Their main revenues are drawn from the continual drunkenness of the people. They drink themselves⁠—they are always drinking the health of somebody: ‘Gentlemen, the Regiment!’ The preachers drink, the bishops drink⁠—”

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.