LIFE IN THE CITY.
Last year, in March, I was returning home late at night. As I turned
from the Zubova into Khamovnitchesky Lane, I saw some black spots on the
snow of the Dyevitchy Pole (field). Something was moving about in one
place. I should not have paid any attention to this, if the policeman
who was standing at the end of the street had not shouted in the
direction of the black spots,—
“Vasily! why don’t you bring her in?”
“She won’t come!” answered a voice, and then the spot moved towards the
policeman.
I halted and asked the police-officer, “What is it?”
He said,—“They are taking a girl from the Rzhanoff house to the
station-house; and she is hanging back, she won’t walk.” A house-porter
in a sheepskin coat was leading her. She was walking forward, and he was
pushing her from behind. All of us, I and the porter and the policeman,
were dressed in winter clothes, but she had nothing on over her dress.
In the darkness I could make out only her brown dress, and the kerchiefs
on her head and neck. She was short in stature, as is often the case
with the prematurely born, with small feet, and a comparatively broad and
awkward figure.
“We’re waiting for you, you carrion. Get along, what do you mean by it?
I’ll give it to you!” shouted the policeman. He was evidently tired, and
he had had too much of her. She advanced a few paces, and again halted.
The little old porter, a good-natured fellow (I know him), tugged at her
hand. “Here, I’ll teach you to stop! On with you!” he repeated, as
though in anger. She staggered, and began to talk in a discordant voice.
At every sound there was a false note, both hoarse and whining.
“Come now, you’re shoving again. I’ll get there some time!”
She stopped and then went on. I followed them.
“You’ll freeze,” said the porters
“The likes of us don’t freeze: I’m hot.”
She tried to jest, but her words sounded like scolding. She halted again
under the lantern which stands not far from our house, and leaned
against, almost hung over, the fence, and began to fumble for something
among her skirts, with benumbed and awkward hands. Again they shouted at
her, but she muttered something and did something. In one hand she held
a cigarette bent into a bow, in the other a match. I paused behind her;
I was ashamed to pass her, and I was ashamed to stand and look on. But I
made up my mind, and stepped forward. Her shoulder was lying against the
fence, and against the fence it was that she vainly struck the match and
flung it away. I looked in her face. She was really a person
prematurely born; but, as it seemed to me, already an old woman. I
credited her with thirty years. A dirty hue of face; small, dull, tipsy
eyes; a button-like nose; curved moist lips with drooping corners, and a
short wisp of harsh hair escaping from beneath her kerchief; a long flat
figure, stumpy hands and feet. I paused opposite her. She stared at me,
and burst into a laugh, as though she knew all that was going on in my
mind.
I felt that it was necessary to say something to her. I wanted to show
her that I pitied her.
“Are your parents alive?” I inquired.
She laughed hoarsely, with an expression which said, “he’s making up
queer things to ask.”
“My mother is,” said she. “But what do you want?”
“And how old are you?”
“Sixteen,” said she, answering promptly to a question which was evidently
customary.
“Come, march, you’ll freeze, you’ll perish entirely,” shouted the
policeman; and she swayed away from the fence, and, staggering along, she
went down Khamovnitchesky Lane to the police-station; and I turned to the
wicket, and entered the house, and inquired whether my daughters had
returned. I was told that they had been to an evening party, had had a
very merry time, had come home, and were in bed.
Next morning I wanted to go to the station-house to learn what had been
done with this unfortunate woman, and I was preparing to go out very
early, when there came to see me one of those unlucky noblemen, who,
through weakness, have dropped from the gentlemanly life to which they
are accustomed, and who alternately rise and fall. I had been acquainted
with this man for three years. In the course of those three years, this
man had several times made way with every thing that he had, and even
with all his clothes; the same thing had just happened again, and he was
passing the nights temporarily in the Rzhanoff house, in the
night-lodging section, and he had come to me for the day. He met me as I
was going out, at the entrance, and without listening to me he began to
tell me what had taken place in the Rzhanoff house the night before. He
began his narrative, and did not half finish it; all at once (he is an
old man who has seen men under all sorts of aspects) he burst out
sobbing, and flooded has countenance with tears, and when he had become
silent, turned has face to the wall. This is what he told me. Every
thing that he related to me was absolutely true. I authenticated his
story on the spot, and learned fresh particulars which I will relate
separately.
In that night-lodging house, on the lower floor, in No. 32, in which my
friend had spent the night, among the various, ever-changing lodgers, men
and women, who came together there for five kopeks, there was a
laundress, a woman thirty years of age, light-haired, peaceable and
pretty, but sickly. The mistress of the quarters had a boatman lover.
