I made no reflections at that time about this new experience of mine; I was simply happy to see that it was not a failure. But the serious good sense and sound judgment of the Russian peasants which I witnessed during this couple of days, left upon me a lasting impression. Later on, when we were making socialist propaganda among the peasants, I could not but wonder why some of my friends, who had received a seemingly far more democratic education than myself, did not know how to talk to the peasants or to the factory workers from the country. They tried to imitate the ‘peasants’ talk,’ by introducing into it lots of so-called ‘popular phrases,’ and only rendered it the more incomprehensible.
Nothing of this sort is needed, either in talking to peasants or in writing for them. The Great Russian peasant perfectly well understands the educated man’s talk, provided that it is not stuffed with words taken from foreign languages. What the peasant does not understand is abstract notions when they are not illustrated by concrete examples. But when you speak to the Russian peasant plainly, and start from concrete facts—and the same is true with regard to village-folk of all nationalities—my experience is that there is no generalization from the whole world of science, social or natural, which could not be conveyed to the averagely intelligent man if you yourself understand it concretely. The chief difference between the educated and the uneducated man is, I should say, in the latter not being able to follow a chain of conclusions. He grasps the first of them, and maybe the second, but he gets tired at the third, if he does not see what you are driving at. But, how often do we meet with the same difficulty in educated people!
One more impression I gathered from that work of my boyhood—an impression which I formulated but later on, and which will probably astonish many a reader. It is the spirit of equality which is highly developed in the Russian peasant and, in fact, in the rural population everywhere. The Russian peasant is capable of much servile obedience to the landlord or to the police officer; he will bend before their will in a servile manner; but he does not consider them superior men, and if the next moment that same landlord or officer talks to the same peasant about hay or ducks, the latter will converse with them as an equal to an equal. I never saw in a Russian peasant that servility, grown to be a second nature, with which a small functionary talks to a highly placed one, or a valet to his master. The peasant much too easily submits to force, but he does not worship it.
I returned that summer from Nikólskoye to Moscow in a new fashion. There being then no railway between Kalúga and Moscow, a man, Buck by name, kept some sort of carriages running between the two towns. Our people never thought of travelling in such a way: they had their own horses and conveyances; but when my father, in order to save my stepmother a double journey, offered me, half in joke, to travel alone in that way, I accepted his offer with delight.
An old and very stout tradesman’s wife and myself on the back seats, and a small tradesman or artisan on the front seat, were the only occupants of the carriage. I found the journey very pleasant—first of all because I travelled by myself (I was not yet sixteen), and next because the old lady, who had brought with her for a three days’ journey a colossal hamper full of provisions, treated me to all sorts of home-made delicacies. All the surroundings during that journey were delightful. One evening especially is still vivid in my memory. We came at night to one of the great villages and stopped at some inn. The old lady ordered a samovár for herself, while I went out in the street, walking about anywhere. A small ‘white inn’ at which only food is served, but no drinks, attracted my attention and I went in. Numbers of peasants sat round the small tables, covered with white napkins, and enjoyed their tea. I did the same.
All was so new for me in these surroundings. It was a village of ‘Crown peasants’—that is, peasants who had not been serfs and enjoyed a relative well-being, probably owing to the weaving of linen which they carried on as a home industry. Slow, serious conversations, with occasional laughter, were going on at those tables, and after the usual introductory questions, I soon found myself engaged in a conversation with a dozen peasants about the crops in our neighbourhood, and answering all sorts of questions. They wanted to know all about St. Petersburg, and most of all about the rumours concerning the coming abolition of serfdom. And a feeling of simplicity and of the natural relations of equality, as well as of hearty good-will, which I always felt afterwards when among peasants or in their houses, took possession of me at that inn. Nothing extraordinary happened that night, so that I even ask myself if the incident is worth mentioning at all; and yet that warm, dark night in the village, that small inn, that talk with the peasants, and the keen interest they took in hundreds of things lying far beyond their habitual surroundings, have made ever since a poor ‘white inn’ more attractive to me than the best restaurant in the world.
V
Stormy times came now in the life of our corps. When Girardot was dismissed, his place was taken by one of our officers, Captain B——. He was rather good-natured than otherwise, but he had got into his head that he was not treated by us with due reverence, corresponding to the high position which he now occupied, and he tried to enforce upon us more respect and awe toward himself. He began by quarrelling about all sorts of petty things with the upper form, and—what was still worse—he attempted to destroy our ‘liberties,’ the origin of which was lost in the darkness of time, and which, insignificant in themselves, were perhaps on that same account only the dearer to us.
The result of it was that the school broke for several days into an open revolt, which ended in wholesale punishment, and the exclusion from the corps of two of our favourite pages de chambre.
Then, the same captain began to intrude in the class-rooms, where we used to spend one hour in the morning in preparing our lessons before the classes began. We were considered to be there under our teaching staff, and were happy to have nothing to do with our military chiefs. We resented that intrusion very much, and one day I loudly expressed our discontent, saying to the captain that this was the place of the inspector of the classes, not his. I spent weeks under arrest for that frankness, and perhaps should have been excluded from the school, were it not that the inspector of the classes, his assistant, and even our old director, judged that after all I had only expressed aloud what they all used to say to themselves.