Or take Nikita in _Master and Man_, in the same volume. In some ways he is extraordinarily simple, and does not appear to know how shamefully he is being exploited by his avaricious and grasping master. We are told in the story that he _does_ know even though he goes on as if he didn't, and does his duty by him as if he were the best of masters, just as he does by an unfaithful and unfeeling wife. It would be difficult to imagine a peasant one would more love to know and understand than Nikita, strong, capable, affectionate, and shrewd, as he comes running before us in the story, to harness the horse for his master, the only man on the place that day not drunk, talking to the little brown cob which noses him affectionately, and in the end making a tremendous struggle for his own and his master's life, and winning through himself. Thus he goes on steadily as long as he lives, with no other thought but that of duty, until he lies down beneath the _ikon_, and, with the wax candle in his hand just as he had always wished, passes away at peace with every living creature and with GOD. There are no peasants like the Russians, or who think as they do. They are young, one feels, and "The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts," and that is just what those who know them best find out. A friend of mine told this story the other day at a meeting, at which we both had to speak, and I am sure it will bear repetition. A _moujik_, or peasant, was driving a German commercial traveller across the open country, and in the course of their conversation together his companion said to him:-- "Your countrymen are nothing but a lot of idolaters. You worship those _ikons_ of yours, and bow down to them as the heathen do," and so on. The _moujik_ was very indignant, and grumbled out his disapproval of all this. "Worship our _ikons_ indeed! We don't." And as they went driving on he suddenly drew up, and, pointing to a tree, demanded of the astonished traveller:-- "Do you mean to say that I would worship that tree?" "No, no. Of course not! Drive on." With a very disapproving grunt he drove on, and when they reached their destination, where there was a painter at work upon an outside door, the _moujik_, pointing to the paint-pot beside it, again demanded of the traveller:-- "Would you say I could worship that paint?" "No, certainly not! You could not be so silly." "But yet you say I worship an _ikon_, which is only painted wood, and can't see that I only use it to help me to worship GOD."