And to think that these things are at the present moment being done to tens of thousands of men all over Russia, and have been done, and will long continue to be done, to the meek, wise, and saintly Russian people, who are so cruelly and treacherously deceived! TRAVELLER AND PEASANT [_The interior of a peasant hut. An old Traveller is sitting on a bench, reading a book. A Peasant, the master of the hut, just home from his work, sits down to supper and asks the Traveller to share it. The Traveller declines. The Peasant eats, and when he has finished, rises, says grace, and sits down beside the old man._] PEASANT. What brings you?... TRAVELLER [_taking off his spectacles and putting down his book_]. There is no train till to-morrow. The station is crowded, so I asked your missis to let me stay the night with you, and she allowed it. PEASANT. That's all right, you can stay. TRAVELLER. Thank you!... Well, and how are you living nowadays? PEASANT. Living? What's our life like?... As bad as can be! TRAVELLER. How's that? PEASANT. Why, because we've nothing to live on! Our life is so hard that if we wanted a worse one, we couldn't get it.... You see, there are nine of us in family; all want to eat, and I have only got in four bushels of corn. Try and live on that! Whether one likes it or not, one has to go and work for wages ... and when you look for a job, wages are down!... The rich do what they like with us. The people increase, but the land doesn't, and taxes keep piling up! There's rent, and the district tax, and the land tax, and the tax for bridges, and insurance, and police, and for the corn store ... too many to count! And there are the priests and the landlords.... They all ride on our backs, except those who are too lazy! TRAVELLER. I thought the peasants were doing well nowadays. PEASANT. So well, that we go hungry for days at a time! TRAVELLER. The reason I thought so, was that they have taken to squandering so much money. PEASANT. Squandering what money? How strange you talk!... Here are people starving to death, and you talk of squandering money! TRAVELLER. But how is it? The papers say that 700 million roubles (and a million is a thousand thousands)--700 million were spent by the peasants on vódka last year. PEASANT. Are we the only ones that drink? Just look at the priests.... Don't they swill first-rate? And the gentlefolk aren't behind-hand! TRAVELLER. Still, that's only a small part. The greater part stills falls to the peasants. PEASANT. What of that? Are we not to drink at all? TRAVELLER. No; what I mean is that if 700 millions were squandered on vódka in one year it shows that life can't be so very hard.... 700 millions! It's no joke ... one can hardly imagine it!