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Never has the hoof of the mule left its trace in these windings; man himself can with difficulty stand upright there, even with the hempen boots which can not slip, and the hook of the pikestaff to force into the crevices of the rocks. In the fine summer months the 'pastour', in his brown cape, and his black long-bearded ram lead hither flocks, whose flowing wool sweeps the turf.
Indeed, it was not before nearly half an hour had elapsed that the long-bearded old janitor unwillingly conducted me through the long, bare corridors of the monastery where my footsteps on the flags awakened the echoes, and after several turns ushered me into a small, well-furnished room, wherein, in an armchair before the stove, sat the charlatan who was posing as the Saviour of Russia.
He sees a people strange and unfamiliar in costume and expression; fierce, stern-looking officers, rigid in features, closely shaved, and dressed in glittering uniforms; grave, long-bearded priests, with square-topped black turbans, their flowing black drapery trailing in the dust; pale women richly and elegantly dressed, gliding unattended through mazes of the crowd; rough, half-savage serfs, in dirty pink shirts, loose trowsers, and big boots, bowing down before the shrines on the bridges and public places; the drosky drivers, with their long beards, small bell-shaped hats, long blue coats and fire-bucket boots, lying half asleep upon their rusty little vehicles awaiting a customer, or dashing away at a headlong pace over the rough cobble-paved streets, and so on of every class and kind.
Not in vain do we listen to those long-bearded, venerable, very tedious old presidents, advocates, and friars of orders gray, in their high ruffs, taffety robes or gowns of frieze, as they squeak and gibber, for a fleeting moment, to a world which knew them not.
The long-bearded rabbis were standing there, their mouths open in astonishment. Jesus was not just a boy in the crowd any longer. Men old enough to be his grand-father were listening to what he had to say. Mary's surprise turned to anger. She pushed her way through the crowd and took Jesus by the arm. "Why did you do this?" she cried. "Your father and I have been looking for you everywhere."
Cherchez le Juif is, indeed, no empty cry, whenever a new artistic or journalistic planet swims into our ken. That the Jew rules over the Continental press is not quite so untrue as most anti-Semitic cries. "Have you any Christians on your staff?" I said to the editor of the great Budapest newspaper, "Pesther Lloyd," a fine figure of a man, long-bearded and benevolent, like an ancient sage.
With another cheer, each grabbed up a pan or a pail, and all made a rush for the hole in the elbow of the now nearly drained bed of the stream, acting more like an excited troop of school boys than gray-haired and long-bearded men, as some of them were.
The first day I passed at his house, peace had just been proclaimed with England; it was a Sunday; and in his garden, which was on that day opened to all comers, we saw a great number of these long-bearded merchants, who keep up in Russia the costume of the Moujiks, that is to say of the peasants.
The latter, a wiry, long-bearded Mohammedan, is armed with a long whip attached to a short thick stock, and though he sits low, on the same level as the passenger beside him on the front seat, he guides his half broken horses with amazing dexterity round sharp curves and by giddy precipices, where neither parapet nor fencing give the startled mind even a momentary impression of security.
Returning homewards, we crossed the Ponte Vecchio, and went to the Museum of Natural History, where we gained admittance into the rooms dedicated to Galileo. They consist of a vestibule, a saloon, and a semicircular tribune, covered with a frescoed dome, beneath which stands a colossal statue of Galileo, long-bearded, and clad in a student's gown, or some voluminous garb of that kind.
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