In Search of the Miraculous

of carpets among which were many duplicates and others having no particular value

from an artistic point of view. During his visits he had found that the price of carpets

in Petersburg was higher than in Moscow, and every time he came he brought a bale

of carpets which he sold in Petersburg.

According to another version he simply bought the carpets in Moscow at the

"Tolkutchka" and brought them to Petersburg to sell.

I did not altogether understand why he did this, but I felt it was connected with the

idea of "acting."

The sale of these carpets was in itself remarkable. G. put an advertisement in the

papers and all kinds of people came to buy carpets. On such occasions they took him,

of course, for an ordinary Caucasian carpet-seller. I often sat for hours watching him

as he talked to the people who came. I saw that he sometimes played on their weak

side.

One day he was either in a hurry or had grown tired of acting the carpet-seller and

he offered a lady, obviously rich but very grasping, who had selected a dozen fine

carpets and was bargaining desperately, all the carpets in the room for about a quarter

of the price of those she had chosen. At first she was surprised but then she began to

bargain again. G. smiled and said he would think it over and give her his answer the

next day. But next day he was no longer in Petersburg and the woman got nothing at

all.

Something of this sort happened on nearly every occasion. With these carpets, in

the role of traveling merchant, he again gave the impression of a man in disguise, a

kind of Haroun-al-Raschid, or the man in the invisible cap of the fairy tale.

Once, when I was not there, an "occultist" of the charlatan type came to him, who played a certain part in some spiritualistic circles in Petersburg and who later became

a "professor" under the bolsheviks. He began by saying he had heard a great deal about G. and his knowledge and wanted to make his acquaintance.

G., as he told me himself, played the part of a genuine carpet-seller. With the

strongest Caucasian accent and in broken Russian he began to assure the "occultist"

that he was mistaken and that he only sold carpets; and he immediately began to unroll

and offer him some.

The "occultist" went away fully convinced he had been hoaxed by his friends.

"It was obvious that the rascal had not got a farthing," added G, "otherwise I would have screwed the price of a pair of carpets out of him."

A Persian used to come to him to mend carpets. One day I noticed that G. was very

attentively watching how the Persian was doing his work.

"I want to understand how he does it and I don't understand yet," said G. "Do you see that hook he has? The whole thing is in that. I wanted to buy it from him but he

won't sell it."

Next day I came earlier than usual. G. was sitting on the floor mending a carpet

exactly as the Persian had done. Wools of various colors were strewn around him and

in his hand was the same kind of hook I had seen with the Persian. It transpired that

he had cut it with an ordinary file from the blade of a cheap penknife and, in the

course of the morning, had fathomed all the mysteries of carpet mending.

He told me a great deal about carpets which, as he often said, represented one of

the most ancient forms of art. He spoke of the ancient customs connected with carpet

making in certain parts of Asia; of a whole village working together at one carpet; of

winter evenings when all the villagers, young and old, gather together in one large

building and, dividing into groups, sit or stand on the floor in an order previously

known and determined by tradition. Each group then begins its own work. Some pick

stones and splinters out of the wool. Others beat out the wool with sticks. A third

group combs the wool. The fourth spins. The fifth dyes the wool. The sixth or maybe

the twenty-sixth weaves the actual carpet. Men, women, and children, old men and

old women, all have their own traditional work. And all the work is done to the

accompaniment of music and singing. The women spinners with spindles in their

hands dance a special dance as they work, and all the movements of all the people

engaged in different work are like one movement in one and the same rhythm.

Moreover each locality has its own special tune, its own special songs and dances,

connected with carpet making from time immemorial.

And as he told me this the thought flashed across my mind that perhaps the design

and coloring of the carpets are connected with the music, are its expression in line and

color; that perhaps carpets are records of this music, the notes by which the tunes could be reproduced. There was nothing strange in this idea to me as I could often

"see" music in the form of a complicated design.

From a few incidental talks with G. I obtained some idea of his previous life.

His childhood was passed on the frontier of Asia Minor in strange, very remote,

almost biblical circumstances of life. Flocks of innumerable sheep. Wanderings from