e enjoined to
practise towards all men. But perhaps 'all men' does not include
publicans and sinners?"

On hearing these words Karl Karl'itch turned to me, and every feature of
his honest German face expressed the most undisguised astonishment.
"Are you, too, a Nihilist?" he inquired, as soon as he had partially
recovered his breath.

"I really don't know what a Nihilist is, but I may assure you that I am
not an 'ist' of any kind. What is a Nihilist?"

"If you live long in Russia you'll learn that without my telling you.
As I was saying, I am not at all afraid of the peasants citing me before
the justice. They know better now. If they gave me too much trouble I
could starve their cattle."

"Yes, when you catch them in your fields," I remarked, taking no notice
of the abrupt turn which he had given to the conversation.

"I can do it without that. You must know that, by the Emancipation
Law, the peasants received arable land, but they received little or no
pasturage. I have the whip hand of them there!"

The remarks of Karl Karl'itch on men and things were to me always
interesting, for he was a shrewd observer, and displayed occasionally a
pleasant, dry humour. But I very soon discovered that his opinions were
not to be accepted without reserve. His strong, inflexible Teutonic
nature often prevented him from judging impartially. He had no sympathy
with the men and the institutions around him, and consequently he was
unable to see things from the inside. The specks and blemishes on the
surface he perceived clearly enough, but he had no knowledge of the
secret, deep-rooted causes by which these specks and blemishes were
produced. The simple fact that a man was a Russian satisfactorily
accounted, in his opinion, for any kind of moral deformity; and his
knowledge turned out to be by no means so extensive as I had at first
supposed. Though he had been many years in the country, he knew very
little about the life of the peasants beyond that small part of it which
concerned directly his own interests and those of his employer. Of the
communal organisation, domestic life, religious beliefs, ceremonial
practices, and nomadic habits of his humble neighbours, he knew little,
and the little he happened to know was far from accurate. In order to
gain a knowledge of these matters it would be better, I perceived, to
consult the priest, or, better still, the peasants themselves. But to do
this it would be necessary to understand e