Note 9 — Chapter LXV

So in the Russian story of “The Miser,” (Ralston’s Russian Folk-tales, p. 47.) Marko the Rich says to his wife, in order to avoid the payment of a copeck; “Harkye wife! I’ll strip myself naked, and lie down under the holy pictures. Cover me up with a cloth, and sit down and cry, just as you would over a corpse. When the moujik comes for his money, tell him I died this morning.” Ralston conjectures that the story came originally from the East.