Transcribed from the 1901 Methuen & Co edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org LAVENGRO The Scholar--The Gypsy--The Priest _By_ GEORGE BORROW _WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION_ BY F. HINDES GROOME VOLUME II _WITH A FRONTISPIECE_ LONDON METHUEN & CO 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C. MDCCCCI {Picture of Norwich Cathedral: p0.jpg} CHAPTER XLIX Singular Personage--A Large Sum--Papa of Rome--We are Christians--Degenerate Armenians--Roots of Ararat--Regular Features. The Armenian! I frequently saw this individual, availing myself of the permission which he had given me to call upon him. A truly singular personage was he, with his love of amassing money, and his nationality so strong as to be akin to poetry. Many an Armenian I have subsequently known fond of money-getting, and not destitute of national spirit; but never another who, in the midst of his schemes of lucre, was at all times willing to enter into a conversation on the structure of the Haik language, or who ever offered me money to render into English the fables of Z--- in the hope of astonishing the stock-jobbers of the Exchange with the wisdom of the Haik Esop. But he was fond of money, very fond. Within a little time I had won his confidence to such a degree that he informed me that the grand wish of his heart was to be possessed of two hundred thousand pounds. "I think you might satisfy yourself with the half," said I. "One hundred thousand pounds is a large sum." "You are mistaken," said the Armenian, "a hundred thousand pounds is nothing. My father left me that or more at his death. No, I shall never be satisfied with less than two." "And what will you do with your riches," said I, "when you have obtained them? Will you sit down and muse upon them, or will you deposit them in a cellar, and go down once a day to stare at them? I have heard say that the fulfilment of one's wishes is invariably the precursor of extreme misery, and forsooth I can scarcely conceive a more horrible state of existence than to be without a hope or wish." "It is bad enough, I dare say," said the Armenian; "it will, however, be time enough to think of disposing of the money when I have procured it. I still fall short by a vast sum of the two hundred thousand pounds."