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 SUPPRESSED BOOK 
 
 ASANT BONDAREFF. 
 
 LABOR. 
 
 frERt)ICTED BY THE CZAR OF RUSSIA. 
 
 Made known, Augmented, and Edited 
 BY 
 
 NT LYOF TOLSTOI, 
 
 Aui'wr of " The Kreutzer Sonata" "■Anna Karenina," 
 t "War and Peac" ' My Religion," etc. 
 
 TRANSLATED l,Y 
 
 MISS MARY CRUGER. 
 
 
 X 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 'LLARD PUBLISHING* COMPANY, 
 
 No. 18 BARCLAY STREET. 
 
 the Post Office in New York as second-class matter. 
 
 August I, rSgo. 
 
■I 
 
__ LABOR! ^_ „■ 
 
 THEDfflNE COM^MAND. 
 
 /•   
 
 MADE KNOWN, AUGMENTED AND EDITED 
 
 COUNT LYOF TOLSTOI. 
 
 AVTHOR OF " THE KRRUTZKR SONATA," 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 MARY CRUGER, 
 
 INTERDICTED BY THE. CZAR OF RUSSIA. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 THE POLLARD PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 13 BARCLAY STREET. 
 1890. 
 
Copyright, 1890, 
 
 BT 
 
 THE POLLARD PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 
 Labor : The Divine Command. 
 
ri- 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction, by the French translator, 5 
 
 Of What Labor Consists, 5 
 
 The peasant Bondareff Inspired the Social Theories of Tol- 
 stoi. -=^The Two Laws of Humanity: that of Manual 
 Labor for Men, that of Motherhood for Women. — 
 Tolstoi's Review of Bondareff. — The Bible and the 
 
 Gospel 13 
 
 How the Theory of Manual Labor should be Interpreted. — 
 The Working of the Land, a Remedy for Social Evils. 
 — Extent and Consequences of this Theory, . . .17 
 The Book of Bondareff. —Remarks on its Translation, . . 18 
 
 LABOR, BY LYOF TOLSTOI AND TIMOTHY 
 BONDAREFF. 
 
 First Part. 
 Labor and Bondareflf's Theory, by Count Lyof Tolstoi, . 19 
 
 Sfxond Part. 
 
 Labor, According to the Bible, by the peasant Bondareff. 42 
 I. Introduction. — Life of Bondareff. — Object of His 
 
 Work 42 
 
 II. Labor According to the Bible, 46 
 
 Appendices. 
 
 Love and Labor, . , 134 
 
 Bondareff's Will 157 
 
 387836 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Of what Labor consists : 
 
 The peasant Bondareff inspired the social 
 theories of Tolstoi', — the two laws of humanity, 
 that of manual labor for men, that of mother- 
 hood for women. 
 
 Tolstoi's review of Bondareff. 
 
 The Bible and the Gospel. 
 
 How the theory of manual labor should be in- 
 terpreted. The working of the land : a remedy 
 for social evils. Extent and consequences of 
 this theory. 
 
 The book of Bondareff. Remarks on its 
 translation. 
 
 Labor is the work of Count Lyof Tolstoi' and 
 of the peasant Timothy Bondareff. But it is 
 not, properly speaking, a collaboration. The 
 book is in fact composed of two different 
 studies, which are as two parts of one book : 
 one by Lyof Tolstoi, entitled The Work and Theory 
 of Bondareff, which serves as introduction tc ^h" 
 
 5 
 
6 Labor. 
 
 other, which is by Bondareff, and is entitled 
 Labor, by the peasant Bondareff. 
 
