Our role is commerce. The civilisation we boasted we had to give is given, and a poor veneer it was. It was under cover of the march of civilisation that commerce stole a march on us. Literature, art, religion, philosophy all have been swamped by commerce. Missionarising the heathen means in the long run, simply baptising into commerce.
Human kind has a chance there.
Nevertheless, it is almost impossible to enter into Russian life entirely, and become one with it. The Western stranger, the intellectualised and spoilt person will enjoy the freedom of it, will drink deep of the trut h of it, but often when he would fain participate in its glories he will find himself only a looker-on. It would be a long time before one could settle down to the life of a pilgrim going from shrine to shrine, or to the life of a hermit in the woods. It might be going there to shield the town from cholera, for as I heard, Vetluga was the northernmost town where the dread disease had appeared. All the inhabitants of Ust-Yug trooped out of the town to bring the Ikon in.