Sometimes on a holiday the master closed the shop, and took Yevsey through the city. They walked long and slowly. The old man pointed out the houses of the rich and eminent people, and told of their lives. His recitals were replete with accounts of women who ran away from their husbands, of dead people, and of funerals. He talked about them in a dry solemn voice, criticizing and condemning everything. He grew animated only when telling how and from what this or that man died. In his opinion, apparently, matters of disease and death were the most edifying and interesting of earthly subjects. At the end of every walk he treated Yevsey to tea in a tavern, where musical machines played. Here everybody knew the old man, and behaved toward him with timid respect. Yevsey grown tired, his brain dizzied by the cloud of heavy odors, would fall into drowsy silence under the rattle and din of the music. Once, however, the master took him to a house which contained numerous articles of gold and silver, marvellous weapons, and garments of silk brocade. Suddenly the mother's forgotten tales began to beat in the boy's breast, and a winged hope trembled in his heart. He walked silently through the rooms for a long time, disconcertedly blinking his eyes, which burned greedily. When they returned home he asked the master: "Whose are they?" "They are public property--the Czar's," the old man explained impressively. The boy put more questions. "Who wore such coats and sabres?" "Czars, boyars, and various imperial persons." "There are no such people to-day?" "How so? Of course there are. It would be impossible to be without them. Only now they dress differently." "Why differently?" "More cheaply. Formerly Russia was richer. But now it has been robbed by various foreign people, Jews, Poles, and Germans." Raspopov talked for a long time about how nobody loved Russia, how all robbed it, and wished it every kind of harm. When he spoke much Yevsey ceased to believe him or understand him. Nevertheless he asked: "Am I an imperial person, too?" "In a sense. In our country all are imperial people, all are subjects of the Czar. The whole earth is God's, and the whole of Russia is the Czar's." Before Yevsey's eyes handsome, stately personages in glittering garb circled in a bright, many-colored round dance. They belonged to another fabulous life, which remained with him after he had lain down to sleep. He saw himself in this life clad in a sky-blue robe embroidered with gold, with red boots of Morocco leather on his feet. Rayisa was there, too, in brocade and adorned with precious gems. "So it will pass away," he thought. To-day this thought gave rise not to hope in a different future but to quiet regret for the past. On the other side of the door he heard the dry even voice of his master: "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain--" CHAPTER V