 Labor is composed of three principal chapters, 
 which we have entitled : 
 
 I. Introduction. Life of Bondareff. Object 
 of his work. 
 
 II. Labor according to the Bible. 
 
 III. Appendices. Love and Labor. Bonda- 
 reff's Will. 
 
 Bondareff is a peasant of the district of 
 Manoussinsk. He belongs to that class, so 
 numerous in Russia, which seeks for truth in 
 holy books. But while many know only the 
 Gospels, Bondareff, who belongs to the sect of 
 Sabbatists, read the whole Bible. Scarcely able 
 to spell, he puzzled out each verse, believing 
 from the outset to have discovered here the 
 solution of all social questions. He found for- 
 mulated in Genesis the essential law for man 
 in the obligation of manual labor. Persuaded 
 that salvation depends on labor, he learned to 
 write that he might make known what he con- 
 sidered to be the truth of truths. At the age 
 of sixty-five years he composed an essay in 
 which, under the form of biblical verses, he un- 
 dertook to show that tilling the earth is the 
 highest of all labors. He overcame all the dif- 
 ficulties arising from his ignorance and his ad- 
 vanced age. Working all day in the fields, and 
 devoting the hours of night to his writing, he 
 accomplished after several jears the project he 
 had conceived. But the manuscript sent to the 
 
Labor. 7 
 
 Czar, in the form of a request, was rejected, and 
 its printing was forbidden by the authorities. 
 
 In the meantime, in 1885, Bondareff became 
 known to Tolstoi, whose renown was already 
 great among the people. Struck by the pro- 
 found truth of the peasant's theories, the author 
 of My Religion introduced into his own life the 
 reform that Bondareff had preached ; he set 
 himself to follow the plough, to use the awl, 
 and. in a word, to work with his hands. Till 
 then he had had but glimpses of these reforms, 
 without professing them openly.* The truth 
 only appeared to him in all its brightness, when 
 Bondareff placed before him his manuscript. 
 He then developed BondarefT's views, while 
 modifying them and giving them a wider and 
 more profound meaning, in his great works. 
 What is my Life ? (of which the true title is, 
 What then must be done ?)-\ and What should be 
 done, which is the answer to the first, and forms 
 with it one complete work.;}: 
 
 * See, in War and Peace, the reflections of Pierre Bezon- 
 chof and of Leonie. Consult also, Anna KarMine and Aly 
 Confession. 
 
 f What is my Life? translated by Gatzouk and Em. Pages. 
 One volume. Illustrated Library, 1888. 
 
 X Tolstoi was familiar with the work of Bondareff, before 
 writing W hat is my Life ? and What should be done. Besides 
 the many other points of resemblance that they display, we 
 give here a passage from What is tny Life? (page 164,) where 
 Tolstoi makes evident allusion to Bondareff. "Wealth," says 
 Tolstoi, " is but slavery; it has the same object and like results. 
 Its object is to free man from the primordial law, according to the 
 
8 Labor. 
 
 In 1888, to show that the ideas of which he 
 made himself the apostle were not illusive 
 dreams, or the conceptions of a paradoxical 
 mind, Tolstoi himself edited in Russian Wealth * 
 Bondareff's book, whose publication had been 
 forbidden. On this occasion he wrote a pro- 
 found essay on the work and theory of Bonda- 
 reff, which we publish herewith together with 
 Bondareff's own production. 
 
 The principal reason for presenting to the 
 world a translation of Labor is that it possesses 
 great value, not only as showing Tolstoi's own 
 views, but as displaying the great intelligence 
 belonging to the reform that he advocated. 
 Bondareff's work is the simple but profound 
 effort of an uneducated peasant, who stammer- 
 ingly proclaimed in 188 1 the great reform of 
 which Tolstoi" subsequently became the cham- 
 pion and herald. 
 
 I. 
 
 Between the doctrine of the peasant Bon- 
 dareff and that of the noble Lyof Tolstoi 
 exists a strong and remarkable resemblance. 
 Tolstoi, as we have said, knew Bondareff ; he 
 
 expression of a popular writer, or the natural law of life as we 
 call it. This law prescribes to each of us personal labor as the 
 means of existence." — " The popular writer " of whom Tolstoi 
 speaks is no other than Bondareff, who, as we shall see, bases 
 manual labor on the primitive or primordial law : " In the 
 sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread." 
 
 *A journal published under the direction of M. Obolonski. 
 
