The Courier travelled so very swiftly with the left-handed man, that
they halted nowhere to rest between Petrograd and London, but merely
drew their belts tighter at every posting-station, so that their bowels
and their lungs might not get mixed up together; but, as an allowance
of liquor at will had been appointed to the left-handed man after his
interview with the Emperor, at Platoffs instance, he sustained himself
on that alone, without eating, and sang Russian songs all through
Europe, making only a refrain in foreign fashion, "Aï, people, _c'est
très juli_."[26]
As soon as the Courier brought him to London, he presented himself to
the proper persons and delivered the casket, but placed the left-handed
man in a chamber at a hotel; but there the latter speedily grew bored,
and felt a desire to eat. He knocked on the door, and pointed out
his mouth to the servant who waited on him, and the man immediately
conducted him to the food-reception room.
There the left-handed man seated himself at the table, and sat, and
sat; but how to ask for anything in English he did not know. But after
a while he found out. Again he simply tapped upon the table with his
finger, and pointed at his mouth; the Englishmen guessed, and served
him, only they did not always bring what he wanted, but he did not take
what did not suit him. They brought him a hot studing in fire[27] of
their preparation. Says he, "I know not whether that can be eaten,"
and he would not taste it; so they changed it, and brought him another
dish. And thus, also, he would not drink their brandy, because it was
green, as though mixed with copperas, but chose the most natural
things of all, and waited for the Courier in the coolness behind the
bottle-room.
And those persons to whom the Courier had delivered the nymfozoria
examined it that very moment with the most powerful melkoscopes,
and immediately put a description in the public news, so that an
announcement[28] of it might come to general notice on the following
day.
"And we wish to see that master-workman himself at once," said they.
The Courier led them to the chamber, and thence to the food-reception
room, where our left-handed man had already grown fairly red in the
face, and said: "Here he is!"
The Englishmen immediately began to clap the left-handed man on the
shoulder, _slap-slap_, and on the hands, as with an equal.
"Comrade," said they, "comrade,--good master,--we will talk with thee
hereafter, in due time, but now we will drink to thy success."
They called for a great deal of liquor, and gave the first glass to the
left-handed man, but he would not drink first: "Perhaps they wish to
poison me out of vexation," he thought.
"No," says he, "that is not proper etiquette. Even in Poland no one is
greater than the host--drink first yourselves."
The Englishmen tested all the liquors in his presence, and then began
to pour out for him. He rose, crossed himself with his left hand, and
drank to the health of them all.
They noticed that he crossed himself with his left hand, and asked the
Courier: "What is he--a Lutheran or a Protestant?"
The Courier replied: "No, he is neither a Lutheran nor a Protestant,
but of the Russian faith."
"But why does he cross himself with his left hand?"
The Courier said: "He's left-handed, and does everything with his left
hand."
The Englishmen began to be more amazed than ever, and set to pouring
liquor into the left-handed man and the Courier, and thus they went on
for three days, and then they said: "Now, that's enough."
But they took a symphony of water with airfixe, and having completely
freshened themselves up, they began to interrogate the left-handed man;
Where and what he had studied, and to what point he was acquainted with
arithmetic?
The left-handed man replied: "Our learning is single: we can read the
Psalter and the Polusonnik, but we know no arithmetic whatever."