Now as a Roman Catholic he had little respect for an Ikon of the
Eastern Church, nor as a Frenchman could he be expected to entertain
lively feelings of gratitude to a miracle-working picture which was
supposed by Russians to have brought about the terrible disasters to
his countrymen in 1812. Confident in his knowledge that no one
present, with the exception of Vogue and myself, understood one word
of French, the landlord fairly let himself go.

Crossing himself many times after the Orthodox fashion, and making the
low prostrations of the Eastern Church, he began: "Ah! vieille planche
peinte, tu n'as pas d'idee comme je me fiche de toi." More low
prostrations, and then, "Et c'est toi vieille croute qui imagines que
tu as chasse les Francais de ce pays en 1812?" More strenuous
crossings, "Ah! Zut alors! et re-zut, et re-re zut! sale planche!"
which may be Englished very freely as "Ah! you old painted board, you
can have no conception of what I think of you! Are you really
swollen-headed enough to imagine that it was you who drove the French
out of Russia in 1812? Yah! then, you ugly old daub, and yah! again!"
The Russian staff, not understanding one word of this, were much
impressed by their master's devotional behaviour, but Vogue and I had
to go into the street and laugh for ten minutes.

The wife of a prominent official boarded the steamer at some
stopping-place, with her two daughters. They were pretentious folk,
talking French, and giving themselves tremendous airs. When they heard
Vogue and me talking the same language, she looked at us, gave a
sniff, and observed in a loud voice, "Evidently two French commercial
travellers!" Next morning she ignored our salutations. During the
great heat of the day she read French aloud to her daughters, and to
my great joy the book was one of Vogue's. She enlarged on the beauty