“Now, I am a carpenter,” said he. “My father was a carpenter; we make no progress. Motor-cars come along the road. I don’t understand them, but it is possible to understand them. If they taught me mechanics I could make them. Motor-cars weren’t made by God, were they? They weren’t even made by generals. Working men like myself made them. And haven’t I got eyes, hands and brain as they?”
This was truly a beautiful utterance of its kind, and said with a touching simplicity that won the heart.
Uproarious Lavrenti rushed on:
“And the war against Japan which cost millions! What do you think of their making the Caucasians pay taxes? Why should we pay; did we order the war? Did we fight it? Let those who ordered pay. Now, if they’d sent me instead of old Kuropatkin, you’d have seen.”
We drank a few more toasts and then it became time to go. There was one round more in the pitcher; the priest poured out a glass each and we all stood up whilst the last toast was proposed.
“The Mother of God save us!”
We drank it solemnly, but I heard one man add “some time or other.” Whereupon the priest laughed whimsically.
Lavrenti asked me to accompany him in his cart and sleep the night at his house. On the way he showed me his church—a chaste white chapel with a little green dome; it holds a hundred people, never more, and had been built in the ancient time when Rurik was Tsar of Russia. It has its own Georgian Ikons, though the Russians have taken out the precious stones.
His village was Nadiban. We did not get there before dark, but I heard the music of the guitar, and saw the youths and maidens of the village dancing the lezginka. I went into the poverty-stricken dwelling of the pope and saw his many little children. It was evident that his wife grumbled at him for bringing me home, and indeed there was no accommodation for visitors. The poor woman felt shamed. They made a bed up for me in a manger of the stable, and Lavrenti apologised, quoting that somewhat out-of-date proverb that “poverty is no sin,” adding that Christ Himself had slept in a manger, and so perhaps I would not object. His wife sent in a pillow and a quilt. I wrapped myself up in my bed, and despite the snoring of a sheep with a cold, and the attempts of an ox to browse off my toes, I slept the sleep which is often denied to the just.