Page:The way of Martha and the way of Mary (1915).djvu/83

Rh more than five copecks (a penny farthing), and has only purchased a little teapot of tea and a big teapot of hot water, the tavern's substitute for the samovar.

Kuprin tells the tale of a tavern in Odessa famous for one of its ragged musicians, Sasha. He filled the public-house with the strains of the violin, and every night the place was packed with men and women. Every table was occupied, there was tea or beer or vodka everywhere, all the men were smoking makhorka, the windows were all shut, and the air was of that warm, dense, suffocating character that the Russian people like. A din as of Babel pervaded the hall, and no one except those near the music could hear Sasha's tunes, yet every one felt that they were hearing.

Sasha would come in in the early hours of the evening, when people were few, would take his first mug of beer and then begin to play, mournfully, melancholily. His were sad, heart-aching tunes, full, as it were, of a world's sorrow. He sat in his accustomed place and brooded over his violin, seemingly uninterested in everything but the soul of music.

The windows of the tavern were crusted with ice or clouded with steam, and the shadows of men and