I was the richer by my visit to his stall, for I found
good reading for at least a week. And the old Persian accepted the
silver coin and dropped it into an old wooden box, looking the while
with melancholy upon the unsold kerosinka.
VIII
A TURKISH COFFEE-HOUSE
It sometimes happens that, entering a house, one enters not simply
into the presence of a family but into that of a nation. So it was
when I was received in a Little-Russian deacon's cottage in a village,
on the Christmas Eve on which I first came to Russia. I came not to
the deacon but to Russia itself, and when the Christmas musicians
came and played before me it was not only Christmas music, or village
music, that I heard, but the voice of a whole countryside and the song
of a whole national soul. It sometimes happens that, looking at a
picture, one sees not only its local and obvious beauty, but its
eternal significance and message--that is a similar experience.
It happened to me whilst on a tramp in Trans-Caucasia to enter a
coffee-house that was at once a Turkish coffee-house and Turkey
itself. I lived for a whole night veritably in Turkey. In this way--
I came into a little town; it was a cold night and I wanted shelter.
I entered a noisy Turkish coffee-house--there were at least a hundred
such in the town--and asked if I might spend the night there.
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