"No; guess again," I said.
"France?"
"No; further away."
"England, then?"
"No."
"Hungary?"
Evidently that man's geography was somewhat mixed, so I told him.
"America!" he exclaimed, with great vivacity. "Yes, indeed, it is the best land of all. It is the richest!"
So that is the monastic as well as the secular standard of worth! This experience, repeated frequently and nearly word for word, had begun to weary me. Consequently I led the fat merchant a verbal chase, and baffled him until he capitulated with, "Excuse me. Take no offense, I beg, sudarynya. I only asked so by chance." Then I told him with the same result.
This was not the last time, by many, that I was put through my national catechism in Kieff. Every Kievlyanin to whom I spoke quizzed me. Of course I was on a grand quizzing tour myself, but that was different, in some way.