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164 this dirt through the warmth of the sun will be a healthy wheat ear."

"Yes, it is because it is the soil of actual life, Alekséi Petróvitch."

"Now let us go to the next field; let us also here pull up a plant, and examine its root. It is also dirty. But just notice the nature of this dirt. It is not hard to see that this dirt is rotten."

"This is fantastic dirt, to use the scientific terminology," says Alekséi Petróvitch.

"It's so; the elements of this dirt are in an unhealthy state. It is natural that no matter how they are transposed, the things not resembling dirt, derived from this dirt will be unhealthy and rotten."

"Yes; it is because the very elements are unhealthy," says Alekséi Petróvitch.

"It will not be hard for us to find the cause of this unhealthiness."

"That is, of this fantastic rottenness," says Alekséi Petróvitch.

"Yes, the rottenness of these elements; if you will notice the situation of this field, you see the water has no ditch, and there it becomes stagnant and rotten."

"Yes, absence of motion is absence of labor," says Alekséi Petróvitch. "Because labor is shown in anthropological analysis to be the radical form of motion, and which gives foundation and material for all other forms,—recreation, rest, amusement, gayety; all these without the preliminary labor have no reality; and without motion, there is no life, that is, there is no reality; therefore, this dirt is fantastic, in other words, rotten. Till within a short time ago, men did not know how to restore health to such fields; but now means has been found; that is, drainage. The superfluous water runs off in canals, and enough remains, and it is kept in motion, and the field becomes practicable. But as long as this means is not applied, the dirt remains fantastic, that is to say, rotten, and it cannot produce any good crops; whereas, as is very natural, from the good dirt they get good crops, because it is healthy dirt. And this is what we wanted to prove; quod erat demonstrandum, as they say in Latin."

As they spoke in Latin the words meaning "which was to be proven," Viéra Pavlovna did not catch the words.