Page:Morgan Philips Price - Siberia (1912).djvu/87

 Rh which for most of the day seemed to consist of doing nothing in particular, and doing it continuously. Groups of old peasants sat outside their doorways on low benches, chatting and eating pine seeds, without a plentiful supply of which you rarely see a Siberian. Unlimited time seemed to be hanging on their hands, but they were quite cheerful about it. An English country village is a perfect Wall Street compared to a Siberian village during the Easter holidays, and one could not help thinking how much material wealth these people might accumulate if they only utilized a portion of their wasted time. But perhaps they don't want to accumulate riches, and they certainly are happier without the frantic rush of the Westerner after purely material objectives. If happiness is to be measured by wealth, then the Siberian peasant is less happy than a city financier, but if it is to be measured, as I believe it really is, by contentment of mind, then the Siberian peasant is the happiest man alive. It seemed strange that money would hardly bribe these peasants to leave their village even for a few hours, and take us on to the next. But nearly everybody in this world ultimately has his price, and with the Russian peasant it can be found in cash too, only it is a good deal higher during an Easter holiday than at ordinary times, and the bribe has to be made sufficiently attractive to lure him on to the steppes, away from his doorstep and his bag of pine seeds. Moreover, in these circumstances the peasants have a habit of collective bargaining, which, though decidedly useful to themselves, is often exasperating to the traveller. It is rather trying to be held up by the whole village and told that there are no horses