Amidst fields there stands, surrounded by a wall, a foundry, with smoking chimneys, clattering chains, furnaces, a railway siding and scattered little houses of the managers and labourers. In this foundry and in the mines belonging to it the working people swarm like ants; some of them, in passages two hundred feet underground, are at work from morning until night, or from night until morning, mining the ore; others in the darkness, bending over, take this ore or clay to the shaft and take back empty cars, and again fill them, working for twelve or fourteen hours a day throughout the week.
In the foundry itself, some work at the furnace in an oppressive heat, others work at the trough of the melted ore and slag; others again, the engineers, stokers, smiths, brickmakers, carpenters, are at work in shops, also from twelve to fourteen hours a day throughout the week.
On Sunday all these men receive their wages, wash themselves, or sometimes even do not wash themselves, go to the inns and saloons which on all sides surround the foundry, and which entice the working people, and early on Monday morning they go back to their work.
Near this same foundry peasants plough somebody else’s field with lean, worn-out horses. These peasants get up with the dawn, if they have not passed the night in the pasture, that is, near a swamp, the only place where they can feed their horses; they get up with the dawn, come home, harness the horses, and, taking with them a slice of bread, go out to plough somebody else’s field.
Other peasants are sitting not far away from the foundry, on the highway, and, having made themselves a shield from matting, are breaking rock for the highway. The legs of these men are bruised, their hands are all calluses, their whole bodies are dirty, and not only their faces, hair and beards, but even their lungs are permeated with lime dust.
Taking a small unbroken stone from a heap, these men put it between the soles of their feet, which are covered with bast shoes and wrapped in rags, and strike this stone with a heavy mallet, until the stone breaks: when the stone has broken, they take the smaller parts and strike them until these are broken fine; and again they take whole stones, and again. – And thus these men work from early summer dawn until night – fifteen, sixteen hours, resting only for two hours after dinner, and twice, at breakfast and at noon, strengthening themselves with bread and water.
And thus do these men live in the mines and in the foundry, and the ploughmen, and the stone-breakers, from early youth until old age; and in similar work above their strength live their wives and their mothers, suffering from diseases of the womb; and thus live their fathers and their children, poorly fed, poorly dressed, doing work which is above their strength and ruins their health, from morning until evening, from childhood until old age.
And past the foundry, past the stone-breakers, past the ploughing peasants, meeting and overtaking ragged men and women with their wallets, who are wandering from place to place and begging in the name of Christ, there races a carriage, with tinkling bells, drawn by four matched chestnut horses of good height, the worst of which is worth the whole farm of any of the peasants who are admiring the four-in-hand. In the carriage are seated two ladies, displaying brightly coloured parasols, ribbons and hat feathers, each of which costs more than the horse with which a peasant ploughs his field; in the front seat sits an officer, shining in the sun with lace and buttons, and dressed in a freshly laundered blouse; on the box sits a ponderous coachman, in blue silk shirt-sleeves and velvet sleeveless coat. He came very near crushing some women pilgrims, and almost knocked a peasant, who, dressed in a dirty shirt, was jolting in his empty cart, into the ditch.
‘You see this?’ says the coachman, showing the whip to the peasant, who was not quick enough in turning aside, and the peasant with one hand pulls the rein and with the other timidly pulls his cap off his lousy head.
Back of the carriage, glinting in the sun with the nickel-plated parts of their machines, noiselessly race two men and one woman on bicycles, and they laugh merrily, as they overtake and frighten the wandering women, who make the sign of the cross.
On the side-path of the highway pass two riders – a man on an English cob, and a lady on an ambler. To say nothing of the cost of the horses and the saddles, the one black hat with the lilac veil cost two months’ work of the stone-breakers, and for the fashionable English whip as much was paid as in a week will be earned by that young lad, who is happy that he has hired out to work underground in the mine, and who is getting out of the way, while admiring the sleek forms of the horses and riders, and the fat, imported, immense dog in an expensive collar, which is running with protruding tongue back of them.
Not far from this company there travel in a cart a dressed-up, smiling maid, with curls, wearing a white apron, and a fat, ruddy man, with well-groomed side-whiskers, who is whispering something to the maid. In the cart may be seen a samovar, bundles in napkins, and an ice-cream freezer.
These are the servants of the people who are travelling in the carriage, on horseback and on bicycles. The present day is nothing out of the ordinary. Thus they live the whole summer, going out for pleasure almost every day, and at times, as now, taking with them tea, beverages and sweets, in order to eat and drink, not in the same, but in some new place.
These people are three families which are passing the summer in the country. One is the family of a proprietor, the owner of two thousand desyatinas of land, another that of an official, who receives a salary of three thousand roubles, and the third – the wealthiest family – the children of a manufacturer.
All these people are not in the least surprised or touched by the sight of all this poverty and hard labour by which they are surrounded. They think that all this must be so. They are interested in something quite different.
