did not hinder them both,
however, from jeering at each other, disputing, and swearing, from
morning till night. God knows, wherewithal and how the Georgian prince
existed. He said of himself, that he possessed the ability of a camel,
of nourishing himself for the future, for several weeks ahead; and then
eating nothing for a month. From home, from his blessed Georgia, he
received very little; and then, for the most part, in victuals. At
Christmas, at Easter, or on his birthday (in August) he was sent--and
inevitably through arriving fellow-countrymen--whole cargoes of hampers
with mutton, grapes, goat-flesh, sausages, dried hawthorn berries,
RAKHAT LOUKOUM, egg-plants, and very tasty cookies; as well as leathern
bottles of excellent home-made wine, strong and aromatic, but giving
off just the least bit of sheep-skin. Then the prince would summon
together to one of his comrades (he never had quarters of his own) all
his near friends and fellow-countrymen; and arranged such a magnificent
festival--TOI in Caucasian--that at it were extirpated to the last
shreds the gifts of fertile Georgia. Georgian songs were sung, the
first place, of course, being given to MRAVOL-DJAMIEM and EVERY GUEST
IS SENT DOWN TO US FROM HEAVEN BY GOD, NO MATTER OF WHAT COUNTRY HE BE;
the LEZGINKA was danced without tiring, with table knives brandished
wildly in the air; and the TULUMBASH (or, perhaps, he is called
TOMADA?) spoke his improvisations; for the greater part Nijeradze
himself spoke.

He was a great hand at talking and could, when he warmed up, pronounce
about three hundred words a minute. His style was distinguished for
mettle, pomp, and imagery; and his Caucasian accent with characteristic
lisping and throaty sounds, resembling now the hawking of a woodcock,
now the clucking of an eagle, not only did not hinder his discourse,
but somehow even strangely adorned it. And no matter of what he spoke,
he always led up the monologue to the most beautiful, most fertile, the
very foremost, most chivalrous, and at the same time the most injured
country--Georgia. And invariably he cited lines from THE PANTHER'S SKIN
of the Georgian poet Rustavelli; with assurances, that this poem was a
thousand times above all of Shakespeare, multiplied by Homer.

Even though he was hot-headed, he was not spiteful; and in his
demeanour femininely soft, gentle, engaging, without losing his native
pride ... One thing only did his comrades dislike in him--some
e