—­even the councillors who had hoped for the storm, they helped.

“The storm did not abate, so the priest was sent for, and he decided to hold a prayer service on the seashore and ask God to make peace on the water.  They brought the Ikons and the banners from the church, took the Service in case of great storms or danger, and when they had sprinkled holy water on the waves, the storm drew to a lull and gradually died away.  The datcha was saved; perhaps the whole village. Slava Tebye Gospody! Glory be to Thee, O God!

“They wrote to us at Vladikavkaz what had happened, and of course we came down quickly.  Then what a to-do there was!  We demanded the right to protect our property from the sea.  The Council said, ’Yes, yes, yes, don’t alarm yourself; you’ll be quite safe, safe as the Kazbek mountain; we ourselves will protect you.’  The Government engineer came round and said once more, ’Don’t alarm yourself!  We are going to build an embankment.  Next year there will be a whole street in front of you, and electric trams going up and down perhaps.’”

“Did you believe him?” I asked.

“We didn’t know what to do, believe him or disbelieve, but we knew he had been granted power to make investigations and draw up plans.  For months, now, they have been measuring the depth of the water and testing this place and that.  For my part, I think the preparations are only a device for making money.  The engineer will enrich himself:  the embankment and the street will be in his bank, but not here.  The money they have spent already on his reports is appalling.  But of course, if they do build an esplanade, our house will be worth three times what it cost us.  We will let it as a cafe or a restaurant, and it will bring us rent all the year round.  God grant it may be so!

“We resolved, however, to protect it, and we obtained permission to build a Chinese wall in front of it.  But Bozhe moi, what that wall is costing us—­already fifteen hundred roubles, and on the original estimate we thought five hundred.

“Even as it is we don’t know how we stand.  The engineer may claim that wall as belonging to the town.  The town may have it knocked down, for it is built just outside our boundary line.  We go down to the sand, and we have built upon the sand.”