In the summer her lover kept a boat, and in the winter they lived by
letting accommodations to night-lodgers: three kopeks without a pillow,
five kopeks with a pillow.
The laundress had lived there for several months, and was a quiet woman;
but latterly they had not liked her, because she coughed and prevented
the women from sleeping. An old half-crazy woman eighty years old, in
particular, also a regular lodger in these quarters, hated the laundress,
and imbittered the latter’s life because she prevented her sleeping, and
cleared her throat all night like a sheep. The laundress held her peace;
she was in debt for her lodgings, and was conscious of her guilt, and
therefore she was bound to be quiet. She began to go more and more
rarely to her work, as her strength failed her, and therefore she could
not pay her landlady; and for the last week she had not been out to work
at all, and had only poisoned the existence of every one, especially of
the old woman, who also did not go out, with her cough. Four days before
this, the landlady had given the laundress notice to leave the quarters:
the latter was already sixty kopeks in debt, and she neither paid them,
nor did the landlady foresee any possibility of getting them; and all the
bunks were occupied, and the women all complained of the laundress’s
cough.
When the landlady gave the laundress notice, and told her that she must
leave the lodgings if she did not pay up, the old woman rejoiced and
thrust the laundress out of doors. The laundress departed, but returned
in an hour, and the landlady had not the heart to put her out again. And
the second and the third day, she did not turn her out. “Where am I to
go?” said the laundress. But on the third day, the landlady’s lover, a
Moscow man, who knew the regulations and how to manage, sent for the
police. A policeman with sword and pistol on a red cord came to the
lodgings, and with courteous words he led the laundress into the street.
It was a clear, sunny, but freezing March day. The gutters were flowing,
the house-porters were picking at the ice. The cabman’s sleigh jolted
over the icy snow, and screeched over the stones. The laundress walked
up the street on the sunny side, went to the church, and seated herself
at the entrance, still on the sunny side. But when the sun began to sink
behind the houses, the puddles began to be skimmed over with a glass of
frost, and the laundress grew cold and wretched. She rose, and dragged
herself . . . whither? Home, to the only home where she had lived so
long. While she was on her way, resting at times, dusk descended. She
approached the gates, turned in, slipped, groaned and fell.
One man came up, and then another. “She must be drunk.” Another man
came up, and stumbled over the laundress, and said to the potter: “What
drunken woman is this wallowing at your gate? I came near breaking my
head over her; take her away, won’t you?”
The porter came. The laundress was dead. This is what my friend told
me. It may be thought that I have wilfully mixed up facts,—I encounter a
prostitute of fifteen, and the story of this laundress. But let no one
imagine this; it is exactly what happened in the course of one night
(only I do not remember which) in March, 1884. And so, after hearing my
friend’s tale, I went to the station-house, with the intention of
proceeding thence to the Rzhanoff house to inquire more minutely into the
history of the laundress. The weather was very beautiful and sunny; and
again, through the stars of the night-frost, water was to be seen
trickling in the shade, and in the glare of the sun on Khamovnitchesky
square every thing was melting, and the water was streaming. The river
emitted a humming noise. The trees of the Neskutchny garden looked blue
across the river; the reddish-brown sparrows, invisible in winter,
attracted attention by their sprightliness; people also seemed desirous
of being merry, but all of them had too many cares. The sound of the
bells was audible, and at the foundation of these mingling sounds, the
sounds of shots could be heard from the barracks, the whistle of
rifle-balls and their crack against the target.
I entered the station-house. In the station some armed policemen
conducted me to their chief. He was similarly armed with sword and
pistol, and he was engaged in taking some measures with regard to a
tattered, trembling old man, who was standing before him, and who could
not answer the questions put to him, on account of his feebleness.
Having finished his business with the old man, he turned to me. I
inquired about the girl of the night before. At first he listened to me
attentively, but afterwards he began to smile, at my ignorance of the
regulations, in consequence of which she had been taken to the
station-house; and particularly at my surprise at her youth.
“Why, there are plenty of them of twelve, thirteen, or fourteen years of
age,” he said cheerfully.
But in answer to my question about the girl whom I had seen on the
preceding evening, he explained to me that she must have been sent to the
committee (so it appeared). To my question where she had passed the
night, he replied in an undecided manner. He did not recall the one to
whom I referred. There were so many of them every day.
In No. 32 of the Rzhanoff house I found the sacristan already reading
prayers over the dead woman. They had taken her to the bunk which she
had formerly occupied; and the lodgers, all miserable beings, had
collected money for the masses for her soul, a coffin and a shroud, and
the old women had dressed her and laid her out. The sacristan was
reading something in the gloom; a woman in a long wadded cloak was
standing there with a wax candle; and a man (a gentleman, I must state)
in a clean coat with a lamb’s-skin collar, polished overshoes, and a
starched shirt, was holding one like it. This was her brother. They had
hunted him up.
