no need to fight, or to subscribe to an
asylum, or to serve on committees to obtain this order; all that
was needed was a favourable opportunity. And now it seemed to him
that this opportunity had come.
At noon on the following day he put on his chain and all his badges
of distinction and went to the 'Japan.' Destiny favoured him. When
he entered the distinguished Persian's apartment the latter was
alone and doing nothing. Rahat-Helam, an enormous Asiatic, with a
long nose like the beak of a snipe, with prominent eyes, and with
a fez on his head, was sitting on the floor rummaging in his
portmanteau.
"I beg you to excuse my disturbing you," began Kutsyn, smiling. "I
have the honour to introduce myself, the hereditary, honourable
citizen and cavalier, Stepan Ivanovitch Kutsyn, mayor of this town.
I regard it as my duty to honour, in the person of your Highness,
so to say, the representative of a friendly and neighbourly state."
The Persian turned and muttered something in very bad French, that
sounded like tapping a board with a piece of wood.
"The frontiers of Persia"--Kutsyn continued the greeting he had
previously learned by heart--"are in close contact with the borders
of our spacious fatherland, and therefore mutual sympathies impel
me, so to speak, to express my solidarity with you."
The illustrious Persian got up and again muttered something in a
wooden tongue. Kutsyn, who knew no foreign language, shook his head
to show that he did not understand.
"Well, how am I to talk to him?" he thought. "It would be a good
thing to send for an interpreter at once, but it is a delicate
matter, I can't talk before witnesses. The interpreter would be
chattering all over the town afterwards."
And Kutsyn tried to recall the foreign words he had picked up from
the newspapers.
"I am the mayor of the town," he muttered. "That is the _lord mayor_
. . . _municipalais_ . . . Vwee? Kompreney?"
He wanted to express his social position in words or in gesture,
and did not know how. A picture hanging on the wall with an inscription
in large letters, "The Town of Venice," helped him out of his
difficulties. He pointed with his finger at the town, then at his
own head, and in that way obtained, as he imagined, the phrase: "I
am the head of the town." The Persian did not understand, but he
gave a smile, and said:
"Goot, monsieur . . . goot . . . . ." Half-an-hour later the mayor
was slapping the Persian, first on the k
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