about a dozen and a half.
They were ragged, half-naked, and bare-footed. And each child, from the
biggest to the smallest, played on a musical instrument. One played the
fiddle, another the 'cello, another the double-bass, another the
trumpet, another the "_Ballalaika_," another the drum, and another the
cymbals. And amongst them there were some who could whistle the longest
melody with their lips, or between their teeth. Others could play tunes
on little glasses, or little pots, or bits of wood. And some made music
with their faces. They were demons, evil spirits--nothing else.

I made the acquaintance of this family quite by accident. One day, as I
was standing outside the window of their house, listening to them
playing, one of the children, Pinna the flautist, a youth of about
fifteen, in bare feet, caught sight of me through the window. He came
out to me and asked me if I liked his playing.

"I only wish," said I, "that I may play as well as you in ten years'
time."

"Can't you manage it?" he asked of me. And he told me that for two and a
half '_roubles_' a month, his father would teach me how to play. But if
I liked he himself, the son, that is, would teach me.

"Which instrument would you like to learn to play?" he asked. "On the
fiddle?"

"On the fiddle."

"On the fiddle?" he repeated. "Can you pay two and a half '_roubles_' a
month? Or are you as unfortunate as I am?"

"So far as that goes, I can manage it," I said. "But what then? Neither
my father nor my mother, nor my teacher must know that I am learning to
play the fiddle."

"The Lord keep us from telling it!" he cried. "Whose business is it to
drum the news through the town? Maybe you have on you a cigar end, or a
cigarette? No? You don't smoke? Then lend me a '_kopek_' and I will buy
cigarettes for myself. But you must tell no one, because my father must
not know that I smoke. And if my mother finds that I have money, she
will take it from me and buy rolls for supper. Come into the house. What
are we standing here for?"

* * *

With great fear, with a palpitating heart and trembling limbs, I crossed
the threshold of the house that was to me a little Garden of Eden.

My friend Pinna introduced me to his father.

"Shalom--Nahum Veviks--a rich man's boy. He wants to learn to play the
fiddle."

Naphtali "_Bezborodka_" twirled his earlocks, straightened his collar,
buttoned up his coat, and started a long conversation with me, all about
musi