Of life he had the very wildest notions. He loved women
and would sing Southern Russian songs about them. He had a strain of
fantasy that continually surprised one. He liked fairy tales. He would
say to me: "There's a tale? Ivan Andreievitch, about a princess who
lived on a lake of glass. There was a forest, you know, round the lake
and all the trees were of gold. The pond was guarded by three dwarfs.
I myself, Ivan Andreievitch, have seen a dwarf in Kiev no higher than
your leg, and in our town they say there was once a whole family of
dwarfs who lived in a house in the chief street in our town and sold
potatoes.... I don't know.... People tell one such things. But for the
rest of that tale, do you remember how it goes?"
He could ride any horse, carry any man, was never tired nor out of
heart. He had the vaguest ideas about the war. "I knew a German once
in our town," he told me. "I always hated him.... He was going to
Petrograd to make his fortune. I hope he's dead." This fellow was
called Petrov.
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