thing running in my head; someone once told me that he saw the following epitaph in a cemetery:
'Beneath this stone there rests Ivan Yegoriev;
A tanner by trade, he always wetted hides.
His work was honest, his heart good, but,
behold,
He passed away, leaving his business to his
wife.
He was not yet old and might still have done
a lot of work.
But God took him away to the life of paradise
on the night
Friday to Saturday in Passion week . . .'
and something like that. . . ." He was silent, and then, nodding his head and smiling faintly, added: "In human stupidity when it is not malicious, there is something very touching, even beautiful. . . . There always is."
They called us to come to dinner.
XXXVI
"I DO not like people when they are drunk, but I know some who become interesting when they are tipsy, who acquire what is not natural to them in their sober state—wit, beauty of thought, alertness, and richness of language. In such cases I am ready to bless wine."
Suler tells how he was once walking with Leo Nicolayevitch in Tverskaya Street when Tolstoi noticed in the distance two soldiers of the Guards. The metal of their accoutrements shone in the sun;
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