I went past the dead woman to the landlady’s nook, and questioned her
about the whole business.
She was alarmed at my queries; she was evidently afraid that she would be
blamed for something; but afterwards she began to talk freely, and told
me every thing. As I passed back, I glanced at the dead woman. All dead
people are handsome, but this dead woman was particularly beautiful and
touching in her coffin; her pure, pale face, with closed swollen eyes,
sunken cheeks, and soft reddish hair above the lofty brow,—a weary and
kind and not a sad but a surprised face. And in fact, if the living do
not see, the dead are surprised.
On the same day that I wrote the above, there was a great ball in Moscow.
That night I left the house at nine o’clock. I live in a locality which
is surrounded by factories, and I left the house after the
factory-whistles had sounded, releasing the people for a day of freedom
after a week of unremitting toil.
Factory-hands overtook me, and I overtook others of them, directing their
steps to the drinking-shops and taverns. Many were already intoxicated,
many were women. Every morning at five o’clock we can hear one whistle,
a second, a third, a tenth, and so forth, and so forth. That means that
the toil of women, children, and of old men has begun. At eight o’clock
another whistle, which signifies a breathing-spell of half an hour. At
twelve, a third: this means an hour for dinner. And a fourth at eight,
which denotes the end of the day.
By an odd coincidence, all three of the factories which are situated near
me produce only articles which are in demand for balls.
In one factory, the nearest, only stockings are made; in another
opposite, silken fabrics; in the third, perfumes and pomades.
It is possible to listen to these whistles, and connect no other idea
with them than as denoting the time: “There’s the whistle already, it is
time to go to walk.” But one can also connect with those whistles that
which they signify in reality; that first whistle, at five o’clock, means
that people, often all without exception, both men and women, sleeping in
a damp cellar, must rise, and hasten to that building buzzing with
machines, and must take their places at their work, whose end and use for
themselves they do not see, and thus toil, often in heat and a stifling
atmosphere, in the midst of dirt, and with the very briefest
breathing-spells, an hour, two hours, three hours, twelve, and even more
hours in succession. They fall into a doze, and again they rise. And
this, for them, senseless work, to which they are driven only by
necessity, is continued over and over again.
And thus one week succeeds another with the breaks of holidays; and I see
these work-people released on one of these holidays. They emerge into
the street. Everywhere there are drinking-shops, taverns, and loose
girls. And they, in their drunken state, drag by the hand each other,
and girls like the one whom I saw taken to the station-house; they drag
with them cabmen, and they ride and they walk from one tavern to another;
and they curse and stagger, and say they themselves know not what. I had
previously seen such unsteady gait on the part of factory-hands, and had
turned aside in disgust, and had been on the point of rebuking them; but
ever since I have been in the habit of hearing those whistles every day,
and understand their meaning, I am only amazed that they, all the men, do
not come to the condition of the “golden squad,” of which Moscow is full,
{152a} [and the women to the state of the one whom I had seen near my
house]. {152b}
Thus I walked along, and scrutinized these factory-hands, as long as they
roamed the streets, which was until eleven o’clock. Then their movements
began to calm down. Some drunken men remained here and there, and here
and there I encountered men who were being taken to the station-house.
And then carriages began to make their appearance on all sides, directing
their course toward one point.
On the box sits a coachman, sometimes in a sheepskin coat; and a footman,
a dandy, with a cockade. Well-fed horses in saddle-cloths fly through
the frost at the rate of twenty versts an hour; in the carriages sit
ladies muffled in round cloaks, and carefully tending their flowers and
head-dresses. Every thing from the horse-trappings, the carriages, the
gutta-percha wheels, the cloth of the coachman’s coat, to the stockings,
shoes, flowers, velvet, gloves, and perfumes,—every thing is made by
those people, some of whom often roll drunk into their dens or
sleeping-rooms, and some stay with disreputable women in the
night-lodging houses, while still others are put in jail. Thus past them
in all their work, and over them all, ride the frequenters of balls; and
it never enters their heads, that there is any connection between these
balls to which they make ready to go, and these drunkards at whom their
coachman shouts so roughly.
These people enjoy themselves at the ball with the utmost composure of
spirit, and assurance that they are doing nothing wrong, but something
very good. Enjoy themselves! Enjoy themselves from eleven o’clock until
six in the morning, in the very dead of night, at the very hour when
people are tossing and turning with empty stomachs in the night-lodging
houses, and while some are dying, as did the laundress.
