Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/279

Rh (the skeptic Semka). Strange! Why do they have a different law and yet obey our Tsar?

The teacher feels the necessity of explaining what a law is, and he asks what it means to obey a law, to be under one law.

(the self-confident little domestic, hastily and timidly). To obey a law means—to get married!

The pupils look questioningly at the teacher:—Is that right?

The teacher begins to explain that a law means that if any one steals or kills, then he is shut up in prison and is punished.

But don't the Germans have this?

Law also means this, that we have nobles, peasants, merchants, clergy. (The word clergy—dukhovienstvo—gave rise to perplexity.)

And don't they have them there?

They have them in some countries, in others they don't. We have the Russian Tsar, and in German countries there is another—the German Tsar.

This answer satisfied all the pupils, even the skeptic Semka.

The teacher, seeing the necessity of explaining class distinctions, asks what classes they know.

The pupils try to enumerate them—the nobility, the peasantry, popes or priests, soldiers.

"Any others?" asks the teacher.

"Domestics, koziuki, samovar-makers."

The teacher asks the distinctions between these different classes.

The peasants plow; domestic servants serve; merchants trade ; samovarshchiki make samovars; popes perform masses; nobles do not do anything.

The teacher explains the actual differences between the classes, but finds it perfectly idle to make them see the necessity of soldiers when there is no war,—that it