How Much Land Does a Man Need?
Pahom, a peasant, believes that with enough land he would fear nothing, not even the Devil. Then he hears of a place where you can buy all the land you can walk around in a single day. By Leo Tolstoy (1886), translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude. A public-domain classic.
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How it begins An elder sister came to visit her younger sister in the country. The elder was married to a tradesman in town, the younger to a peasant in the village. As the sisters sat over their tea talking, the elder began to boast of the advantages of town life: saying how comfortably they lived there, how well they dressed, what fine clothes her children wore, what good things they ate and drank, and how she went to the theatre, promenades, and entertainments.The younger sister was piqued, and in turn disparaged the life of a tradesman, and stood up for that of a peasant. Keep reading →About this story
Pahom, a peasant farmer, says that if he only had enough land he would not be afraid even of the devil. Then he gets more, and a little more after that, and each purchase makes him want the next. One day he hears about a place where land is nearly free, and he goes to look.
Leo Tolstoy published this story in 1886, when he had already written War and Peace and Anna Karenina and was turning towards short moral tales for ordinary readers. It reads like a parable, with a clear question in the title and an answer that comes, famously, in the last paragraph.
- Themes
- Greed, enough, ambition, a life’s real cost
- Good for
- A short moral story; discussion about money and contentment
- Worth noticing
- How each new purchase is justified, and how it is always only a little more.