Their enjoyment consists in this,—that the women and young girls, having
bared their necks and arms, and applied bustles behind, place themselves
in a situation in which no uncorrupted woman or maiden would care to
display herself to a man, on any consideration in the world; and in this
half-naked condition, with their uncovered bosoms exposed to view, with
arms bare to the shoulder, with a bustle behind and tightly swathed hips,
under the most brilliant light, women and maidens, whose chief virtue has
always been modesty, exhibit themselves in the midst of strange men, who
are also clad in improperly tight-fitting garments; and to the sound of
maddening music, they embrace and whirl. Old women, often as naked as
the young ones, sit and look on, and eat and drink savory things; old men
do the same. It is not to be wondered at that this should take place at
night, when all the common people are asleep, so that no one may see
them. But this is not done with the object of concealment: it seems to
them that there is nothing to conceal; that it is a very good thing; that
by this merry-making, in which the labor of thousands of toiling people
is destroyed, they not only do not injure any one, but that by this very
act they furnish the poor with the means of subsistence. Possibly it is
very merry at balls. But how does this come about? When we see that
there is a man in the community, in our midst, who has had no food, or
who is freezing, we regret our mirth, and we cannot be cheerful until he
is fed and warmed, not to mention the impossibility of imagining people
who can indulge in such mirth as causes suffering to others. The mirth
of wicked little boys, who pitch a dog’s tail in a split stick, and make
merry over it, is repulsive and incomprehensible to us.
In the same manner here, in these diversions of ours, blindness has
fallen upon us, and we do not see the split stick with which we have
pitched all those people who suffer for our amusement.
[We live as though there were no connection between the dying laundress,
the prostitute of fourteen, and our own life; and yet the connection
between them strikes us in the face.
We may say: “But we personally have not pinched any tail in a stick;” but
we have no right, to deny that had the tail not been pitched, our
merry-making would not have taken place. We do not see what connection
exists between the laundress and our luxury; but that is not because no
such connection does exist, but because we have placed a screen in front
of us, so that we may not see.
If there were no screen, we should see that which it is impossible not to
see.] {154}
Surely all the women who attended that ball in dresses worth a hundred
and fifty rubles each were born not in a ballroom, or at Madame
Minanguoit’s; but they have lived in the country, and have seen the
peasants; they know their own nurse and maid, whose father and brother
are poor, for whom the earning of a hundred and fifty rubles for a
cottage is the object of a long, laborious life. Each woman knows this.
How could she enjoy herself, when she knew that she wore on her bared
body at that ball the cottage which is the dream of her good maid’s
father and brother? But let us suppose that she could not make this
reflection; but since velvet and silk and flowers and lace and dresses do
not grow of themselves, but are made by people, it would seem that she
could not help knowing what sort of people make all these things, and
under what conditions, and why they do it. She cannot fail to know that
the seamstress, with whom she has already quarrelled, did not make her
dress in the least out of love for her; therefore, she cannot help
knowing that all these things were made for her as a matter of necessity,
that her laces, flowers, and velvet have been made in the same way as her
dress.
But possibly they are in such darkness that they do not consider this.
One thing she cannot fail to know,—that five or six elderly and
respectable, often sick, lackeys and maids have had no sleep, and have
been put to trouble on her account. She has seen their weary, gloomy
faces. She could not help knowing this also, that the cold that night
reached twenty-eight degrees below zero, {155} and that the old coachman
sat all night long in that temperature on his box. But I know that they
really do not see this. And if they, these young women and girls, do not
see this, on account of the hypnotic state superinduced in them by balls,
it is impossible to condemn them. They, poor things, have done what is
considered right by their elders; but how are their elders to explain
away this their cruelty to the people?
The elders always offer the explanation: “I compel no one. I purchase my
things; I hire my men, my maid-servants, and my coachman. There is
nothing wrong in buying and hiring. I force no one’s inclination: I
hire, and what harm is there in that?”
I recently went to see an acquaintance. As I passed through one of the
rooms, I was surprised to see two women seated at a table, as I knew that
my friend was a bachelor. A thin, yellow, old-fashioned woman, thirty
years of age, in a dress that had been carelessly thrown on, was doing
something with her hands and fingers on the table, with great speed,
trembling nervously the while, as though in a fit. Opposite her sat a
young girl, who was also engaged in something, and who trembled in the
same manner. Both women appeared to be afflicted with St. Vitus’ dance.
I stepped nearer to them, and looked to see what they were doing. They
raised their eyes to me, but went on with their work with the same
intentness. In front of them lay scattered tobacco and paper cases.
