In Search of the Miraculous

facing the windows of the buffet—and resolutions of some sort were carried. During

the meetings there were three "courts-martial" and three men were shot there on the platform. A drunken "comrade" who appeared in the buffet explained to everyone that the first man had been shot for theft. The second was shot by mistake because he had

been mistaken for the first; and the third was also shot by mistake because he had

been mistaken for the second.

I was obliged to spend the day in Tiflis. The train to Alexandropol went in the

evening only. The following morning I was there. I found G. setting up a dynamo for

his brother.

And again I observed, as before, his remarkable capacity for adapting himself to

any kind of work, to any kind of business.

I met his family, his father, and his mother. They were people of a very old and

very peculiar culture. G.'s father was an amateur of local tales, legends, and traditions, something in the nature of a "bard"; and he knew by heart thousands and thousands of verses in the local idioms. They were Greeks from Asia Minor, but the language of

the house, as of all the others in Alexandropol, was Armenian.

For the first few days after my arrival G. was so busy that I had no opportunity to

ask him what he thought of the general situation or what he thought of doing. But

when at length I spoke to him about it G. told me that he disagreed with me, that in

his opinion everything would soon quiet down and that we would be able to work in

Russia. He then added that in any case he wanted to go to Petersburg to see the

Nevsky with hawkers selling sunflower seeds that I had told him about and to decide

on the spot what had best be done. I could not take what he said seriously because I

knew by now his manner of speaking and I waited for something further.

Indeed while saying this with apparent seriousness G. along with it said something

altogether different, that it would be good to go to Persia or even further, that he knew a place in the Transcaucasian Mountains where one could live for several years

without anyone knowing, and so on.

On the whole there remained with me a feeling of uncertainty, but all the same I

hoped on the way to Petersburg to persuade him to go abroad if this were still

possible.

G. was evidently waiting for something. The dynamo was working faultlessly but

we made no move.

In the house there was an interesting portrait of G. which told me very many things

about him. It was a big enlarged portrait of G. when he was quite young, dressed in a

black frock coat with his curly hair brushed straight back.

G.'s portrait determined for me with undoubted accuracy what his profession was at

the time the portrait was made—though G. never spoke of it. This discovery gave me

many interesting ideas. But since this was my own personal discovery I shall keep it

to myself.

Several times I tried to speak to G. about my "table of time in different cosmoses,"

but he dismissed all theoretical conversations.

I liked Alexandropol very much. It contained a great deal which was peculiar and

original.

Outwardly the Armenian part of the town calls to mind a town in Egypt or northern

India. The houses with their flat roofs upon which grass grows. There is a very

ancient Armenian cemetery on a hill from which the snow-clad summit of Mount

Ararat can be seen. There is a wonderful image of the Virgin in one of the Armenian

churches. The center of the town calls to mind a Russian country town but alongside it

is the bazaar which is entirely oriental, especially the coppersmiths' row where they

work in open booths. There is also the Greek quarter, the least interesting of all

outwardly, where G.'s house was situated, and a Tartar suburb in the ravines, a very

picturesque but, according to those in the other parts of the town, a rather dangerous

place.

I do not know what is left of Alexandropol after all these autonomies, republics,

federations, and so on. I think one could only answer for the view of Mount Ararat.

I hardly saw G. alone and seldom succeeded in speaking to him. He spent a great

deal of time with his father and mother. I very much liked his relationship with his

father which was full of extraordinary consideration. G.'s father was still a robust old

man, of medium height, with an inevitable pipe in his mouth and wearing an

astrakhan cap. It was dim-cult to believe that he was over eighty. He spoke very little

Russian. But with G. he used to speak for hours on end and I always liked to watch

how G. listened to him, occasionally laughing a little, but evidently never for a second

losing the line of the conversation and the whole time sustaining the conversation

with questions and comments. The old man evidently enjoyed these conversations and

G. devoted to him all his spare time, and not only did not evince the least impatience,

but on the contrary the whole time showed a very great deal of interest in what the old

man was saying. Even if this was partly acting it could not in any case have been all