CHAPTER XVI. VERSE-MAKING
RATHER less than a month after our arrival in Moscow I was sitting upstairs in my Grandmamma’s house and doing some writing at a large table. Opposite to me sat the drawing master, who was giving a few finishing touches to the head of a turbaned Turk, executed in black pencil. Woloda, with out-stretched neck, was standing behind the drawing master and looking over his shoulder. The head was Woloda’s first production in pencil and to-day—Grandmamma’s name-day—the masterpiece was to be presented to her.
“ Aren’t you going to put a little more shadow there?” said Woloda to the master as he raised himself on tiptoe and pointed to the Turk’s neck.
“ No, it is not necessary,” the master replied as he put pencil and drawing-pen into a japanned folding box. “It is
