'eagle' not only every useless rag she has, but often even her
husband's shirt and her own petticoat. Of late the women have thought
it profitable to steal even from themselves, and to sell hemp in the
same way--a great extension and improvement of the business for the
'eagles'! To meet this, however, the peasants have grown more cunning
in their turn, and on the slightest suspicion, on the most distant
rumors of the approach of an 'eagle,' they have prompt and sharp
recourse to corrective and preventive measures. And, after all, wasn't
it disgraceful? To sell the hemp was the men's business--and they
certainly do sell it--not in the town (they would have to drag it there
themselves), but to traders who come for it, who, for want of scales,
reckon forty handfuls to the pood--and you know what a Russian's hand
is and what it can hold, especially when he 'tries his best'! As I had
had no experience and was not 'country-bred' (as they say in Orel) I
heard plenty of such descriptions. But Hor was not always the narrator;
he questioned me too about many things. He learned that I had been in
foreign parts, and his curiosity was aroused.... Kalinitch was not
behind him in curiosity; but he was more attracted by descriptions of
nature, of mountains and waterfalls, extraordinary buildings and great
towns; Hor was interested in questions of government and
administration. He went through everything in order. 'Well, is that
with them as it is with us, or different?... Come, tell us, your
honour, how is it?' 'Ah, Lord, thy will be done!' Kalinitch would
exclaim while I told my story; Hor did not speak, but frowned with his
bushy eyebrows, only observing at times, 'That wouldn't do for us;
still, it's a good thing--it's right.' All his inquiries, I cannot
recount, and it is unnecessary; but from our conversations I carried
away one conviction, which my readers will certainly not anticipate ...
the conviction that Peter the Great was pre-eminently a Russian--
Russian, above all, in his reforms. The Russian is so convinced of his