Labor. 9 
 
 had questioned him on the idea he had con- 
 ceived that labor was a social remedy ; he had 
 read his work, and had also edited it. Bonda- 
 reif had thus been theinspirer of Tolstoi's social 
 theories, as the sectary Soutaief inspired his re- 
 ligious beliefs.* 
 
 We shall find in Tolstoi's last philosophic work, 
 What should be done, his ideas on social reform. 
 
 Every man should by the work of his hands 
 support himself and his family. Every woman 
 should nourish and educate her own children. 
 To man, according to the Bible, God gave the 
 law of manual labor, to woman that of mother- 
 hood. To violate these laws is death. But 
 while to man disobedience to his own duty 
 would be followed by speedy death, for woman 
 the punishment comes more slowly. But the 
 violation of both laws would lead ultimately to 
 the annihilation of humanity. 
 
 But for a long time men have disregarded the 
 law of labor. For a long time certain classes 
 have oppressed others, and at this day the 
 breaking of the law is pushed to the verge of 
 folly. Do we not see Renan and others filled 
 with the vain dream that one day machinery 
 will accomplish all sorts of labor, while men 
 will become but " bundles of enjoying nerves" ? 
 
 While men so transgress their law, women 
 usually obey theirs. Thus, according to Tol- 
 
 * Under the heads of tolstoism and soutaievism , see in the 
 Revue des Deux-Mondes of September 15, 1888, a masterly es- 
 say by M. Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu. 
 
lo Labor. 
 
 stoi, women are stronger than men, arid to them 
 men owe the hope of becoming- in the future 
 more faithful to primitive law. Still a mother 
 who disregards her maternal duties, and finds 
 all her pleasure in luxury and worldly enjoy- 
 ments, will bring up her children to false ideas, 
 and will teach them to neglect, the duty of la- 
 bor, by usurping the fruits of others' exertions. 
 On the contrary, the faithful parent would in- 
 struct her children that labor is necessary to 
 life. 
 
 We can compare these ideas with those ex- 
 pressed by Bondareff in the first paragraphs of 
 Labor according to the Bible. Bondareff inter- 
 prets the account given in Genesis as meaning 
 that Adam was punished for eating the for- 
 bidden fruit, that is, for taking the fruits of oth- 
 ers' labor. He was condemned to seek his 
 own food, "to knead his bread," to use Bonda- 
 reff's expression, by the sweat of his face.* 
 
 It is by manual labor and above all by till- 
 ing the ground, and not by the merits of Christ, 
 not by sacraments or other virtues, that Adam 
 was to save his soul from hell. His descend- 
 ants have inherited with original sin the obli- 
 gation to labor for their redemption. The 
 penance inflicted on Adam by Jehovah is not 
 allegorical. That of Eve, " In sorrow shalt thou 
 bring forth children," must be taken literally. 
 Thus, on one side, man must procure by the 
 
 * It is shown by note on page 21 how this mode of inter- 
 preting the Bible can be justified. 
 
Labor. 1 1 
 
 labor of his hands the bread necessary for his 
 own subsistence and for that of his wife and 
 children ; on the other, woman must acquit her- 
 self of all the duties of motherhood. Neither 
 one nor the other can evade their respective 
 obligations. 
 
 It is from Labor according to the Bible that 
 Tolstoi has taken the leading idea which he has 
 given in What is tny Life ? and What should be 
 done. But while Bondareff claims that the 
 law of labor and that of motherhood are the 
 effects of a divine malediction, Tolstoi protests 
 energetically against that notion. What we 
 find in the verses of Genesis cited by Bondareff, 
 and on which he rests his theory, is this : God 
 said to Adam, "In the sweat of thy face shaft 
 thou eat bread ;" and to Eve, " In sorrow shalt 
 thou bring forth children." * But according to 
 Tolstoi it is an error to believe labor is a curse ; 
 and to this error he attributes man's efforts to 
 evade the law and to usurp the fruits of others' 
 work. He ceases not to proclaim that labor is 
 not a sorrow but a joy. Neither is motherhood 
 a curse. It is a sacred and imperative dutv ; 
 but it is also a joy, and an utter satisfaction. 
 
