Page:Tolstoy - A Great Iniquity.djvu/13

Rh of politicians—but the real expression of the will of the people.

It is this thought which I wish to communicate in this article to those who, at the present important moment for Russia, desire to serve not, their personal aims, but the true welfare of the Russian people.

The other day I was walking along the high road to Tula. It was on the Saturday of Holy Week; the people were driving to market in lines of carts, with calves, hens, horses, cows (some of the cows were being conveyed in the carts, so starved were they). A wrinkled old woman was leading a lean, sickly cow. I knew the old woman, and asked her why she was leading the cow.

“She’s without milk,” said the woman. “I ought to sell her and buy one with milk. Likely I’ll have to add ten roubles, but I have only five. Where shall I take it? During the winter we have had to spend eighteen roubles on flour, and we’ve only got one bread-winner. I live alone with my daughter-in-law and four grandchildren; my son is house-porter in town.”

“Why doesn’t your son live at home?” I asked.

“He’s nothing to work on. What’s our land? Just enough for Kvas.”ref>Kvas, a common Russian beverage prepared from black rye bread. (Trans).

A peasant went tramping along, thin and pale, his trousers bespattered with mine clay.

“What business in town?” I asked.

“To buy a horse; it’s time to plough and I haven’t got one. But they say horses are dear.”

“What price do you want to give?”