pparent
incongruity, that gypsies all the world over regard steady cohabitation,
or agreement, as marriage, binding themselves, as it were, by
_Gand-harbavivaha_, as the saint married Vasantasena, which is an old
Sanskrit way of wedding. And let me remark that if one tenth of what I
heard in Russia about "morals" in the highest or lowest or any other
class be true, the gypsies of that country are shining lights and
brilliant exemplars of morality to all by whom they are surrounded. Let
me also add that never on any occasion did I hear or see among them
anything in the slightest degree improper or unrefined. I knew very well
that I could, if I chose, talk to such _naive_ people about subjects
which would shock an English lady, and, as the reader may remember, I did
quote Mr. Borrow's song, which he has not translated. But a European
girl who would have endured allusions to tabooed subjects would have at
all times shown vulgarity or coarseness, while these Russian Romany girls
were invariably lady-like. It is true that the St. Petersburg party had
a dissipated air; three or four of them looked like second-class French
or Italian theatrical artistes, and I should not be astonished to learn
that very late hours and champagne were familiar to them as cigarettes,
or that their flirtations among their own people were neither faint, nor
few, nor far between. But their conduct in my presence was
irreproachable. Those of Moscow, in fact, had not even the apparent
defects of their St. Petersburg sisters and brothers, and when among them
it always seemed to me as if I were simply with nice gentle creoles or
Cubans, the gypsy manner being tamed down to the Spanish level, their
great black eyes and their guitars increasing the resemblance.

The indescribably wild and thrilling character of gypsy music is
thoroughly appreciated by the Russians, who pay very high prices for
Romany performances. From five to eight or ten pounds sterling is
usually given to a dozen gypsies for singing an hour or two to a special
party, and this is sometimes repeated twice or thrice of an evening. "A
Russian gentleman, when he is in funds," said the clerk of the Slavansky
Bazaar in Moscow to me, "will make nothing of giving the Zigani a
hundred-ruble note," the ruble rating at half a crown. The result is
that good singers among these lucky Romanys are well to do, and lead soft
lives, for Russia.

MOSCOW.

I had no friends in Moscow to d