There Are No Guilty People / Leo Tolstoy

I

MINE is a strange and wonderful lot! The chances are that there is not a

single wretched beggar suffering under the luxury and oppression of the

rich who feels anything like as keenly as I do either the injustice,

the cruelty, and the horror of their oppression of and contempt for

the poor; or the grinding humiliation and misery which befall the great

majority of the workers, the real producers of all that makes life

possible. I have felt this for a long time, and as the years have

passed by the feeling has grown and grown, until recently it reached its

climax. Although I feel all this so vividly, I still live on amid the

depravity and sins of rich society; and I cannot leave it, because I

have neither the knowledge nor the strength to do so. I cannot. I do

not know how to change my life so that my physical needs--food, sleep,

clothing, my going to and fro--may be satisfied without a sense of shame

and wrongdoing in the position which I fill.

The Young Tsar / Leo Tolstoy

THE young Tsar had just ascended the throne. For five weeks he had

worked without ceasing, in the way that Tsars are accustomed to work. He

had been attending to reports, signing papers, receiving ambassadors and

high officials who came to be presented to him, and reviewing troops. He

was tired, and as a traveller exhausted by heat and thirst longs for a

draught of water and for rest, so he longed for a respite of just one

day at least from receptions, from speeches, from parades--a few free

hours to spend like an ordinary human being with his young, clever, and

beautiful wife, to whom he had been married only a month before.

The Repentant Sinner / Leo Tolstoy

'And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.'- Luke xxiii. 42, 43.

THERE was once a man who lived for seventy years in the world, and lived in sin all that time. He fell ill but even then did not repent. Only at the last moment, as he was dying, he wept and said:

The Imp and the Crust / Leo Tolstoy

A POOR peasant set out early one morning to plough, taking with him for his breakfast a crust of bread. He got his plough ready, wrapped the bread in his coat, put it under a bush, and set to work. After a while when his horse was tired and he was hungry, the peasant fixed the plough, let the horse loose to graze and went to get his coat and his breakfast.

The Godson / Leo Tolstoy

'Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil.'- Matthew. v. 38, 39.

'Vengeance is mine; I will repay.'- Romans. xii. 19.

A SON WAS BORN to a poor peasant. He was glad and went to his neighbour to ask him to stand godfather to the boy. The neighbour refused -- he did not like standing godfather to a poor man's child. The peasant asked another neighbour, but he too refused, and after that the poor father went to every house in the village, but found no one willing to be godfather to his son. So he set off to another village, and on the way he met a man who stopped and said:

The Empty Drum / Leo Tolstoy

(A FOLK-TALE LONG CURRENT IN THE REGION OF THE VOLGA)

EMELYÁN WAS a labourer and worked for a master. Crossing the meadows one day on his way to work, he nearly trod on a frog that jumped right in front of him, but he just managed to avoid it. Suddenly he heard some one calling to him from behind.

Emelyán looked round and saw a lovely lassie, who said to him: 'Why don't you get married, Emelyán?'

The Coffee-House of Surat / Leo Tolstoy

(After Bernardin de Saint-Pierre)

In the town of Surat, in India, was a coffee-house where many travellers

and foreigners from all parts of the world met and conversed.

One day a learned Persian theologian visited this coffee-house. He

was a man who had spent his life studying the nature of the Deity,

and reading and writing books upon the subject. He had thought,

read, and written so much about God, that eventually he lost his

wits, became quite confused, and ceased even to believe in the

existence of a God. The Shah, hearing of this, had banished him

from Persia.

The Candle / Leo Tolstoy

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye and a

     tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, That ye resist not

     evil."--ST. MATTHEW V. 38, 39.

It was in the time of serfdom--many years before Alexander II.'s

liberation of the sixty million serfs in 1862. In those days the people

were ruled by different kinds of lords. There were not a few who,

remembering God, treated their slaves in a humane manner, and not as

beasts of burden, while there were others who were seldom known to

perform a kind or generous action; but the most barbarous and tyrannical

of all were those former serfs who arose from the dirt and became

princes.

The Bear Hunt / Leo Tolstoy

[The adventure here narrated is one that happened to Tolstoy himself in 1858. More than twenty years later he gave up hunting, on humanitarian grounds.]

WE were out on a bear-hunting expedition. My comrade had shot at a bear, but only gave him a flesh-wound. There were traces of blood on the snow, but the bear had got away.

We all collected in a group in the forest, to decide whether we ought to go after the bear at once, or wait two or three days till he should settle down again. We asked the peasant bear-drivers whether it would be possible to get round the bear that day.

Polikushka ( The Lot of a Wicked Court Servant) / Leo Tolstoy

CHAPTER I.

Polikey was a court man--one of the staff of servants belonging to the court household of a boyarinia [lady of nobility].

He held a very insignificant position on the estate, and lived in a rather poor, small house with his wife and children.

The house was built by the deceased nobleman whose widow he still continued to serve, and may be described as follows: The four walls surrounding the one izba (room) were built of stone, and the interior was ten yards square. A Russian stove stood in the centre, around which was a free passage.

My Dream / Leo Tolstoy

"As a daughter she no longer exists for me. Can't you understand? She

simply doesn't exist. Still, I cannot possibly leave her to the charity

of strangers. I will arrange things so that she can live as she pleases,

but I do not wish to hear of her. Who would ever have thought . . . the

horror of it, the horror of it."

Little Girls Wiser Than Men / Leo Tolstoy

IT WAS AN EARLY EASTER. Sledging was only just over; snow still lay in the yards; and water ran in streams down the village street.

