and they were generally covered by the sums brought home by the
members of the family who went to work in the towns.

Very different is the present condition of affairs. The spinning,
weaving, and other home industries have been killed by the big
factories, and the flax and wool have to be sold to raise a little ready
money for the numerous new items of expenditure. Everything has to be
bought--clothes, firewood, petroleum, improved agricultural implements,
and many other articles which are now regarded as necessaries of life,
whilst comparatively little is earned by working in the towns, because
the big families have been broken up, and a household now consists
usually of husband and wife, who must both remain at home, and children
who are not yet bread-winners. Recalling to mind all these things and
the other drawbacks and advantages of his actual position, the old
muzhik has naturally much difficulty in striking a balance, and he may
well be quite sincere when, on being asked whether things now are on the
whole better or worse than in the time of serfage, he scratches the back
of his head and replies hesitatingly, with a mystified expression on his
wrinkled face: "How shall I say to you? They are both better and worse!"
("Kak vam skazat'? I lutche i khudzhe!") If, however, you press him
further and ask whether he would himself like to return to the old state
of things, he is pretty sure to answer, with a slow shake of the head
and a twinkle in his eye, as if some forgotten item in the account had
suddenly recurred to him: "Oh, no!"

What materially increases the difficulty of this general computation is
that great changes have taken place in the well-being of the particular
households. Some have greatly prospered, while others have become
impoverished. That is one of the most characteristic consequences of the
Emancipation. In the old times the general economic stagnation and
the uncontrolled authority of the proprietor tended to keep all the
households of a village on the same level. There was little opportunity
for an intelligent, enterprising serf to become rich, and if he
contrived to increase his revenue he had probably to give a considerable
share of it to the proprietor, unless he had the good fortune to belong
to a grand seigneur like Count Sheremetief, who was proud of having
rich men among his serfs. On the other hand, the proprietor, for evident
reasons of self-interest, as well as from benevolent motives