Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/583

Rh a knife, sharpened it on the edge of the table, and answered that they were free on holidays. The live ram was lying as quietly as the dead inflated one, except that it was briskly wagging its short little tail, and its sides were heaving more quickly than usual. The soldier pressed down its uplifted head gently, without effort; the butcher, still continuing the conversation, grasped with his left hand the head of the ram, and cut its throat. The ram quivered, and the little tail stiffened and ceased to wave. The fellow, while waiting for the blood to flow, began to relight his cigarette, which had gone out. The blood flowed, and the ram began to writhe. The conversation continued without the slightest interruption.

And how about those hens and chickens which daily, in thousands of kitchens, with their heads cut off and streaming with blood, comically, dreadfully flop about, jerking their wings.

And you will see a kind, refined lady devour the carcasses of these animals, with full assurance that she is doing right, at the same time asserting two propositions, each of which bars out the other:

First, that she is, as her doctor assures her, so delicate that she cannot be sustained by vegetable food alone, and that for her feeble organism flesh food is indispensable; and secondly, that she is so sensitive that she is unable, not only herself to inflict suffering on animals, but even to bear the sight of suffering.

The truth of the matter is, she is weak, this poor lady, precisely because she has been taught to live upon food unnatural to man; and she cannot avoid causing suffering to animals, because she devours them.

cannot pretend that we do not know this. We are not ostriches, and cannot believe that if we refuse to look at that which we do not wish to see it will not exist. This is especially the case when what we do not