That the chronicles have as much to say of her piety as of her bravery is a matter of course. The alliance of “saber and aspergillum” is as old as these two symbols, whatever forms they have been, and are, exchanged into. There is a national poem of Georgia, which every peasant knows by heart, in which the following story is told of that famous queen: It was again on a great day of victorious rejoicing. Tamara had put on all her precious ornaments—her crown of precious stones, her gold brooches and strings of pearls. Anew she glitters like the sun. She desires that all her people be happy. She has given orders to her treasurer to distribute gifts and alms to all the great and all the small. “Hast thou fulfilled my command?” she asks. “Are all satisfied?” He answers, “Lady, I have distributed gifts in accordance with thy will; only one beggar woman received nothing, for she insisted on coming to thee to receive her alms from thine own hands. We refused to admit her—she would take nothing from us, and with angry face she went away.” The queen is in consternation, and gives orders to make search for the beggar woman and bring her into her presence. But she waits in vain; the couriers cannot find the woman again. Then suddenly an inspiration comes to the queen; she sinks on her knees before the sacred icons, crosses herself, and cries in an ecstasy: “I know, I know now who that beggar woman was; thou, O holy mother of God, hast sent her to me.” And she tears all the precious ornaments from her body and carries everything, the pearls and the diamonds, to the nunnery of Gaenathi, dedicated to the Madonna. And in this nunnery, which is situated not far from Kutais, it is said that Tamara was buried. Our translation of “The Tiger’s Skin” was never published; but we did not regret the time which we spent in this work. Through that, and through the tales and observations which our enthusiastic Georgian patriot connected with it, we were thoroughly initiated into the nature, the history, and the spirit of the people and of that magical land in which we had spent so many years; and we learned the chronicles of all the families with which we had been associated, whose names—the Orbelianis, the Zeretellis, the Gruzinskys, the Dadianis, the Mukhranskys, the Tchavtchavadzes—have as proud a ring in that land as the Montmorencys, Manchesters, Borgheses, Liechtensteins, etc. have with us. And we were able to penetrate deeply not only into the history but also and especially into the nature of the country, to observe the customs of the people in this rural solitude, in the nearer or remoter inns where our landlord took us to weddings, funerals, and baptisms. But, interesting as all this was, we counted the days that separated us from our return home, and the nearer this came the more we rejoiced in the anticipation of it. PART FIVE 1885–1890