They were making cigarettes. The woman rubbed the tobacco between her
hands, pushed it into the machine, slipped on the cover, thrust the
tobacco through, then tossed it to the girl. The girl twisted the paper,
and, making it fast, threw it aside, and took up another. All thus was
done with such swiftness, with such intentness, as it is impossible to
describe to a man who has never seen it done. I expressed my surprise at
their quickness.
“I have been doing nothing else for fourteen years,” said the woman.
“Is it hard?”
“Yes: it pains my chest, and makes my breathing hard.”
It was not necessary for her to add this, however. A look at the girl
sufficed. She had worked at this for three years, but any one who had
not seen her at this occupation would have said that here was a strong
organism which was beginning to break down.
My friend, a kind and liberal man, hires these women to fill his
cigarettes at two rubles fifty kopeks the thousand. He has money, and he
spends it for work. What harm is there in that? My friend rises at
twelve o’clock. He passes the evening, from six until two, at cards, or
at the piano. He eats and drinks savory things; others do all his work
for him. He has devised a new source of pleasure,—smoking. He has taken
up smoking within my memory.
Here is a woman, and here is a girl, who can barely support themselves by
turning themselves into machines, and they pass their whole lives
inhaling tobacco, and thereby running their health. He has money which
he never earned, and he prefers to play at whist to making his own
cigarettes. He gives these women money on condition that they shall
continue to live in the same wretched manner in which they are now
living, that is to say, by making his cigarettes.
I love cleanliness, and I give money only on the condition that the
laundress shall wash the shirt which I change twice a day; and that shirt
has destroyed the laundress’s last remaining strength, and she has died.
What is there wrong about that? People who buy and hire will continue to
force other people to make velvet and confections, and will purchase
them, without me; and no matter what I may do, they will hire cigarettes
made and shirts washed. Then why should I deprive myself of velvet and
confections and cigarettes and clean shirts, if things are definitively
settled thus? This is the argument which I often, almost always, hear.
This is the very argument which makes the mob which is destroying
something, lose its senses. This is the very argument by which dogs are
guided when one of them has flung himself on another dog, and overthrown
him, and the rest of the pack rush up also, and tear their comrade in
pieces. Other people have begun it, and have wrought mischief; then why
should not I take advantage of it? Well, what will happen if I wear a
soiled shirt, and make my own cigarettes? Will that make it easier for
anybody else? ask people who would like to justify their course. If it
were not so far from the truth, it would be a shame to answer such a
question, but we have become so entangled that this question seems very
natural to us; and hence, although it is a shame, it is necessary to
reply to it.
What difference will it make if I wear one shirt a week, and make may own
cigarettes, or do not smoke at all? This difference, that some laundress
and some cigarette-maker will exert their strength less, and that what I
have spent for washing and for the making of cigarettes I can give to
that very laundress, or even to other laundresses and toilers who are
worn out with their labor, and who, instead of laboring beyond their
strength, will then be able to rest, and drink tea. But to this I hear
an objection. (It is so mortifying to rich and luxurious people to
understand their position.) To this they say: “If I go about in a dirty
shirt, and give up smoking, and hand over this money to the poor, the
poor will still be deprived of every thing, and that drop in the sea of
yours will help not at all.”
Such an objection it is a shame to answer. It is such a common retort.
{158}
If I had gone among savages, and they had regaled me with cutlets which
struck me as savory, and if I should learn on the following day that
these savory cutlets had been made from a prisoner whom they had slain
for the sake of the savory cutlets, if I do not admit that it is a good
thing to eat men, then, no matter how dainty the cutlets, no matter how
universal the practice of eating men may be among my fellows, however
insignificant the advantage to prisoners, prepared for consumption, may
be my refusal to eat of the cutlets, I will not and I can not eat any
more of them. I may, possibly, eat human flesh, when hunger compels me
to it; but I will not make a feast, and I will not take part in feasts,
of human flesh, and I will not seek out such feasts, and pride myself on
my share in them.
LIFE IN THE COUNTRY.
But what is to be done? Surely it is not we who have done this? And if
not we, who then?
We say: “We have not done this, this has done itself;” as the children
say, when they break any thing, that it broke itself. We say, that, so
long as there is a city already in existence, we, by living in it,
support the people, by purchasing their labor and services. But this is
not so. And this is why. We only need to look ourselves, at the way we
have in the country, and at the manner in which we support people there.
The winter passes in town. Easter Week passes. On the boulevards, in
the gardens in the parks, on the river, there is music. There are
theatres, water-trips, walks, all sorts of illuminations and fireworks.