 Tolstoi thus arrives at the same conclusions 
 with Bondareff, but from a different standpoint. 
 That is, he opposes the Gospel to the Bible. 
 He even claims to find in the Christian precept 
 
 * It is remarkable that the Talmud also teaches that every 
 man should have a manual profession, and the Sanhedrim de 
 clares that labor is ordained by the law of Moses. 
 
tj Labor. 
 
 of l<>vc and charity the law of manual labor. 
 As he says so eloquently on page 36 : " The 
 man who professes, not only by words but by 
 actions, the doctrines of truth and love, will 
 not deceive himself as to the object of his life. 
 Never would the man whose idea of existence 
 is to serve others imagine that he can help 
 those who are dying of jcold and hunger by 
 making new laws, by casting cannon, working 
 on objects of luxury, or by playing on the piano 
 or violin. Love cannot be so foolish." 
 
 Though disagreeing on this point, BondarefT 
 and Tolstoi unite in proclaiming that manual 
 labor is not only man's duty, but that it is also 
 the most excellent moral remedy, and an effica- 
 cious agent for salvation. Bondareff has show n 
 Tolstoi how tilling the ground (which he so ex- 
 pressively calls " labor for bread ") is the primi- 
 tive occupation to which all men should apply 
 themselves, and by which they should live. A 
 man should not attempt secondary tasks till he 
 has worked in the ground for forty days. In 
 this way a man can nourish, clothe, lodge, and 
 shelter himself without needing aid from others. 
 
 Both BondarefT and Tolstoi arrive at the con- 
 clusion that physical labor does not exclude in- 
 tellectual activity, but, on the contrary, they 
 hold that it augments the mind's dignity and 
 power. 
 
 Thus Labor shows us that what Tolstoi has 
 taught, Bondareff had previously put in prac- 
 tice. If we compare What should be done, with 
 
Labor. 1 3 
 
 jMbor, we shall see that Tolstoi's theories are the 
 same as Bondareff's. Without doubt the philo- 
 sophic novelist has his own originality of ideas; 
 but it is not the less true that he found the first 
 outlines of his doctrine in Bondareff's book. 
 And is it not an admirable spectacle to behold 
 this great genius, the celebrated author of War 
 and Peace ^ seeking in the home of the humble 
 peasant the word of life, the magic formula 
 which permits us to construct here below the 
 heavenly Jerusalem of which we all dream? 
 
 II. 
 
 Labor does not only show us how, under Bon- 
 dareff's influence, Tolstoi's ideas on the social 
 reform to be produced by physical labor are 
 developed, but it enables us to comprehend 
 more clearly how this theory and its conse- 
 quences are only now arrived at. 
 
 What have they not said of Tolstoi, as laborer 
 and shoemaker ? A recent letter says : " Tol- 
 stoi's compatriots fail somewhat in respect to- 
 wards this grand old man. From them comes 
 the £tory of his learning the trade of shoemak- 
 ing. We see this nobleman established in a 
 shop, and we hesitate whether to admire or pity 
 him. We should do neither. He does not 
 make the trade his condition of life, but only a 
 distraction, seeking a mental repose in manual 
 exercise. Others make arms or weights ; he 
 
14 Labor. 
 
 has a horror of useless efforts, and prefers to 
 make shoes." 
 
 But this is far from being- the spirit of 
 the doctrine of Tolstoi and Bondareff. Physi- 
 cal labor is with them the highest duty, the 
 essential character of man, and the true, the 
 only mode of life. Without doubt, one must 
 work to maintain the equilibrium between mind 
 and body, but that is not the motive which led 
 Tolstoi to the plough and the shoemaker's 
 bench. He does not hold strongly the argu- 
 ments of Jean-Jacques in favor of bodily labor. 
 We must work with our hands because life con- 
 sists in a battle with nature for the means of. 
 existence, and physical labor is the law of life. 
 Man finds in the accomplishment of this duty a 
 complete satisfaction for his bodil)'^ as well as 
 his spiritual needs. To nourish, clothe, and 
 care for himself and his family satisfies his 
 bodily wants. To nourish, clothe, and care for 
 others becomes a spiritual duty. No form of 
 activity is legitimate that does not seek to 
 gratify the primitive wants of man, for in these 
 rests his very life. 
 
