The Englishmen took charge of the left-handed man, but sent the Russian
Courier back to Russia. Although the Courier had a rank[33] and was
skilled in divers languages, they took no interest in him, but they
did find the left-handed man interesting, and set about taking him
everywhere and showing him everything.
He inspected all their products, and their metal foundries, and their
soap and saw-mills, and all their domestic arrangements pleased him
exceedingly, especially those pertaining to the maintenance of the
workingman. Every laborer among them is always well fed, clothed not
in rags but each in a capable every-day waistcoat, and shod with stout
boots with iron caps, so that their feet might never receive any shock
from anything. And they work not at haphazard but after training,
and understand their business. In front of every one of them hangs a
multiplication table, and close by his hand is an erasing-board;[34]
whenever an artisan does anything, he looks at the multiplication
table, and verifies it with surety, and then writes down one thing on
the board and erases another, and brings it into accuracy: what is
written in figures turns out just so in fact. And when a holiday comes,
they assemble in pairs, each takes a slender rod in his hand, and
they go off to enjoy themselves in honorably dignified fashion, as is
fitting.
The left-handed man gazed his fill at their manner of life and all
their labors, but devoted most attention of all to one object which
caused the Englishmen great amazement. He was not so much absorbed in
their manner of making new guns as in the condition of the old ones. He
kept going about and uttering praises, and saying: "And this, also, we
can do." But when he came across an old gun, he would thrust his finger
into the barrel, draw it along the walls, and sigh; "This," says he,
"is incomparably finer than ours."
The Englishmen could by no means divine what it was that the
left-handed man was commenting upon, but he inquired: "Cannot I find
out whether our Generals ever beheld this or not?"
They say to him: "Some of them have been over here, and they must have
seen it."
"But how were they," says he, "with gloves or without gloves?"
"Your Generals," say they, "are always in full dress; they always go
about in gloves, and, of course, they did so here, also."
The left-handed man said nothing, but all at once he began to get
uneasy and bored. He pined, and pined, and said to the Englishmen: "I
thank you sincerely for all your hospitality, and I am very content
here with you, and all that it was necessary for me to see I have seen,
and now I desire to return home as speedily as possible."
They could by no means detain him longer. It was impossible to let him
go home by land, because he did not know all the languages, and it was
not good to sail upon the sea, because it was the autumn season, and
stormy; but he insisted: "Let me go."
"We have looked at the buremeter,"[35] they said. "There is going to
be a storm--you may be drowned: for this is not like your Gulf of
Finland, but this is the regular Dryland Sea."[36]
"That makes no difference," he replied: "'t is all the same to me where
I die; God's will be done. But I desire to return to my native land as
speedily as may be, because otherwise I may acquire a sort of madness."
They did not detain him by force; they crammed him with food, rewarded
him with money, gave him gifts to remember them by--a golden watch with
a repeater[37]--and against the sea chill on his late autumn road they
gave him a frieze great-coat, with a weather-hood for his head. They
clothed the left-handed man very warmly, and conducted him to a ship
which was due to sail for Russia. There they installed the left-handed
man in the very best manner, like a real gentleman; but he did not like
it, and was ashamed to sit shut up with the other gentle-folk; so he
went off to the deck, sat down under the tarpaulin, and asked: "Where
is our Russia?"
The Englishman whom he asked pointed or nodded his head in the right
direction, and he turned his face thither and gazed impatiently towards
his native land.
When they emerged from the harbor into the Dryland Sea, his longing
for Russia became so great that it was impossible to soothe him in any
way whatever. The dash of the waves became terrible, but still the
left-handed man would not go below to the cabin--he sat there under the
tarpaulin, pulled up his hood, and gazed towards his Fatherland. Many
times did the Englishmen approach to invite him to come below to a
warm place; but he, in order that they might not annoy him, even began
to fend them off by means of a lie.
"No," he answered, "I feel better outside--but under cover the rolling
of the ship gives me porpoises."
Thus he never went below the whole time, until a certain occasion,
and thereby greatly pleased a certain half-skipper,[38] who, to
the misfortune of our left-handed man, was able to speak Russian.
This half-skipper could never overcome his amazement that a Russian
landlubber could so withstand all rough weather.
"Fine fellow!" says he. "Russian--let's have a drink!" The left-handed
man drank. And the half-skipper says: "Again!"
So the left-handed man drank once more, and they became tipsy.
And the half-skipper questions him: "What secret are you carrying from
our kingdom to Russia?"