As soon as Pahóm and his family arrived at their new abode, he applied for admission into the Commune of a large village. He stood treat to the Elders, and obtained the necessary documents. Five shares of Communal land were given him for his own and his sons' use: that is to say—125 acres (not all together, but in different fields) besides the use of the Communal pasture. Pahóm put up the buildings he needed, and bought cattle. Of the Communal land alone he had three times as much as at his former home, and the land was good corn-land. He was ten times better off than he had been. He had plenty of arable land and pasturage, and could keep as many head of cattle as he liked. Pahóm is thrilled. He is certain that he can cover a great distance and that he will have more land than he could have ever imagined. That night, Pahóm has a foreboding dream in which he sees himself lying dead at the feet of the Devil (who changes appearances – peasant, tradesman, chief of the Baskirs), who is laughing. Why should I suffer in this narrow hole, if one can live so well elsewhere? I will sell my land and my homestead here, and with the money I will start afresh over there and get everything new. In this crowded place one is always having trouble. But I must first go and find out all about it myself. Pahom, p. 10

He went on in the same way for three years; renting land and sowing wheat. The seasons turned out well and the crops were good, so that he began to lay money by. He might have gone on living contentedly, but he grew tired of having to rent other people's land every year, and having to scramble for it. Wherever there was good land to be had, the peasants would rush for it and it was taken up at once, so that unless you were sharp about it you got none. It happened in the third year that he and a dealer together rented a piece of pasture land from some peasants; and they had already plowed it up, when there was some dispute, and the peasants went to law about it, and things fell out so that the labor was all lost. So Pahóm was well contented, and everything would have been right if the neighboring peasants would only not have trespassed on his corn-fields and meadows. He appealed to them most civilly, but they still went on: now the Communal herdsmen would let the village cows stray into his meadows; then horses from the night pasture would get among his corn. Pahóm turned them out again and again, and forgave their owners, and for a long time he forbore from prosecuting any one. But at last he lost patience and complained ​to the District Court. He knew it was the peasants' want of land, and no evil intent on their part, that caused the trouble; but he thought: Ecological aspect - In today’s world, a world of overpopulation, dwindling natural resources, and the increasingly destructive affect that human activity has on the environment, we can raise the question of how the drive to acquire more and more wealth by the many individual’s and groups of individual’s affects the natural environment of which we are all part. In other words, we can point out that nobody acts in a vacuum, isolated from natural world. What we do has significant effect on the quality of our environment (air, water, land). We use up the earth’s resources and add to the waste that accumulates in our lands and oceans. When our contemporary Pahoms work to accumulate more and more wealth, are the needs of the earth and environment respected? Close to the village there lived a lady, a small landowner, who had an estate of about three hundred acres. She had always lived on good terms with the peasants, until she engaged as her steward an old soldier, who took to burdening the people with fines. However careful Pahom tried to be, it happened again and again that now a horse of his got among the lady's oats, now a cow strayed into her garden, now his calves found their way into her meadows-and he always had to pay a fine. If he had only cut one here and there it would have been bad enough,' thought Pahóm, 'but the rascal has actually cut down a whole clump. If I could only find out who did this, I would pay him out.'

Navigation menu

But there are different ways that we can interpret and react to the story. For example, w can take it in terms of its religious message, or in terms of a philosophical/ethical teaching, or maybe in terms of a teaching about social good. Today, we can even see it as making a point about our ecological awareness; and we can read it in the context of our consumer-driven economic system. What pleases me best here,' answered Pahóm, 'is your land. Our land is crowded, and the soil is exhausted; but you have plenty of land and it is good land. I never saw the like of it.' As soon as Pahom and his family arrived at their new abode, he applied for admission into the Commune of a large village. He stood treat to the Elders, and obtained the necessary documents. Five shares of Communal land were given him for his own and his sons' use: that is to say--125 acres (not altogether, but in different fields) besides the use of the Communal pasture. Pahom put up the buildings he needed, and bought cattle. Of the Communal land alone he had three times as much as at his former home, and the land was good corn-land. He was ten times better off than he had been. He had plenty of arable land and pasturage, and could keep as many head of cattle as he liked. I heard that a dealer had been here,' continued Pahóm, 'and that you gave him a little land, too, and ​signed title-deeds to that effect. I should like to have it done in the same way.' What Men Live By and Other Tales at Project Gutenberg - a collection including How Much Land Does a Man Need?

Enough? Yes, if you like to share with the pigs and the calves! What do you know of elegance or manners! However much your good man may slave, ​you will die as you are living—on a dung heap—and your children the same.' Look at that,' thought he, 'the land is all being sold, and I shall get none of it.' So he spoke to his wife. Having done this, Pahom chose out a farm of forty acres, some of it wooded, and went to the lady to bargain for it. They came to an agreement, and he shook hands with her upon it, and paid her a deposit in advance. Then they went to town and signed the deeds; he paying half the price down, and undertaking to pay the remainder within two years.

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.