Two little girls from different houses happened to meet in a lane between two homesteads, where the dirty water after running through the farm-yards had formed a large puddle. One girl was very small, the other a little bigger. Their mothers had dressed them both in new frocks. The little one wore a blue frock the other a yellow print, and both had red kerchiefs on their heads. They had just come from church when they met, and first they showed each other their finery, and then they began to play. Soon the fancy took them to splash about in the water, and the smaller one was going to step into the puddle, shoes and all, when the elder checked her:

Ivan the Fool / Leo Tolstoy

CHAPTER I

In a certain kingdom there lived a rich peasant, who had three

sons--Simeon (a soldier), Tarras-Briukhan (fat man), and Ivan (a

fool)--and one daughter, Milania, born dumb. Simeon went to war, to

serve the Czar; Tarras went to a city and became a merchant; and Ivan,

with his sister, remained at home to work on the farm.

Ilyás / Leo Tolstoy

THERE ONCE LIVED, in the Government of Oufá a Bashkír named Ilyás. His father, who died a year after he had found his son a wife, did not leave him much property. Ilyás then had only seven mares, two cows, and about a score of sheep. He was a good manager, however, and soon began to acquire more. He and his wife worked from morn till night; rising earlier than others and going later to bed; and his possessions increased year by year. Living in this way, Ilyás little by little acquired great wealth. At the end of thirty-five years he had 200 horses, 150 head of cattle, and 1,200 sheep. Hired labourers tended his flocks and herds, and hired women milked his mares and cows, and made kumiss (Kumiss (or more properly koumys) is a fermented drink prepared from mare's milk), butter and cheese. Ilyás had abundance of everything, and every one in the district envied him. They said of him:

How Much Land Does a Man Need? / Leo Tolstoy

I

An elder sister came to visit her younger sister in the country.

The elder was married to a tradesman in town, the younger to a

peasant in the village. As the sisters sat over their tea talking,

the elder began to boast of the advantages of town life: saying how

comfortably they lived there, how well they dressed, what fine

clothes her children wore, what good things they ate and drank, and

how she went to the theatre, promenades, and entertainments.

God Sees the Truth, But Waits / Leo Tolstoy

In the town of Vladimir lived a young merchant named Ivan Dmitrich Aksionov. He had two shops and a house of his own.

Aksionov was a handsome, fair-haired, curly-headed fellow, full of fun, and very fond of singing. When quite a young man he had been given to drink, and was riotous when he had had too much; but after he married he gave up drinking, except now and then.

One summer Aksionov was going to the Nizhny Fair, and as he bade good-bye to his family, his wife said to him, "Ivan Dmitrich, do not start to-day; I have had a bad dream about you."

Evil Allures, But God Endures / Leo Tolstoy

THERE LIVED IN OLDEN TIMES a good and kindly man. He had this world's goods in abundance, and many slaves to serve him. And the slaves prided themselves on their master, saying:

'There is no better lord than ours under the sun. He feeds and clothes us well, and gives us work suited to our strength. He bears no malice and never speaks a harsh word to any one. He is not like other masters, who treat their slaves worse than cattle: punishing them whether they deserve it or not, and never giving them a friendly word. He wishes us well, does good, and speaks kindly to us. We do not wish for a better life.'

Esarhaddon, King of Assyria / Leo Tolstoy

(In this story Tolstoy has used the names of real people.

Esarhaddon (or Assur-akhi-iddina) is mentioned three times in the Bible ( 2 Kings xix. 37; Isaiah xxxvii. 38, and Ezra iv. 2), and is also alluded to in 2 Chron. xxiii. 11, as, 'the King of Assyria, which took Manasseh in chains, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon.' His son Assur-bani-pal, whom he promoted to power before his own death, is once mentioned in the Bible, under the name of Asnapper ( Ezra iv. 10). Of Lailie history does not tell us much; but in Ernest A. Budge's History of Esarhaddon we read: 'A King, called Lailie, asked that the gods which Esarhaddon had captured from him might be restored. His request was granted, and Esarhaddon said, "I spoke to him of brotherhood, and entrusted to him the sovereignty of the districts of Bazu.")

THE Assyrian King, Esarhaddon, had conquered the kingdom of King Lailie, had destroyed and burnt the towns, taken all the inhabitants captive to his own country, slaughtered the warriors, beheaded some chieftains and impaled or flayed others, and had confined King Lailie himself in a cage.

An Old Acquaintance / Leo Tolstoy

(Prince Nekhiludof Relates how, during an Expedition in the Caucasus, he met an Acquaintance from Moscow)

Our division had been out in the field. The work in hand was accomplished: we had cut a way through the forest, and each day we were expecting from headquarters orders for our return to the fort. Our division of fieldpieces was stationed at the top of a steep mountain- crest which was terminated by the swift mountain-river Mechik, and had to command the plain that stretched before us. Here and there on this picturesque plain, out of the reach of gunshot, now and then, especially at evening, groups of mounted mountaineers showed themselves, attracted by curiosity to ride up and view the Russian camp.

Alyosha the Pot / Leo Tolstoy

ALYOSHA was the younger brother. He was called the Pot, because his

mother had once sent him with a pot of milk to the deacon's wife, and he

had stumbled against something and broken it. His mother had beaten him,

and the children had teased him. Since then he was nicknamed the Pot.

Alyosha was a tiny, thin little fellow, with ears like wings, and a huge

nose. "Alyosha has a nose that looks like a dog on a hill!" the children

used to call after him. Alyosha went to the village school, but was not

good at lessons; besides, there was so little time to learn. His elder

brother was in town, working for a merchant, so Alyosha had to help his

father from a very early age. When he was no more than six he used to

go out with the girls to watch the cows and sheep in the pasture, and

a little later he looked after the horses by day and by night.