Again the guide touched the head of the young Tsar, who again lost consciousness. This time he found himself in a peasant’s cottage. The peasant—a man of forty, with red face and bloodshot eyes—was furiously striking the face of an old man, who tried in vain to protect himself from the blows. The younger peasant seized the beard of the old man and held it fast.
“For shame! To strike your father—!”
“I don’t care, I’ll kill him! Let them send me to Siberia, I don’t care!”
The women were screaming. Drunken officials rushed into the cottage and separated father and son. The father had an arm broken and the son’s beard was torn out. In the doorway a drunken girl was making violent love to an old besotted peasant.
“They are beasts!” said the young Tsar.
Another touch of his guide’s hand and the young Tsar awoke in a new place. It was the office of the justice of the peace. A fat, bald-headed man, with a double chin and a chain round his neck, had just risen from his seat, and was reading the sentence in a loud voice, while a crowd of peasants stood behind the grating. There was a woman in rags in the crowd who did not rise. The guard gave her a push.
“Asleep! I tell you to stand up!” The woman rose.
“According to the decree of his Imperial Majesty—” the judge began reading the sentence. The case concerned that very woman. She had