Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/53

Rh or else visit the fair ladies. If you like, I will guide you there."

"No, my own fair lady is ample enough for me," said Saranin.

And confidingly he acquainted the Armenian with his trouble.

The Armenian showed his teeth and made a neighing sound.

"Big wife, tiny husband,—to kiss, put up a ladder. Phew, not good!"

"What would be good for it, then?"

"Come with me. I will help a good man."

For a long time they went through the quiet, corridor-like streets, the Armenian in front, Saranin behind.

From lamp to lamp the Armenian underwent an odd change. In the darkness he grew, and the farther he went from the lamp, the hugher did he become. Sometimes it seemed aa if the sharp tip of his cap rose up higher than the houses into the cloudy sky. Then, as he approached the light, he became smaller, and by the lamp he assumed his former dimensions, and seemed a simple and ordinary hawker of gowns. And, strange to say, Saranin felt no astonishment at this phenomenon. He was in such a trustful mood that the gaudy wonders of the Arabian Nights themselves would have seemed ordinary to him, even as the tedious passage of workaday drabness.

At the door of a house, quite an ordinary five- 4