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                              THREE DAYS

                                IN THE

                                VILLAGE

                          AND OTHER SKETCHES


                                  BY

                              LEO TOLSTOY


                      These sketches are written
                       in the style of Tolstoy's
                    "Popular Stories and Legends,"
                          and give the reader
                     various glimpses into modern
                        village life in Russia


                          THE FREE AGE PRESS
                        Publisher: C. W. DANIEL
                     3 Amen Corner, London, E. C.




                       THREE DAYS IN THE VILLAGE

                        _And Other Sketches_




                       _No Rights Reserved_




                             THREE DAYS IN
                              THE VILLAGE


                         _And Other Sketches_
              _Written from September 1909 to July 1910_


                                  BY
                              LEO TOLSTOY


                   _Translated by_ L. _and_ A. MAUDE


                                LONDON
                          THE FREE AGE PRESS
                            (C. W. DANIEL)
                         3 AMEN CORNER, E. C.
                                 1910




                               CONTENTS


                                                 PAGE

  THREE DAYS IN THE VILLAGE--

       FIRST DAY--TRAMPS                            7

       SECOND DAY--THE LIVING AND THE DYING        20

       THIRD DAY--TAXES                            33

       CONCLUSION--A DREAM                         41

  SINGING IN THE VILLAGE                           55

  TRAVELLER AND PEASANT                            63

  A TALK WITH A WAYFARER                           75

  FROM THE DIARY                                   79




                       THREE DAYS IN THE VILLAGE


                              _FIRST DAY_

                                TRAMPS

Something entirely new, unseen and unheard-of formerly, has lately
shown itself in our country districts. To our village, consisting of
eighty homesteads, from half a dozen to a dozen cold, hungry, tattered
tramps come every day, wanting a night's lodging.

These people, ragged, half-naked, barefoot, often ill, and extremely
dirty, come into the village and go to the village policeman. That
they should not die in the street of hunger and exposure, he quarters
them on the inhabitants of the village, regarding only the peasants as
"inhabitants." He does not take them to the squire, who besides his own
ten rooms has ten other apartments: office, coachman's room, laundry,
servants' and upper-servants' hall and so on; nor does he take them to
the priest or deacon or shopkeeper, in whose houses, though not large,
there is still some spare room; but he takes them to the peasants,
whose whole family, wife, daughters-in-law, unmarried daughters, and
big and little children, all live in one room--sixteen, nineteen, or
twenty-three feet long. And the master of the hut takes the cold,
hungry, stinking, ragged, dirty man, and not merely gives him a night's
lodging, but feeds him as well.

"When you sit down to table yourself," an old peasant householder told
me, "it's impossible not to invite him too, or your own soul accepts
nothing. So one feeds him and gives him a drink of tea."

Those are the nightly visitors. But during the day, not two or three,
but ten or more such visitors call at each hut, and again it is: "Why,
it is impossible...," etc.

And for almost every tramp the housewife cuts a slice of bread, thinner
or thicker according to the man's appearance--though she knows her rye
will not last till next harvest.

"If you were to give to all who come, a loaf [the big peasant loaf of
black bread] would not last a day," some housewives said to me. "So
sometimes one hardens one's heart and refuses!"

And this goes on every day, all over Russia. An enormous
yearly-increasing army of beggars, <DW36>s, administrative exiles,
helpless old men, and above all unemployed workmen, lives--that is to
say, shelters itself from cold and wet--and is actually fed by the
hardest-worked and poorest class, the country peasants.

We have Workhouses,[1] Foundlings' Hospitals, Boards of Public Relief,
and all sorts of philanthropic organisations in our towns; and in all
those institutions, in buildings with electric light, parquet floors,
neat servants, and various well-paid attendants, thousands of helpless
people of all sorts are sheltered. But however many such there may
be, they are but a drop in the ocean of the enormous (unnumbered, but
certainly enormous) population which now tramps destitute over Russia,
and is sheltered and fed apart from any institutions, solely by the
village peasants whose own Christian feelings induce them to bear this
heavy and gigantic tax.

       [1] Not in the English sense, for there is no Poor-Law system
       entitling the destitute to demand maintenance.

Just think what people who are not peasants would say, if--even once
a week--such a shivering, starving, dirty, lousy tramp were placed in
each of their bedrooms! But the peasants not only house them, but feed
them and give them tea, because "one's own soul accepts nothing unless
one has them to table."

In the more remote parts of Sarátof, Tambóf, and other Provinces, the
peasants do not wait for the policeman to bring these tramps, but
always receive them and feed them of their own accord.

And, as is the case with all really good deeds, the peasants do this
without knowing that they are doing a good deed; and yet it is not
merely a good deed "for one's soul," but is of enormous importance
for the whole of Russian society. It is of such importance for Russian
society because, but for this peasant population and the Christian
feeling that lives so strongly in it, it is difficult to imagine
what the fate would be, not only of these hundreds of thousands
of unfortunate, houseless tramps, but of all the well-to-do--and