I stepped from the
road under the trees, and was at once in a world of incredible fantasy.
So far as the eye could see there were peasants; the air was filled with
an indescribable din. As I stepped deeper into the shelter of the
leafless trees the colour seemed, like fluttering banners, to mingle and
spread and sway before my eyes. Near to me were the tub-thumpers now so
common to us all in Petrograd--men of the Grogoff kind stamping and
shouting on their platforms, surrounded by open-mouthed soldiers and
peasants.
Here, too, were the quacks such as you might see at any fair in
Europe--quack dentists, quack medicine-men, men with ointments for
healing sores, men with pills, and little bottles of bright liquid, and
tricks for ruptures and broken legs and arms. A little way beyond them
were the pedlars. Here were the wildest men in the world. Tartars and
Letts and Indians, Asiatics with long yellow faces, and strange fellows
from Northern Russia. They had everything to sell, bright beads and
looking-glasses and little lacquered trays, coloured boxes, red and
green and yellow, lace and silk and cloths of every colour, purple and
crimson and gold.
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