nything to do with him.

It is the same wish to preserve his home that makes a peasant go to
the city to earn his living while he leaves his family in the
country to take care of the house.

* * * * *

The peasant is, besides, entirely engrossed with the difficulties of
existence. Necessity often urges him to desperate acts.... Some, who
are almost starving, ingratiate themselves with the raftsmen. They
force wages down by asking only 5 copecks (5 cents) a day.... If
they are contented with this absurd pay, it is because they avoid
seeing how their little children are suffering at home. "It's hard
living at present; there is not enough space; ground is scarce and
there are too many people." "Men haven't room enough," says a
sad-looking man with prominent cheek-bones. "But," he goes on, "they
tell me that sickness has struck our village, and that the men are
losing blood! Is that true?" "Yes, it's true!" "So much the better!
That will clean out the people; it will be easier to live then," he
concludes, thoughtfully. (From "In the Cold Spell.")

In almost all the work of Veressayev a voice proclaims that the
Russian peasant is near his end; that he is not useful to any one.
The poverty of the villages is painted in the most sombre colors.
The people are unanimous in believing that the struggle for life has
become terrible. "On what will you live?" one asks the other. "The
earth does not nourish us. The holdings are small; in summer, one
must cultivate, and in winter the cottages have to be closed while
we look for work or charity. What is there to eat? Hay! Let us thank
God that the cattle have enough of that. Oats? We have to give four
hectoliters and two measures of our oats to the common granary....
And taxes and clothes? coal-oil, matches, tea, sugar? Tell me, how
can one live?"

The unfortunates even go so far as to bless war and epidemics.
"Everything went better then. Men lived peacefully in the fear of
God, the Lord took care of every one. War, smallpox, famine came and
cleaned out the populace; those that remained, after having got the
coffins ready, lived easier. God pitied us. Now there is no more
war; He leaves us to our own poor devices."

Speeches like this abound in the works of Veressayev. A dull
sadness, bordering on despair, breathes forth from the pages. It
seems, at times, as if the Russian peasant could never awake from
his torpor, because the author represents h