* At this time, in Moscow, the sidewalk bookstalls, such as this man would have been likely to patronize, could not furnish a full set of the Tales in the cheap form.  The venders said that they were “forbidden;” but since they openly displayed and sold such as they had, and since any number of complete sets could be obtained at the publishers’ hard by, the prohibition evidently extended only to the issue of a fresh edition.  Meanwhile, the Tales complete in one volume were not forbidden.  This volume, one of the set of the author’s works published by his wife, cost fifty kopeks (about twenty-five cents), not materially more than the other sort.  As there was a profit to the family on this edition, and none on the cheap edition, the withdrawal of the latter may have been merely a private business arrangement, to be expected under the circumstances, and the cry of “prohibition” may have been employed as a satisfactory and unanswerable tradesman’s excuse for not being supplied with the goods desired.

“How had they affected him?  Why, he had learned to love all the world better.  He knew that if he had a bit of bread he must share it with his neighbor, even if he did find it hard work to support his wife and four small children.  Had such a need arisen?  Yes; and he had given his children’s bread to others.” (He pretended not to hear when I inquired why he had not given his own share of the bread.) “Was he a more honest man than before?  Oh, yes, yes, indeed!  He would not take a kopek from any one unless he were justly entitled to it.”

“And Count Tolstoy!  A fine man, that!  The Emperor had conferred upon him the right to release prisoners from the jail,—­had I noticed the big jail, on the left hand as we drove out of town?” (I took the liberty to doubt this legend, in strict privacy.) “Tula was a very bad place; there were many prisoners.  Men went to the bad there from the lack of something to do.” (This man was a philosopher, it seemed.)

So he ran on enthusiastically, twisting round in his seat, letting his horse do as it would, and talking in that soft, gentle, charming way to which a dozen adjectives would fail to do justice, and which appears to be the heritage of almost every Russian, high or low.  It was an uncomfortable attitude for us, because it left us nowhere to put our smiles, and we would not for the world have had him suspect that he amused us.

But the gem of his discourse dropped from his lips when I asked him what, in his opinion, would be the result if Count Tolstoy could reconstruct the world on his plan.

“Why, naturally,” he replied, “if all men were equal, I should not be driving you, for example.  I should have my own horse and cow and property, and I should do no work!”