Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

A RUSSIAN IX HIS LIBRARY.101

the Russians, whose soft and imperceptible cant'äène at first deceives us. As soon as they begin to talk carelessly, to relate a story, or to minutely describe a personal impression, the illusion ceases and the deception is discovered. But they are the cleverest people in the world for concealing their deficiencies: in intimate society this diplomatic talent is wearisome.

A Russian showed me yesterday, in his cabinet, a little portable library, which struck me as a model of good taste. I approached the collection to open a volume the appearance of which had attracted me ; it was an Arabic manuscript, bound in old parchment. " You arc greatly to be envied; you understand Arabic?" I said to the master of the house. " No," he answered; " but I always have every kind of book around me: it sets off a room, yon know."

Scarcely had this ingenuous confession escaped him than the involuntary expression of my face caused him to perceive that he had forgotten himself; whereupon, feeling very sure of my ignorance, he set about translating to me a few pretended passages of the manuscript, and did it with a volubility, a fluency, and an address, which would have deceived me, had not his previous dissimulation, and the embarrassment which he betrayed on my first perceiving it, put me on my guard. I clearly saw that he wished to obliterate the effect of his frank avowal, and to impress me with the idea, without his actually stating it, that in making such confession he had only been joking. The artifice, skilful as it was, failed in its object.

These are the childish stratagems of a people whose f 3