Summery
How much land does a man need?
Leo Tolstoy
An elder sister from the city visits her younger sister, the
wife of a peasant farmer in the village. In the midst of their visit, the two
of them get into an argument about whether the city or the peasant lifestyle is
preferable. The elder sister suggests that city life boasts better clothes,
good things to eat and drink, and various entertainments, such as the theater.
The younger sister replies that though peasant life may be rough, she and her
husband are free, will always have enough to eat, and are not tempted by the
devil to indulge in such worldly pursuits.
Pahom, the husband of the younger sister, enters the debate and
suggests that the charm of the peasant life is that the peasant has no time to
let nonsense settle in his head. The one drawback of peasant life, he declares,
is that the peasant does not have enough land: “If I had plenty of land, I
shouldn’t fear the Devil himself!” The devil, overhearing this boast, decides
to give Pahom his wish, seducing him with the extra land that Pahom thinks will
give him security.
Pahom’s first opportunity to gain extra land comes when a lady
in the village decides to sell her three hundred acres. His fellow peasants try
to arrange the purchase for themselves as part of a commune, but the devil sows
discord among them and individual peasants begin to buy land. Pahom obtains
forty acres of his own. This pleases him initially, but soon neighboring
peasants allow their cows to stray into his meadows and their horses among his
corn, and he must seek justice from the district court. Not only does he fail
to receive recompense for the damages but also he ruins his reputation among
his former friends and neighbors; his extra land does not bring him security.
Hearing a rumor about more and better farmland elsewhere, he
decides to sell his land and move his family to a new location. There he
obtains 125 acres and is ten times better off than he was before, and he is
very pleased. However, he soon realizes that he could make a better profit with
more land on which to sow wheat. He makes a deal to obtain thirteen hundred
acres from a peasant in financial difficulty for one thousand rubles and has
all but clinched it when he hears a rumor about the land of the Bashkirs. There,
a tradesman tells him, a man can obtain land for less than a penny an acre,
simply by making friends with the chiefs.
Fueled by the desire for more, cheaper, and better land, Pahom
seeks directions for the land of the Bashkirs and leaves on a journey to obtain
the land that he thinks he needs. On arrival, he distributes gifts to the
Bashkir leaders and finds them courteous and friendly. He explains his reasons
for being there and, after some deliberation, they offer him whatever land he
wants for one thousand rubles. Pahom is pleased but concerned; he wants
boundaries, deeds, and “official sanction” to give him the assurance he needs
that they or their children will never reverse their decision.
The Bashkirs agree to this arrangement, and a deal is struck. Pahom
can have all the land that he can walk around in a day for one thousand rubles.
The one condition is that if he does not return on the same day to the spot at
which he began, the money will be lost. The night before his fateful walk,
Pahom plans his strategy; he will try to encircle thirty-five miles of land and
then sell the poorer land to peasants at a profit. When he awakes the next day,
he is met by the man whom he thought was the chief of the Bashkirs, but whom he
recognizes as the peasant who had come to his old home to tell him of lucrative
land deals available elsewhere. He looks again, and realizes that he is
speaking with the devil himself. He dismisses this meeting as merely a dream
and goes about his walk.
Pahom starts well, but he tries to encircle too much land, and
by midday he realizes that he has tried to create too big a circuit. Though
afraid of death, he knows that his only chance is to complete the circuit.
“There is plenty of land,” he says to himself, “but will God let me live on it?”
As the sun comes down, Pahom runs with all his remaining strength to the spot
where he began. Reaching it, he sees the chief laughing and holding his sides;
he remembers his dream and breathes his last breath. Pahom’s servant picks up
the spade with which Pahom had been marking his land and digs a grave in which
to bury him: “Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed.”
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