xt morning.

As a whole, a village fete in Russia is a saddening spectacle. It
affords a new proof--where, alas! no new proof was required--that we
northern nations, who know so well how to work, have not yet learned the
art of amusing ourselves.

If the Russian peasant's food were always as good and plentiful as at
this season of the year, he would have little reason to complain; but
this is by no means the case. Gradually, as the harvest-time recedes, it
deteriorates in quality, and sometimes diminishes in quantity. Besides
this, during a great part of the year the peasant is prevented, by the
rules of the Church, from using much that he possesses.

In southern climes, where these rules were elaborated and first
practised, the prescribed fasts are perhaps useful not only in a
religious, but also in a sanitary sense. Having abundance of fruit and
vegetables, the inhabitants do well to abstain occasionally from animal
food. But in countries like Northern and Central Russia the influence
of these rules is very different. The Russian peasant cannot get as
much animal food as he requires, whilst sour cabbage and cucumbers are
probably the only vegetables he can procure, and fruit of any kind is
for him an unattainable luxury. Under these circumstances, abstinence
from eggs and milk in all their forms during several months of the year
seems to the secular mind a superfluous bit of asceticism. If the Church
would direct her maternal solicitude to the peasant's drinking, and
leave him to eat what he pleases, she might exercise a beneficial
influence on his material and moral welfare. Unfortunately she has a
great deal too much inherent immobility to attempt anything of the
kind, so the muzhik, while free to drink copiously whenever he gets the
chance, must fast during the seven weeks of Lent, during two or three
weeks in June, from the beginning of November till Christmas, and on all
Wednesdays and Fridays during the remainder of the year.

From the festival time till the following spring there is no possibility
of doing any agricultural work, for the ground is hard as iron, and
covered with a deep layer of snow. The male peasants, therefore, who
remain in the villages, have very little to do, and may spend the
greater part of their time in lying idly on the stove, unless they
happen to have learned some handicraft that can be practised at home.
Formerly, many of them were employed in transporting the grain to the
market