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There was an air of hushed splendour behind him, and I could hear the heavy, solemn ticking of a clock keeping guard over all the austere sanctities of the place. When I had taken off my Shuba and goloshes I was ushered into a magnificent room with a high gold clock on the mantlepiece, gilt chairs, heavy dark carpets and large portraits frowning from the grey walls.
He leans well back, with arms outstretched to accord with the racing speed at which he drives. In the tiny sledge the smaller it is, the more stylish, in inverse ratio to the coachman, who is expected to be as broad as it is sits a lady hugging her crimson velvet shuba lined with curled white Thibetan goat, or feathery black fox fur, close about her ears.
"Nothing will change you?" "Nothing." "Then it is a battle between us?" "If you like." "So be it." I helped him on with his Shuba. He said, in an ordinary conversational tone, "There may be trouble to-morrow. There's been shooting by the Nicholas Station this afternoon, I hear. I should avoid the Nevski to-morrow." I laughed. "I'm not afraid of that kind of death, Alexei Petrovitch," I said.
"No," he said, looking at me. "I will do you justice. You are not." He pulled his Shuba close about him. "Good-night, Ivan Andreievitch," he said. "It's been a very pleasant talk." "Very," I answered. "Good-night," After he had gone I drew back the blinds and let the moonlight flood the room.
The lady in the velvet shuba, lined with sable or black fox, her soft velvet cap edged with costly otter, her head wrapped in a fleecy knitted shawl of goat's-down from the steppes of Orenburg, or pointed hood the bashlyk of woven goat's-down from the Caucasus, has driven hither in her sledge or carriage, and has alighted to gratify the curiosity of her sons.
I had come up from Budapest to Tarnopol, crossed the frontier at the little village of Kolodno, and thence driven the "forty" along the valleys into Volynien, a long, weary, dispiriting run, on and on, until the monotony of the scenery maddened me. Cramped and cold I was, notwithstanding the big Russian fur shuba I wore, the fur cap with flaps, fur gloves, and fur rug.
The tawdry gilt of the Ikons glittered in the candle-light, and an echo of the cold wind creeping up the long dark aisle blew the light about so that the gilt was like flashing piercing eyes. I wrapped my Shuba closely about me, and stood there lost in a hazy, indefinite dream. I was comforted and touched by the placid, mild, kindly faces of those standing near me. "No evil here...." I thought.
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