During the journey there was very little agreeable conversation between him and Platoff, because they had formed entirely different opinions; the Emperor thought that Englishmen had no equals in art, while Platoff insisted that our men had only to look at a thing and they could make everything,--only, they lacked good instruction. And he expounded to the Emperor that the English workmen had entirely different rules of life for everything, and different sciences and materials, and that each man of them had all absolute circumstances before him, and hence a wholly different understanding of things. The Emperor was not willing to listen long to this, but Platoff would get out at every posting-station, and drink a beer-glass of vodka through vexation, and eat a little round salted cracknel, and light his birch-root pipe, which held a whole pound of Zhukoff tobacco at one filling.[18] And then he would take his place, and sit in silence beside the Tzar in the carriage. The Emperor gazed in one direction, while Platoff thrust his pipe out of the opposite window and smoked away in the breeze. And thus they journeyed until they reached Petrograd; and the Emperor did not take Platoff to Priest Feodot with him. "Thou art intemperate in spiritual converse," said he, "and thou smokest so excessively that soot has settled in my head from thy fumes." Platoff was offended, and lay upon the couch of vexation at home. And there he lay incessantly, and smoked Zhukoff tobacco without intermission. FOOTNOTES: [11] Probably intended for _khalva_, a very rich paste of honey and nuts. [12] Count Bobrinsky's extensive beet-sugar factories, in southwest Russia. [13] Evidently "infusoriae." [14] Pyramids. [15] There was a very great difference in the value of silver and paper money in Russia at that date, and the Englishmen chose wisely. [16] Walrus ivory. [17] AUTHOR'S NOTE. "Priest Feodot" is not a pure invention; the Emperor Alexander Pavlovitch, before his death in Taganrog, did confess to a Priest, Alexyei Feodotoff-Tchekovskoy, who thereafter was styled "his Majesty's Confessor," and who was fond of calling this purely fortuitous circumstance to the attention of every one. So this Feodotoff-Tchekovskoy is, evidently, the "Pope Feodot" of the legend. [18] Zhukoff is a very coarse, Russian-grown tobacco. IV The wonderful flea, of burnished English steel, remained in Alexander Pavlovitch's casket beneath the fish's bone until he died in Taganrog, he having given it to Priest Feodot to transmit to the Empress later, when she should have grown calm. The Empress Alexandra Alexyevna looked at the flea's variations, and burst out laughing, but she did not occupy herself with it. "My state is now that of a widow," said she, "and no sort of amusement is seductive to me;" and on her return to Petrograd, she gave this marvel and all the other treasures in the inheritance to the new Emperor.