 Let us go further. Tolstoi is an idealist. Na- 
 ture is what we ourselves make it. Nature in 
 its true form is Mind, and the universal Mind is 
 far above the individual personaility. Let us rec- 
 ognize individuality as an illusion, and that we 
 are working at an infinite task, which is infinitely 
 beyond us. To put aside our personality and 
 follow the path of renunciation and self-abnega- 
 
• Labor. 15 
 
 tion should be our rule of life. Now, the ac- 
 tion in which this idea clothes itself, that in 
 which it takes form, is labor, the secular task 
 that unites all generations of men and makes 
 of the universe a completed harmony, a single 
 being accomplishing a single work.* 
 
 Conse.iuent upon this theory of labor is the 
 belief in the possibility of a paradise in this 
 world, and also a contempt for mere industrial 
 work, the condemnation of commerce, and a 
 hatred of cities, which he calls " truly impure 
 Babylons." We must, says Tolstoi, abandon the 
 cities where there are but consumers and not 
 producers, and renounce those habits of city life 
 which, far from constituting progress, are but 
 the worst forms of corruption. 
 
 Again, in adopting this theory of manual 
 labor, the problem of pauperism will be readily 
 solved ; we need but to scatter the poor of the 
 cities among the peasants of the country. How, 
 asks TolstoT, can we leave the village, where 
 we are surrounded by fields, by forests, by 
 grain and herds of cattle, in a word by all the 
 riches of the earth, to seek nourishment where 
 only dust and stones are to be found ? f 
 
 Live by the work of your hands, " labor for 
 bread," thus Tolstoi and Bondareff advise those 
 who seek a remedy for social evils, and whose 
 
 * See Leon Tolstoi's book entitled Of Life, one volume, 
 published by C. Marpon and E. Flammarion, 
 f What is my Life ? p. III. 
 
1 6 Labor. 
 
 hearts are full of love for humanity and the 
 sentiment of justice. 
 
 TolstoY adds that if there were one, two, three, 
 or ten men, who, without entering upon any 
 personal conflict, without troubling the govern- 
 ment, or resorting to revolutionary violence, 
 should solve for themselves this great ques- 
 tion which divides the world, it would result in 
 other men's seeing true happiness within their 
 reach ; and the hitherto irreconcilable antipa- 
 thies between conscience and the organization of 
 society would be settled by phj^sical labor. Cruel 
 inequalities would disappear, and it would be as 
 though heaven had descended upon earth. 
 
 Science, Political Economy, and all exterior 
 means are powerless to dispel this evil. The 
 only remedy is in an individual moral reform, 
 based upon charity and manual labor. Human- 
 ity can change only with the individual's re- 
 form. The whole social question is one of 
 morality. To an honest man social reform must 
 come from within. If each of us should avoid 
 sin and cultivate fraternity and Christian charity, 
 there would soon be no need of soldiers, con- 
 stables, or judges. 
 
 Does not this offer an original and powerful 
 incentive to reform society and to save the 
 human race ? Is not the reform that Tolstoi' 
 advocates possible ? He only can doubt it who 
 has not comprehended the true doctrine of 
 Christ, which teaches the renunciation of indi- 
 
Labor. i J 
 
 vidual life and admits no immortality except 
 that of humanity. 
 
 III. 
 
 We have endeavored in few words to por- 
 tray and to compare the doctrines of Tolstoi 
 and Bondareff. We have shown their tendency 
 and their social results. We have but to add a 
 comment on Bondarefi's own book. 
 
