and the green within, and my knowledge
of external objects was blurred, not to
say rendered null and void, by sundry
elaborate geometrical patterns of fantastical
design and parti-coloured hue swimming
about in the verdant darkness. So I was not
able to aver with any degree of distinctness
whether there were anybody or not on the
bed in the recess that looked like a grave.
Not so with the Ischvostchik; he with cat-
like agility dived into the recess, and, after
many struggles, brought into the greenness
the man with the red shirt who had whilom
opened the front door, and shut it again in
our faces. Him he shook and objurgated in
much violent Russ; at last he seemed to
make the red-shirted door-shutter comprehend
for what reason a very tired traveller
should arrive in an hotel in St. Petersburg in
two droschkies—himself in one, his luggage
in another. He cried out "Portier, portier!"
and darting down a dark corridor, presently
returned with a little old man, in faded
European costume—very snuffy, stupid, semi-
idiotic, as it seemed to me. I could not at
all make out to what nation, if any, he had
in the origin belonged; but I managed to
hammer a few words of German into him,
to the effect that I was very tired and dusty
and hungry, and that I required a bed,
food, a bath, and the payment of the droschky.
I don't think he clearly understood a
tithe of my discourse, but on the retina of
his mind, there gradually, I imagine, became
impressed the image of a traveller who
wanted to spend his money at Heyde's, and
ultimately fee him, the porter, with silver
roubles. So he rang a HAND-BELL, which
brought down one of the brothers Barnabay
who manage Heyde's for Zacharaï the Mythic;
and this brother Barnabay (it was the stout
brother) understood me, the droschkies, the
difficulty, everything. "Would I, dear
lord as I was, show him my passport?"
This was before Barnabay quite understood
anything. I showed him my passport. He
was so delighted with it as to keep it, buttoning
it up in a stout coat-pocket, but assuring
me that it was Ganz recht—ganz recht! and
immediately became as fond of me as though
he had known me from infancy, or as though
I had been his other brother, and a Barnabay.
He had my rugs, my courier's bag, my spare
caps and writing-case off my arms and
shoulders instantaneously. That famous
hand-bell was tinkled again, and two more
red-shirted slaves of the bell appearing, a
room was ordered to be prepared and a
bath to be heated for me. I had scarcely
opened my mouth to tell him that I had no
more Russian money, and that he must pay
the droschky, when he had paid both. And
now I, on my part, understood why the
Ischvostchiks had wished me to pay them,
and had cried, " Nietts Geyde! Nietts
Geyde!" for, from their pitching my luggage
viciously into the hall, from their pouring
out a strain of half-whining, half-threatening
remonstrances, and from Barnabay being
evidently on the point, at one stage of the
proceedings, to apply the punishment, not of
the stick, but of the square-toed boot upon
them, it is anything but doubtful that Geyde
(represented by Zacharay's representative
Barnabay brother) was hard upon the
Ischvostchiks, and gave them no more—perhaps
a little less—than their fare. I am of opinion,
too, that Geyde's or Heyde's was a little hard
upon me, too, subsequently, in the bill relative
to that same cab fare; but surely
somebody must be cheated (as a Russian
shopkeeper once naïvely remarked to me), and
who so fit to be cheated as an Inostranez—a
stranger—and, what is much worse, an
Anglisky!

Leaving the Ischvostchiks to lament, or
curse, or pray for us in the hall (I don't
know which it was, but they made a terrible
noise over it), the nimble Barnabay skips
before me up the great stone staircase, which
grows much lighter as we ascend, and which
I begin to notice now (being somewhat
recovered from the glare and the greenness), is
of that new-pin like degree of cleanliness, I
have before hinted at. Then we push aside a
glass door, and enter a vast chamber, half-
American bar, half-Parisian café in appearance;
for, at a long counter customers are
liquoring, or painting—or drinking drams, to
tell the unslanged truth; and at little marble
tables, customers are smoking and drinking
demi-tasses: but wholly Russia, for all that;
for I can see, towering through the tobacco-
clouds, a giant stove, all carvings and sculpture,
like Sir Cloudesly Shovell's monument
in Westminster Abbey. Then another glass-
door: then another corridor; then the door
of apartment Number Eighteen: then another
hand-bell is tinkled, and a real Russian
chambermaid appears to open the bed-room
door, and a real German waiter—for there is
no promotion from the ranks at Heyde's;
and the red-chemised slaves of the bell are
kept in their proper places—asks me in first-
rate North German what I will have for
dinner?

The first sight of apartment Number
Eighteen startles me, and I confess not very
favourably. If that little recess beneath the
staircase on the basement were like a grave;
Number Eighteen is horribly like a family
vault. It is of tremendous size—very dark—
and the bed, which is covered with snowy
white drapery, is very long, narrow,
uncurtained, and a very short distance removed
from the floor; and has the closest and most
unpleasant family resemblance to the tomb of a
Knight Templar. If, in addition to this, I
write that this long white bed is all alone,
by itself, in the middle of the vault—I mean
the bed-chamber—that the inevitable stove
seems even higher, bigger, and whiter than
Sir Cloudesly Shovell's monument in the
café; that the chest of drawers is dreadfully