The Artamonovs [antikvár]

About two years after the emancipation, the parish of the Church of St. Nikola notioed an "outsider" at Mass on Transfiguration day. Through the thick of the crowd he pushed, rudely jostling the people, and set up massive candles before the icons most revered in the town of Dryomov. A man of powerful build, with a large, crisp beard, heavily splotched with grey, and a thick crown of blackish hair, as curly as a gypsy's; with a big nose, and blue-grey eyes that looked out boldly from beneath shaggy, beetling brows. It wSsS no-