As a whole, a village fete in Russia is a saddening spectacle.  It affords a new proof—­where, alas! no new proof was required—­that we northern nations, who know so well how to work, have not yet learned the art of amusing ourselves.

If the Russian peasant’s food were always as good and plentiful as at this season of the year, he would have little reason to complain; but this is by no means the case.  Gradually, as the harvest-time recedes, it deteriorates in quality, and sometimes diminishes in quantity.  Besides this, during a great part of the year the peasant is prevented, by the rules of the Church, from using much that he possesses.

In southern climes, where these rules were elaborated and first practised, the prescribed fasts are perhaps useful not only in a religious, but also in a sanitary sense.  Having abundance of fruit and vegetables, the inhabitants do well to abstain occasionally from animal food.  But in countries like Northern and Central Russia the influence of these rules is very different.  The Russian peasant cannot get as much animal food as he requires, whilst sour cabbage and cucumbers are probably the only vegetables he can procure, and fruit of any kind is for him an unattainable luxury.  Under these circumstances, abstinence from eggs and milk in all their forms during several months of the year seems to the secular mind a superfluous bit of asceticism.  If the Church would direct her maternal solicitude to the peasant’s drinking, and leave him to eat what he pleases, she might exercise a beneficial influence on his material and moral welfare.  Unfortunately she has a great deal too much inherent immobility to attempt anything of the kind, so the muzhik, while free to drink copiously whenever he gets the chance, must fast during the seven weeks of Lent, during two or three weeks in June, from the beginning of November till Christmas, and on all Wednesdays and Fridays during the remainder of the year.

From the festival time till the following spring there is no possibility of doing any agricultural work, for the ground is hard as iron, and covered with a deep layer of snow.  The male peasants, therefore, who remain in the villages, have very little to do, and may spend the greater part of their time in lying idly on the stove, unless they happen to have learned some handicraft that can be practised at home.  Formerly, many of them were employed in transporting the grain to the market town, which might be several hundred miles distant; but now this species of occupation has been greatly diminished by the extension of railways.