But in the country there is something even better,—there are better air,
trees and meadows, and the flowers are fresher. One should go thither
where all these things have unfolded and blossomed forth. And the
majority of wealthy people do go to the country to breathe the superior
air, to survey these superior forests and meadows. And there the wealthy
settle down in the country, and the gray peasants, who nourish themselves
on bread and onions, who toil eighteen hours a day, who get no sound
sleep by night, and who are clad in blouses. Here no one has led these
people astray. There have been no factories nor industrial
establishments, and there are none of those idle hands, of which there
are so many in the city. Here the whole population never succeeds, all
summer long, in completing all their tasks in season; and not only are
there no idle hands, but a vast quantity of property is ruined for the
lack of hands, and a throng of people, children, old men, and women, will
perish through overstraining their powers in work which is beyond their
strength. How do the rich order their lives there? In this fashion:—
If there is an old-fashioned house, built under the serf _régime_, that
house is repaired and embellished; if there is none, then a new one is
erected, of two or three stories. The rooms, of which there are from
twelve to twenty, and even more, are all six arshins in height. {161a}
Wood floors are laid down. The windows consist of one sheet of glass.
There are rich rugs and costly furniture. The roads around the house are
macadamized, the ground is levelled, flower-beds are laid out,
croquet-grounds are prepared, swinging-rings for gymnastics are erected,
reflecting globes, often orangeries, and hotbeds, and lofty stables
always with complicated scroll-work on the gables and ridges.
And here, in the country, an honest educated official, or noble family
dwells. All the members of the family and their guests have assembled in
the middle of June, because up to June, that is to say, up to the
beginning of mowing-time, they have been studying and undergoing
examinations; and they live there until September, that is to say, until
harvest and sowing-time. The members of this family (as is the case with
nearly every one in that circle) have lived in the country from the
beginning of the press of work, the suffering time, not until the end of
the season of toil (for in September sowing is still in progress, as well
as the digging of potatoes), but until the strain of work has relaxed a
little. During the whole of their residence in the country, all around
them and beside them, that summer toil of the peasantry has been going
on, of whose fatigues, no matter how much we may have heard, no matter
how much we may have heard about it, no matter how much we may have gazed
upon it, we can form no idea, unless we have had personal experience of
it. And the members of this family, about ten in number, live exactly as
they do in the city.
At St. Peter’s Day, {161b} a strict fast, when the people’s food consists
of kvas, bread, and onions, the mowing begins.
The business which is effected in mowing is one of the most important in
the commune. Nearly every year, through the lack of hands and time, the
hay crop may be lost by rain; and more or less strain of toil decides the
question, as to whether twenty or more per cent of hay is to be added to
the wealth of the people, or whether it is to rot or die where it stands.
And additional hay means additional meat for the old, and additional milk
for the children. Thus, in general and in particular, the question of
bread for each one of the mowers, and of milk for himself and his
children, in the ensuing winter, is then decided. Every one of the
toilers, both male and female, knows this; even the children know that
this is an important matter, and that it is necessary to strain every
nerve to carry the jug of kvas to their father in the meadow at his
mowing, and, shifting the heavy pitcher from hand to hand, to run
barefooted as rapidly as possible, two versts from the village, in order
to get there in season for dinner, and so that their fathers may not
scold them.
Every one knows, that, from the mowing season until the hay is got in,
there will be no break in the work, and that there will be no time to
breathe. And there is not the mowing alone. Every one of them has other
affairs to attend to besides the mowing: the ground must be turned up and
harrowed; and the women have linen and bread and washing to attend to;
and the peasants have to go to the mill, and to town, and there are
communal matters to attend to, and legal matters before the judge and the
commissary of police; and the wagons to see to, and the horses to feed at
night: and all, old and young, and sickly, labor to the last extent of
their powers. The peasants toil so, that on every occasion, the mowers,
before the end of the third stint, whether weak, young, or old, can
hardly walk as they totter past the last rows, and only with difficulty
are they able to rise after the breathing-spell; and the women, often
pregnant, or nursing infants, work in the same way. The toil is intense
and incessant. All work to the extreme bounds of their strength, and
expend in this toil, not only the entire stock of their scanty
nourishment, but all their previous stock. All of them—and they are not
fat to begin with—grow gaunt after the “suffering” season.
