True, at given seasons the peasants cart their grain to the river wharf which lies nearest to them, and once a year, also, they attend a fair; but they maintain no relations beyond these. In fact, all their interests are centred in themselves. True, they know that eighty versts away there stands the provincial capital; but few of them have ever journeyed thither. Also they know that beyond it stand Saratov and Nizhni Novgorod—likewise they have heard that such places as Moscow and Petrograd exist, and that on the farther side of them dwell folk who are known as Germans and French; but beyond that point there begins for them, as it did for the ancients, a mysterious world of unknown countries which are peopled with monsters and two-headed giants, and bounded on the outer side by a void of mist, and, again, by the colossal fish which bears the world on its back. Moreover, since this peaceful corner of the universe is almost inaccessible, there filters thither but few items of news concerning the great white universe.[1] Indeed, even traders in rustic wares who live twenty versts away know no more than they do. Likewise, it never enters into their heads to compare their lot
- ↑ As distinguished from the black universe, the unknown.
