I was growing used to the peasants, and I felt more and more drawn
to them. For the most part they were nervous, irritable, downtrodden
people; they were people whose imagination had been stifled, ignorant,
with a poor, dingy outlook on life, whose thoughts were ever the
same--of the grey earth, of grey days, of black bread, people who
cheated, but like birds hiding nothing but their head behind the
tree--people who could not count. They would not come to mow for
us for twenty roubles, but they came for half a pail of vodka,
though for twenty roubles they could have bought four pails. There
really was filth and drunkenness and foolishness and deceit, but
with all that one yet felt that the life of the peasants rested on
a firm, sound foundation. However uncouth a wild animal the peasant
following the plough seemed, and however he might stupefy himself
with vodka, still, looking at him more closely, one felt that there
was in him what was needed, something very important, which was
lacking in Masha and in the doctor, for instance, and that was that
he believed the chief thing on earth was truth and justice, and
that his salvation, and that of the whole people, was only to be
found in truth and justice, and so more than anything in the world
he loved just dealing. I told my wife she saw the spots on the
glass, but not the glass itself; she said nothing in reply, or
hummed like Stepan "oo-loo-loo-loo." When this good-hearted and
clever woman turned pale with indignation, and with a quiver in her
voice spoke to the doctor of the drunkenness and dishonesty, it
perplexed me, and I was struck by the shortness of her memory. How
could she forget that her father the engineer drank too, and drank
heavily, and that the money with which Dubetchnya had been bought
had been acquired by a whole series of shameless, impudent dishonesties?
How could she forget it?