he speaks French or English.  German serves as a medium of communication with waiters, shop keepers, and other people of that class.  It is only with isvoshtchiki—­the drivers of the little open droshkis which fulfil the function of cabs—­that he is obliged to use the native tongue, and with them a very limited vocabulary suffices.  The ordinal numerals and four short, easily-acquired expressions—­poshol (go on), na pravo (to the right), na lyevo (to the left), and stoi (stop)—­are all that is required.

Whilst I was considering how I could get beyond the sphere of West-European languages, a friend came to my assistance, and suggested that I should go to his estate in the province of Novgorod, where I should find an intelligent, amiable parish priest, quite innocent of any linguistic acquirements.  This proposal I at once adopted, and accordingly found myself one morning at a small station of the Moscow Railway, endeavouring to explain to a peasant in sheep’s clothing that I wished to be conveyed to Ivanofka, the village where my future teacher lived.  At that time I still spoke Russian in a very fragmentary and confused way—­pretty much as Spanish cows are popularly supposed to speak French.  My first remark therefore being literally interpreted, was—­“Ivanofka.  Horses.  You can?” The point of interrogation was expressed by a simultaneous raising of the voice and the eyebrows.

“Ivanofka?” cried the peasant, in an interrogatory tone of voice.  In Russia, as in other countries, the peasantry when speaking with strangers like to repeat questions, apparently for the purpose of gaining time.

“Ivanofka,” I replied.

“Now?”

“Now!”

After some reflection the peasant nodded and said something which I did not understand, but which I assumed to mean that he was open to consider proposals for transporting me to my destination.

“Roubles.  How many?”

To judge by the knitting of the brows and the scratching of the head, I should say that that question gave occasion to a very abstruse mathematical calculation.  Gradually the look of concentrated attention gave place to an expression such as children assume when they endeavour to get a parental decision reversed by means of coaxing.  Then came a stream of soft words which were to me utterly unintelligible.

I must not weary the reader with a detailed account of the succeeding negotiations, which were conducted with extreme diplomatic caution on both sides, as if a cession of territory or the payment of a war indemnity had been the subject of discussion.  Three times he drove away and three times returned.  Each time he abated his pretensions, and each time I slightly increased my offer.  At last, when I began to fear that he had finally taken his departure and had left me to my own devices, he re-entered the room and took up my baggage, indicating thereby that he agreed to my last offer.