workshop on the sidewalk, priced the work,—­“real, artistic, high-priced jobs were worth thirty to forty kopeks,”—­had promised to fetch our boots to be repaired with tacks and whipcord,—­“when they needed it,”—­and had received an unblushing appeal for a bottle of vodka in which to drink the health of ourselves and the cobblers.  With true feminine faith in the efficacy of a man’s presence, we now enjoyed the prospect of going through the middle of it, for its entire length.  I related the cobbler episode to explain why I did not give the count a job, and the count seemed to find no little difficulty in not laughing outright.

Imagine a very broad street, extending for several blocks, flanked on one side by respectable buildings, on the other by the old, battlemented city wall, crowned with straggling bushes, into which are built tiny houses with a frontage of two or three windows, and the two stories so low that one fancies that he could easily touch their roofs.  These last are the real old Moscow merchant houses of two or three hundred years ago.  They still serve as shops and residences, the lower floor being crammed with cheap goods and old clothes of wondrous hues and patterns, which overflow upon the very curbstone.  The signs of the fur stores, with their odd pictures of peasant coats and fashionable mantles, add an advertisement of black sheepskins which precisely resemble rudely painted turtles.  In the broad, place-like street surged a motley, but silent and respectful crowd.  A Russian crowd always is a marvel of quietness,—­as far down as the elbows, no farther!  Along the middle of the place stood rows of rough tables, boxes, and all sorts of receptacles, containing every variety of bread and indescribable meats and sausages.  Men strolled about with huge brass teapots of sbiten (a drink of honey, laurel leaves, spices, etc.), steaming hot.  Men with trays suspended by straps from their necks offered “delicious” snacks, meat patties kept hot in hot-water boxes, served in a gaudy saucer and flooded with hot bouillon from a brass flask attached to their girdles behind; or sandwiches made from a roll, split, buttered, and clapped upon a slice of very red, raw-looking sausage, fresh from the water-box.  But we did not feel hungry just then, or thirsty.

“There are but two genuine Russian titles,” said the count, as we walked among the merchants, where the women were dressed like the men in sheepskin coats, and distinguished only by a brief scrap of gay petticoat, and a gay kerchief instead of a cap on the head, while some of the dealers in clothing indulged in overcoats and flat caps with visors, of dark blue cloth.  “Now, if I address one of these men, he will call me batiushka, and he will call you matushka."*

* A respectfully affectionate diminutive, equivalent to dear little father, dear little mother.

We began to price shoes, new and old, and so forth, with the result which the count had predicted.