Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

and to do what I can, and I turn to the woman. She is thin and worn-out. I know her, and know that her husband is a drunkard, and that she has five children.

“They have seized my sheep! They come and say: ‘Pay the money!’ ‘My husband is away, working,’ I say. ‘Pay up!’ say they. But where am I to find it? I only had one sheep, and they are taking it!” And she begins to cry.

I promise to find out, and to help her if I can. First, I go to the Village Elder, to find out what the taxes are, and why they are collecting them so rigorously.

In the village street, two other petitioners stop me. Their husbands are away at work. One asks me to buy some of her home-woven linen, and offers it for two roubles. “Because they have seized my hens! I had just reared them, and live by selling the eggs. Do buy it; it is good linen! I would not let it go for three roubles if I were not in great need!”

I send her away, promising to consider matters when I return⁠—perhaps I may be able to arrange about the tax.

Before I reach the Elder’s house, a woman comes to meet me: a quick-eyed, black-eyed ex-pupil of mine⁠—Ólga, now already an old woman. She is in the same plight: they have seized her calf.

I come to the Elder. He is a strong, intelligent-looking peasant, with a grizzly beard. He comes out into the street to me. I ask him what taxes are being collected, and why so rigorously. He replies that he has had very strict orders to get in all arrears before the New Year.

“Have you had orders to confiscate samovars and cattle?”

“Of course!” replies the Village Elder, shrugging his shoulders. “The taxes must be paid.⁠ ⁠… Take Abakoúmof now, for instance,” said he, referring to the well-to-do peasant whose cow had been taken in payment of some Grain Reserve Fund. “His son is an isvóstchik: they have three horses. Why shouldn’t he pay? He’s always trying to get out of it.”

“Well, suppose it so in his case,” say I; “but how about those who are really poor?” And I name the old man whose samovar they are taking.

“Yes; they really are poor, and have nothing to pay with. But just as if such things get considered up there!”

I name the woman whose sheep was taken. The Elder is sorry for her too, but, as if excusing himself, explains that he must obey orders.

I inquire how long he has been an Elder, and what pay he gets.

“How much do I get?” he says, replying not to the question I ask, but to the question in my mind, which he guesses namely, why he takes part in such proceedings. “Well, I do want to resign! We get thirty roubles a month, but are obliged to do things that are wrong.”

“Well, and will they really confiscate the samovars and sheep and fowls?” I ask.

“Why, of course! We are bound to take them, and the District Government will arrange for their sale.”

“And will the things be sold?”

“The folk will manage to pay up somehow.”

I go to the woman who came to me about her sheep. Her hut is tiny, and in the passage outside is her only sheep, which is to go to support the Imperial Budget. Seeing me, she, a nervous woman worn out by want and overwork, begins to talk excitedly and rapidly, as peasant women do.

“See how I live! They’re taking my last sheep, and I myself and these brats are barely alive!” She points up at the bunks and the oven-top, where her children are. “Come down!⁠ ⁠… Now then, don’t be frightened!⁠ ⁠… There now, how’s one to keep oneself and them naked brats?”

The brats, almost literally naked, with nothing on but tattered shirts⁠—not even any trousers⁠—climb down from the oven and surround their mother.

The same day I go to the District Office, to make inquiries about this way of exacting taxation, which is new to me.

The District Elder is not in. He will be back soon. In the Office several persons are standing behind the grating, also waiting to see him.

I ask them who they are, and what they have come about. Two of them have come to get passports, in order to be able to go out to work at a distance. They have brought money to pay for the passports. Another has come to get a copy of the District Court’s decision rejecting his petition that the homestead⁠—where he has lived and worked for twenty-three years, and which has belonged to his uncle, who adopted him⁠—now that his uncle and aunt are dead, should not be taken from him by his uncle’s granddaughter. She, being the direct heiress, and taking advantage of the law of the 9th November, is selling the freehold of the land and homestead on which the petitioner lived. His petition has been rejected, but he cannot believe that this is the law, and wants to appeal to some higher court⁠—though he does not know what court. I explain that there is such a law, and this provokes disapproval, amounting to perplexity and incredulity, among all those who are present.

Hardly have I finished talking with this man, when a tall peasant with a stern, severe face asks me for an explanation of his affairs. The business he has come about is this: he and his fellow villagers have, from time immemorial, been getting iron ore from their land; and now a decree has been published prohibiting this. “Not dig on one’s own land? What laws are these? We only live by digging the iron! We have been trying for more than a month, and can’t get anything settled. We don’t know what to think of it; they’ll ruin us completely, and that will be the end of the matter!”

I can say nothing comforting to this man, and turn to the Elder⁠—who has just