Here a little association is working at the mowing; three peasants,—one
an old man, the second his nephew, a young married man, and a shoemaker,
a thin, sinewy man. This hay-harvest will decide the fate of all of them
for the winter. They have been laboring incessantly for two weeks,
without rest. The rain has delayed their work. After the rain, when the
hay has dried, they have decided to stack it, and, in order to accomplish
this as speedily as possible, that two women for each of them shall
follow their scythes. On the part of the old man go his wife, a woman of
fifty, who has become unfit for work, having borne eleven children, who
is deaf, but still a tolerably stout worker; and a thirteen-year-old
daughter, who is short of stature, but a strong and clever girl. On the
part of his nephew go his wife, a woman as strong and well-grown as a
sturdy peasant, and his daughter-in-law, a soldier’s wife, who is about
to become a mother. On the part of the shoemaker go his wife, a stout
laborer, and her aged mother, who has reached her eightieth year, and who
generally goes begging. They all stand in line, and labor from morning
till night, in the full fervor of the June sun. It is steaming hot, and
rain threatens. Every hour of work is precious. It is a pity to tear
one’s self from work to fetch water or kvas. A tiny boy, the old woman’s
grandson, brings them water. The old woman, evidently only anxious lest
she shall be driven away from her work, will not let the rake out of her
hand, though it is evident that she can barely move, and only with
difficulty. The little boy, all bent over, and stepping gently, with his
tiny bare feet, drags along a jug of water, shifting it from hand to
hand, for it is heavier than he. The young girl flings over her shoulder
a load of hay which is also heavier than herself, advances a few steps,
halts, and drops it, without the strength to carry it. The old woman of
fifty rakes away without stopping, and with her kerchief awry she drags
the hay, breathing heavily and tottering. The old woman of eighty only
rakes the hay, but even this is beyond her strength; she slowly drags
along her feet, shod with bast shoes, and, frowning, she gazes gloomily
before her, like a seriously ill or dying person. The old man has
intentionally sent her farther away than the rest, to rake near the cocks
of hay, so that she may not keep in line with the others; but she does
not fall in with this arrangement, and she toils on as long as the others
do, with the same death-like, gloomy countenance. The sun is already
setting behind the forest; but the cocks are not yet all heaped together,
and much still remains to do. All feel that it is time to stop, but no
one speaks, waiting until the others shall say it. Finally the
shoemaker, conscious that his strength is exhausted, proposes to the old
man, to leave the cocks until the morrow; and the old man consents, and
the women instantly run for the garments, jugs, pitchforks; and the old
woman immediately sits down just where she has been standings and then
lies back with the same death-like look, staring straight in front of
her. But the women are going; and she rises with a groan, and drags
herself after them. And this will go on in July also, when the peasants,
without obtaining sufficient sleep, reap the oats by night, lest it
should fall, and the women rise gloomily to thresh out the straw for the
bands to tie the sheaves; when this old woman, already utterly cramped by
the labor of mowing, and the woman with child, and the young children,
injure themselves overworking and over-drinking; and when neither hands,
nor horses, nor carts will suffice to bring to the ricks that grain with
which all men are nourished, and millions of poods {165} of which are
daily required in Russia to keep people from perishing.
And we live as though there were no connection between the dying
laundress, the prostitute of fourteen years, the toilsome manufacture of
cigarettes by women, the strained, intolerable, insufficiently fed toil
of old women and children around us; we live as though there were no
connection between this and our own lives.
It seems to us, that suffering stands apart by itself, and our life apart
by itself. We read the description of the life of the Romans, and we
marvel at the inhumanity of those soulless Luculli, who satiated
themselves on viands and wines while the populace were dying with hunger.
We shake our heads, and we marvel at the savagery of our grandfathers,
who were serf-owners, supporters of household orchestras and theatres,
and of whole villages devoted to the care of their gardens; and we
wonder, from the heights of our grandeur, at their inhumanity. We read
the words of Isa. v. 8: “Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay
field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in
the midst of the earth! (11.) Woe unto them that rise up early in the
morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night,
till wine inflame them! (12.) And the harp and the viol, and tabret and
pipe, and wine are in their feasts; but they regard not the work of the
Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands. (18.) Woe unto them
that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a
cart-rope. (20.) Woe unto then that call evil good, and good evil; that
put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for
sweet, and sweet for bitter! (21.) Woe unto them that are wise in their
own eyes, and prudent in their own sight—(22.) Woe unto them that are
mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink.”
We read these words, and it seems to us that this has no reference to us.
We read in the Gospels (Matt. iii. 10): “And now also the axe is laid
unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth
good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.”
And we are fully convinced that the good tree which bringeth forth good
fruit is ourselves; and that these words are not spoken to us, but to
some other and wicked people.
We read the words of Isa. vi. 10: “Make the heart of this people fat, and
make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their
eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and
convert and be healed. (11.) Then said I: Lord, how long? And he
answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses
without man, and the land be utterly desolate.”
We read, and are fully convinced that this marvellous deed is not
performed on us, but on some other people. And because we see nothing it
is, that this marvellous deed is performed, and has been performed, on
us. We hear not, we see not, and we understand not with our heart. How
has this happened?
