I asked my friend who had lived among the peasants and studied them for years what they thought of things in general. He said that in this village they had never been inclined to loot (looting can always arise from the gathering together of six drunken men), that they are perfectly conscious of what is happening (my friend is one of the most impartial and fair-minded men alive); they are distrustful and they say little; but they know. As we were talking of these things I mentioned the fact that a statement I had made in print about the peasants in this village and in Russia generally reading Milton’s “Paradise Lost” had been received with interest in England and in some quarters with incredulity. It was in this very village and from the same friend, who had been a teacher there for more than twenty years, that I first heard of this. It was afterwards confirmed by my own experience.

“Who denies it?” he asked. “Russians or Englishmen?” “Englishmen,” I answered. “But why?” he said. “I have only read it myself once long ago, but I should have thought that it was obvious that such a work would be likely to make a strong impression.”

I explained that at first sight it appeared to Englishmen incredible that Russian peasants, who were known to be so backward in many things, should have taken a fancy to a work which was considered as a touchstone of rare literary taste in England. I alluded to the difficulties of the classicism of the style—the scholarly quality of the verse.

“But is it written in verse?” he asked. And when I explained to him that “Paradise Lost” was as literary a work as the Æneid he perfectly understood the incredulity of the English public. As a matter of fact, it is not at all difficult to understand and even to explain why the Russian peasant likes “Paradise Lost.” It is popular in exactly the same way as Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” has always been popular in England. Was it not Dr. Johnson who said that Bunyan’s work was great because, while it appealed to the most refined critical palate, it was understood and enjoyed by the simplest of men, by babes and sucklings? This remark applies to the case of “Paradise Lost” and the Russian peasant. The fact therefore is not surprising, as would be, for instance, the admiration of Tommy Atkins for a translation of Lucretius. It is no more and no less surprising than the popularity of Bunyan or of any epic story or fairy tale. When people laugh and say that these tastes are the inventions of essayists they forget that the epics of the world were the supply resulting from the demand caused by the deeply-rooted desire of human nature for stories—long stories of heroic deeds in verse; the further you go back the more plainly this demand and supply is manifest. Therefore in Russia among the peasants, a great many of whom cannot read, the desire for epics is strong at this moment. And those who can read prefer an epic tale to a modern novel.

Besides this, “Paradise Lost” appeals to the peasants because it is not only epic, full of fantasy and episode, but also because it is religious, and, like children, they prefer a story to be true. In countries where few people read or write, memory flourishes, and in Russian villages there are regular tellers of fairy tales (skashi) who hand down from generation to generation fairy tales of incredible length in prose and in verse.

But to return to my friend the schoolmaster. I asked him if “Paradise Lost” was still popular in the village. “Yes,” he answered, “they come and ask me for it every year. Unfortunately,” he added, “I may not have it in the school library as it is not on the list of books which are allowed by the censor. It is not forbidden; but it is not on the official list of books for school use.” Then he said that after all his experience the taste of the peasants in literature baffled him. “They will not read modern stories,” he said. “When I ask them why they like ‘Paradise Lost’ they point to their heart and say, ‘It is near to the heart; it speaks; you read and a sweetness comes to you.’ Gogol they do not like. On the other hand they ask for a strange book of adventures, about a Count or a Baron.” “Baron Munchausen?” I suggested. “No,” he said, “a Count.” “Not Monte Cristo?” I asked. “Yes,” he said, “that is it. And what baffles me more than all is that they like Dostoievski’s ‘Letters from a Dead House.’” (Dostoievski’s record of his life in prison in Siberia.) Their taste does not to me personally seem to be so baffling. As for Dostoievski’s book, I am certain they recognise its great truth, and they feel the sweetness and simplicity of the writer’s character, and this “speaks” to them also. As for “Monte Cristo,” is not the beginning of it epical? It was a mistake, he said, to suppose the peasants were unimaginative. Sometimes this was manifested in a curious manner. There was a peasant who was well known as a great drunkard. In one of his fits of drink he imagined that he had sold his wife to the “Tzar of Turkey,” and that at midnight her head must be cut off. As the hour drew near he wept bitterly, said goodbye to his wife, and fetching an axe said with much lamentation that this terrible deed had to be done because he had promised her life to the “Tzar of Turkey.” The neighbours eventually interfered and stopped the execution.

When one is searching for curious types it generally happens that you find one under your very nose. This was my case the other day. There is in the village another school which has lately been built for the factory children by the Government. I strolled into it and was received by a young schoolmaster with long black hair who was conducting, in the same room, three separate classes of children of different ages, to which he was respectively and simultaneously teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic (i.e., reading to one class, writing to the second, and arithmetic to the third). In the interval between two lessons he took me into his room and talked. His room was next to the schoolroom. It was like the school, made of oak boards, neither papered nor carpeted. There was no furniture in his sitting-room, except a tiny table and a stool, and in a further room no furniture at all except a violin on the floor. The Government had given the wood with which to build the school, he said; and when it arrived the peasants whose children were to go to the school had begun to saw and build, and then had refused to go on with the work. However, it was eventually built. “Who supports it?” I asked. “Well,” he answered, “at present the Government have no funds for schools, and the peasants refuse to pay for it, so I have to support it myself. The expenses are not great.” His salary consists of £36 a year, out of which he supplies the school-books and paper, pens, &c. He seemed to like his work and to take a great interest in the peasants. “The factory peasants are far more developed than the ordinary peasants,” he said. “Some of them take an interest in astronomy. But the peasants are dark people, difficult to get to know, and infinitely cunning.” “Do you play the violin?” I asked, pointing to the violin case. “Yes,” he answered, “but I don’t know how I play.” I have never seen so poignant a symbol of loneliness and the absence of the comforts of life as this young schoolmaster in his bare wooden room. He seemed, however, perfectly cheerful, and said that his present situation was a great improvement on the last one, which had been a mastership in a school near Morshansk, where he slept in the same room as forty other people, and where in winter the atmosphere was so thick at night that they had to open the door. To this the bare room with the violin on the floor seemed indeed preferable.

CHAPTER XIV
THE ELECTIONS

Moscow, March 19th.

“Public affairs,” Dr. Johnson once said, “vex no man.” And when Boswell objected that he had seen Dr. Johnson vexed on this account the sage replied thus: “Sir, I have never slept an hour less, nor ate an ounce less meat. I would have knocked the factious dogs on the head, to be sure; but I was not vexed.” This seems to me to be an exact definition of the attitude of the Russian public towards politics at this moment. They are not vexed, but they are anxious to knock the factious dogs on the head. The trouble is that each party considers the other parties to be the factious dogs, and the Government considers nearly all the parties to be factious dogs; and all parties without exception (Radical, Extreme, and Conservative) consider the Government to be a factious dog. I will describe briefly the present position of principal parties and their more important subdivisions.