‘No, that is impossible,’ says the lady on horseback, looking back at the dog, ‘I cannot see that!’ and she stops the carriage. All talk together in French and laugh, and they put the dog into the carriage and proceed, covering the stone-breakers and the itinerants with clouds of lime dust.
And the carriage, the riders, the bicyclists have flashed by like beings from another world; and the people in the foundry, the stone-breakers, the ploughmen continue their hard, monotonous work for somebody else, which will end with their lives.
‘Some people have a fine time!’ they think, as they watch the travellers off. And their painful existence appears still more painful to them.
What is this? Have these labouring people done something very criminal that they are punished thus? Or is this the lot of all men? And have those who passed by in the carriages and on the bicycles done something particularly useful and important that they are thus rewarded? Not in the least! On the contrary, those who are working with such tension are for the most part moral, continent, modest, industrious people; while those who passed by are for the most part corrupted, lustful, impudent, idle people. This is so, because such a structure of life is considered natural and regular in the world of men who assert that they are professing Christ’s law of love of our neighbour, or that they are people of culture, that is, perfected people.
Such a structure exists, not only in that corner of Tula County, which presents itself vividly to me, because I frequently see it, but everywhere, not only in Russia – from St Petersburg to Batum – but also in France – from Paris to Auvergne – and in Italy – from Rome to Palermo – and in Germany, in Spain, in America, in Australia, and even in India and in China. Everywhere two or three people in a thousand live in such a way that, without doing anything for themselves, they in one day consume in food and drink as much as would support hundreds of people for a year; they wear clothes which cost thousands; live in palaces, where thousands of labouring people could find room; spend on their whims thousands of roubles and millions of work-days; others again, getting neither enough sleep nor enough food, work above their strength, ruining their bodily and their spiritual health for these few elect.
For one class of women, when they are about to bear children, they send for a midwife, a doctor, sometimes for two doctors for one lying-in woman, and their layettes contain a hundred baby-shirts and swaddling-clothes with silk ribbons, and they get ready little wagons swinging on springs; the other class of women, the vast majority, bear children in any chance place and in any chance manner, without aid, swaddle them in rags, put them into bast cradles on straw, and are glad when they die.
The children of one class, while the mother is lying in bed for nine days, are taken care of by the midwife, the nurse, the wet-nurse; the children of the other class are not taken care of, because there is no one to do so, and the mother herself gets up immediately after childbirth, makes the fires in the oven, milks the cow, and sometimes washes the clothes for herself, her husband and her children. One class of children grows up among toys, amusements and instructions; the other children at first crawl with their bared bellies over thresholds, become maimed, are eaten up by pigs, and at five years of age begin to work above their strength. The first are taught all the scientific wisdom which is adapted to their age; the others learn vulgar curses and the most savage of superstitions. The first fall in love, carry on love-affairs, and then marry, after they have experienced all the pleasures of love; the others are married off to those whom the parents choose, between the ages of sixteen and twenty years, for the purpose of receiving additional aid. The first eat and drink the best and the most expensive things in the world, feeding their dogs on white bread and beef; the second eat nothing but bread and kvas, nor do they get enough bread, and what they get is stale, so that they may not eat too much of it. The first change their fine underwear every day, so as not to get soiled; the second, who are constantly doing work for others, change their coarse, ragged, lousy underwear once in two weeks, or do not change it at all, but wear it until it falls to pieces. The first sleep between clean sheets, on feather beds; the second sleep on the ground, covering themselves with their tattered caftans.
The first drive out with well-fed horses, for no work, but simply for pleasure; the second work hard with ill-fed horses, and walk, if they have any business to attend to. The first wonder what to do, in order to occupy their leisure time; the second find no time to clean themselves, to wash, to take a rest, to say a word, to visit their relatives. The first read four languages and every day amuse themselves with the greatest variety of things; the second do not know how to read at all and know no other amusement than drunkenness. The first know everything and believe in nothing; the second know nothing and believe any nonsense that they are told. When the first get sick, they travel from place to place in search of the best curative air, to say nothing of all kinds of waters, every kind of attention, and every kind of cleanliness and medicine; the second lie down on the oven in a smoky hut, and with unwashed sores, and with the absence of any food but stale bread, and of all air but such as is infected by ten members of the family, and by the calves and sheep, rot alive and die before their time.
Must it be so?
If there is a higher reason and a love which guide the world, if there is a God, He cannot have wished to see such division among men, when one class of them do not know what to do with the surplus of their wealth and senselessly squander the fruit of the labours of other men, and the others grow sick and die before their time, or live an agonizing life, working above their strength.
If there is a God, this cannot and must not be. But if there is no God, such a structure of life, in which the majority of men must waste their lives, so that a small number of men may enjoy an abundance, which only corrupts this minority and weighs heavily upon it, is, from the simplest human point of view, insipid, because it is disadvantageous for all men.
[Translated by Leo Wiener]