Whether that God, or that natural law by virtue of which men exist in the
world, has acted well or ill, yet the position of men in the world, ever
since we have known it, has been such, that naked people, without any
hair on their bodies, without lairs in which they could shelter
themselves, without food which they could find in the fields,—like
Robinson {167} on his island,—have all been reduced to the necessity of
constantly and unweariedly contending with nature in order to cover their
bodies, to make themselves clothing, to construct a roof over their
heads, and to earn their bread, that two or three times a day they may
satisfy their hunger and the hunger of their helpless children and of
their old people who cannot work.
Wherever, at whatever time, in whatever numbers we may have observed
people, whether in Europe, in America, in China, or in Russia, whether we
regard all humanity, or any small portion of it, in ancient times, in a
nomad state, or in our own times, with steam-engines and sewing-machines,
perfected agriculture, and electric lighting, we behold always one and
the same thing,—that man, toiling intensely and incessantly, is not able
to earn for himself and his little ones and his old people clothing,
shelter, and food; and that a considerable portion of mankind, as in
former times, so at the present day, perish through insufficiency of the
necessaries of life, and intolerable toil in the effort to obtain them.
Wherever we have, if we draw a circle round us of a hundred thousand, a
thousand, or ten versts, or of one verst, and examine into the lives of
the people comprehended within the limits of our circle, we shall see
within that circle prematurely-born children, old men, old women, women
in labor, sick and weak persons, who toil beyond their strength, and who
have not sufficient food and rest for life, and who therefore die before
their time. We shall see people in the flower of their age actually
slain by dangerous and injurious work.
We see that people have been struggling, ever since the world has
endured, with fearful effort, privation, and suffering, against this
universal want, and that they cannot overcome it . . . {168}
Footnotes
{21a} The fine, tall members of a regiment, selected and placed together
to form a showy squad.
{21b} [] Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition printed in
Russia, in the set of Count Tolstoï’s works.
{24a} Réaumur.
{24b} A drink made of water, honey, and laurel or salvia leaves, which
is drunk as tea, especially by the poorer classes.
{28} [] Omitted by the censor from the authorized edition published in
Russia in the set of count Tolstoi’s works. The omission is indicated
thus . . .
{39} _Kalatch_, a kind of roll: _baranki_, cracknels of fine flour.
{59} An _arshin_ is twenty-eight inches.
{60} A _myeshchanin_, or citizen, who pays only poll-tax and not a guild
tax.
{62} Omitted in authorized edition.
{66} Omitted by the censor in the authorized edition.
{94} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{96} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{99} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{108} Omitted by the Censor from the authorized edition.
{111} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{113} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition
{116} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{122a} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{122b} A very complicated sort of whist.
{122c} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{124} The whole of this chapter is omitted by the Censor in the
authorized edition, and is there represented by the following sentence:
“And I felt that in money, in money itself, in the possession of it,
there was something immoral; and I asked myself, What is money?”
{135} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{138} Omitted by the Censor in the authorized edition.
{139} The above passage is omitted in the authorized edition, and the
following is added: “I came to the simple and natural conclusion, that,
if I pity the tortured horse upon which I am riding, the first thing for
me to do is to alight, and to walk on my own feet.”
{140} Omitted in the authorized edition.
{142a} Omitted in the authorized edition.
{142b} Omitted in the authorized edition.
{152a} “Into a worse state,” in the authorized edition.
{152b} Omitted in the authorized edition.
{154} Omitted in the authorized edition.
{155} Réaumur.
{158} In the Moscow edition (authorized by the Censor), the concluding
paragraph is replaced by the following:—“They say: The action of a single
man is but a drop in the sea. A drop in the sea!
“There is an Indian legend relating how a man dropped a pearl into the
sea, and in order to recover it he took a bucket, and began to bail out,
and to pour the water on the shore. Thus he toiled without intermission,
and on the seventh day the spirit of the sea grew alarmed lest the man
should dip the sea dry, and so he brought him his pearl. If our social
evil of persecuting man were the sea, then that pearl which we have lost
is equivalent to devoting our lives to bailing out the sea of that evil.
The prince of this world will take fright, he will succumb more promptly
than did the spirit of the sea; but this social evil is not the sea, but
a foul cesspool, which we assiduously fill with our own uncleanness. All
that is required is for us to come to our senses, and to comprehend what
we are doing; to fall out of love with our own uncleanness,—in order that
that imaginary sea should dry away, and that we should come into
possession of that priceless pearl,—fraternal, humane life.”
{161a} An arshin is twenty-eight inches.
{161b} The fast extends from the 5th to the 30th of June, O.S. (June 27
to July 12, N.S.)
{165} A pood is thirty-six pounds.
{167} Robinson Crusoe.
{168} Here something has been omitted by the Censor, which I am unable
to supply.—TRANS.