Such was the generously built student Soloviev.  And Nijeradze filled the post of his closest comrade; which did not hinder them both, however, from jeering at each other, disputing, and swearing, from morning till night.  God knows, wherewithal and how the Georgian prince existed.  He said of himself, that he possessed the ability of a camel, of nourishing himself for the future, for several weeks ahead; and then eating nothing for a month.  From home, from his blessed Georgia, he received very little; and then, for the most part, in victuals.  At Christmas, at Easter, or on his birthday (in August) he was sent—­and inevitably through arriving fellow-countrymen—­whole cargoes of hampers with mutton, grapes, goat-flesh, sausages, dried hawthorn berries, RAKHAT loukoum, egg-plants, and very tasty cookies; as well as leathern bottles of excellent home-made wine, strong and aromatic, but giving off just the least bit of sheep-skin.  Then the prince would summon together to one of his comrades (he never had quarters of his own) all his near friends and fellow-countrymen; and arranged such a magnificent festival—­Toi in Caucasian—­that at it were extirpated to the last shreds the gifts of fertile Georgia.  Georgian songs were sung, the first place, of course, being given to MRAVOL-DJAMIEM and every guest is sent down to us from heaven by god, no matter of what country he be; the LEZGINKA was danced without tiring, with table knives brandished wildly in the air; and the TULUMBASH (or, perhaps, he is called TOMADA?) spoke his improvisations; for the greater part Nijeradze himself spoke.

He was a great hand at talking and could, when he warmed up, pronounce about three hundred words a minute.  His style was distinguished for mettle, pomp, and imagery; and his Caucasian accent with characteristic lisping and throaty sounds, resembling now the hawking of a woodcock, now the clucking of an eagle, not only did not hinder his discourse, but somehow even strangely adorned it.  And no matter of what he spoke, he always led up the monologue to the most beautiful, most fertile, the very foremost, most chivalrous, and at the same time the most injured country—­ Georgia.  And invariably he cited lines from the panther’s skin of the Georgian poet Rustavelli; with assurances, that this poem was a thousand times above all of Shakespeare, multiplied by Homer.

Even though he was hot-headed, he was not spiteful; and in his demeanour femininely soft, gentle, engaging, without losing his native pride ...  One thing only did his comrades dislike in him—­ some exaggerated, exotic love of women.  He was unshakably, unto sacredness or folly, convinced that he was irresistibly splendid of person; that all men envied him, all women were in love with him, while husbands were jealous ...  This self-conceited, obtrusive dangling after