Page:Albert Rhys Williams - Through the Russian Revolution (1921).djvu/73

Rh told of great plants where a hundred trip hammers pounded night and day. From their serene Muscovite plain he took them to great cities with subway trains tearing up the night, Great White Ways flooded with pleasure-seekers, and clanging factories where millions surged in and out.

The villagers listened attentively. They were not overawed or wonderstruck. Yet we could not complain of any lack of appreciation.

"The Americans do wonderful things," said one old mujik, shaking our hands.

"Yes," agreed his companion, "they do things more wonderful than even the leshey (the wood spirit)."

But in their kindly comments we felt a certain reserve, as if they were trying to be polite to strangers. Next morning a conversation overheard by chance gave us their real opinion.

Ivan was speaking. "No wonder Albert and Mikhail are white-faced and tired. Think of being brought up in a country like that." And Tatyana said, "It's a hard life we live, but God knows it looks harder over there."

I glimpsed for the first time a truth that grew clearer as the months went by. The peasant has a mind of his own, which he uses to make judgments of his own. This is startling to the foreigner, to whom the Russian peasant is a shambling creature of the earth, immersed in the night of mediaevalism, chained by superstition, steeped in poverty. It is