The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories

ers in a hothouse. Our too abundant nourishment, together with complete physical idleness, is nothing but sy

peasant’s food is,— bread, kvass,* onions. With this frugal nourishment he lives, he is alert, he makes light work in the fields. But on the railway this bill of fare becomes cacha and a pound of meat. Only he restores this meat by sixteen hours of labor pushing loads weighing twelve hundred pounds.* Kvass, a sort of cider.“And we, who eat two pounds of meat and game, we who absorb all sorts of heating drinks and food, how do we expend it? In sensual excesses. If the valve is open, all goes well; but close it, as I