s
fasts of the Church make very little difference to the quality of the
food, but only to its quantity. The thanks given by guests to their host
and hostess, _Spasibo za kleb za sol_, "Thanks for bread and salt," tell
their own story of a bare and simple diet. Many of us have read in _The
Russian Pilgrims to Jerusalem_ of the sacks of black and hard crusts the
peasants take with them, which quite content them.

What a tremendous difference it must have made this winter in the
Russian food transport from the base to the front, to know that, if a
serious breakdown took place, or a hurried march was ordered with which
it was difficult for them to keep up, and the worst came to the worst,
the men would have their crusts. It has been said in years gone by, and
may be true still in many places, that the Russian peasant's ideas of
Paradise is a life in which he would have enough black bread to eat.

This bare subsistence and monotonous diet, perhaps, is responsible for the
break-out from time to time when the attraction of _vodka_ is too strong
to be resisted in a life in which there are no counter-attractions.
Counter-attractions there ought to be for a being who is created not for
work alone, but for that recreation which, as its very name betokens, his
whole nature needs if he is to do his best work. "There is a time to work
and a time to play," says the proverb writer; and if we hold that in
school life "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," we can hardly
wonder that, the world over, those for whom work is provided and play
refused will seek, as they have ever done, to make up for its absence by
the exhilaration of stimulating and intoxicating drinks. It is when
writing upon the drunkenness to be seen at every Russian village holiday
that one whom I have often quoted in this book,[4] truly says, "As a whole
a village fete in Russia is a saddening spectacle. It affords a new
proof--where, alas! no proof was required--that we northern nations who
know so well how to work have not yet learnt the art of amusing
ourselves."

As an instance of the real and natural friendliness and essential good
nature of the Russian, I may say that even when drunk I have never seen
or heard of men quarrelling. They do not gradually begin to dispute and
recriminate and come to blows or draw the knife, as some of the more
hot-blooded people of the South do, when wine excites or spirits cheer
them. They seem to become more and more affect