 Its perusal is highly interesting and sugges- 
 tive. We find in this peasant a profoundness of 
 thought united with great simplicity of charac- 
 ter. Doubtless his ideas are not always ex- 
 pressed with sufficient clearness, which is due 
 to the biblical style he has adopted. But this 
 difficulty is easily surmounted, if we read with 
 due attention. 
 
 We have endeavored to give his language as 
 precisely and exactly as possible, leaving un- 
 touched the style of speech familiar to the Rus- 
 sian peasants, who are indefatigable readers of 
 the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 We have sought to explain by notes every 
 serious difficulty that occurred, and to illustrate 
 the texts of Tolstoi and of Bondareff by com- 
 paring them with each other. 
 
 * 
 
 I owe thanks to my brother, M. Emile Pag^s, 
 who has already translated a work of TolstoiN 
 ( What is my Life ? one volume, Illustrated L 
 
1 8 Labor. 
 
 brary), and who will soon publish Wealth and 
 Literature by the author of My Religion, as well 
 as an essay on his life and works. In 1888 he 
 visited the great Russian author at Moscow, 
 and received from him the manuscript of Labor, 
 whose translation he entrusted to me, being too 
 much occupied to attempt it himself. That 
 Lyof Tolstoi and the peasant Bondareff may 
 recognize their work as we have translated it 
 will be the best reward of our efforts. 
 
 Amedee Pages. 
 
LABOR. 
 
 LABOR, AND BONDAREFF'S THEORY. 
 
 BY COUNT LYOF TOLSTOI. 
 
 The work which I now offer to the public is 
 by Timothy Michailovitch Bondareff. I have 
 made no change in it, except to substitute for 
 Bondareff's peculiar orthography one more 
 generally used in books. 
 
 One other difference consists in m)'' division 
 of the work in two parts; reserving under the 
 title of Appendices all that seemed to be a 
 repetition of or digression from the principal 
 subject. 
 
 This work is, in my opinion, remarkable for 
 its force and clearness, the beauty of its lan- 
 guage, the sincerity of conviction which each 
 line betrays, and, above all, the importance, the 
 truth, and the profundity of its fundamental 
 idea. 
 
 The master-thought of the book is this: Un- 
 
 19 
 
20 Labor. 
 
 der all circumstances of life, it is essential not 
 only to know what is good and necessary, but 
 to know which, among these good and neces- 
 sar}^ things, is of the first or second impor- 
 tance. This, which is of supreme need in the 
 affairs of life, is still more so in those of religion, 
 for which faith fixes duties of such great import 
 to humanity. 
 
 Tatian,* one of the Fathers of the early 
 
 * Tatian, an apologist of the second century, attracts the 
 historian by the originality with which he assimilates revealed 
 truths, and the somewhat rude eloquence with which he brands 
 pagan corruption for its lapse from orthodoxy to the Gnostic 
 heresy. He was born in Assyria, as he himself states in his 
 Discourse to the Greeks. 
 
 Having vainly sought, as well in the popular faith, in the Ori- 
 ental mysteries, and in the schools of philosophy, for a doctrine 
 that would appease his intellectual doubts and satisfy the more 
 elevated demands of his conscience, he found it ultimately in 
 the Gospel, and described it in his first and most celebrated 
 work, the Discourse to the Greeks, as the motive of his conversion. 
 This apology, which would seem to have been written during 
 a sojourn in Rome, is distinguished from all others that were 
 written at that period by the irreconcilable antagonism it 
 portrays between the pretended wisdom of the pagan and the 
 Gospel. On one side all is light; on the other, utter darkness: 
 here stand mythology with its absurd fables whose subtle alle- 
 gories scarcely conceal their coarseness, art devoted entirely 
 to sensual pleasures, and philosophy with its contradictions 
 and its nothingness ; there, Christianity with its simplicity and 
 universality, its purity of life, and the courage in the presence 
 of death with which its followers were inspired. 
 
 After the death of Justin Martyr, Tatian returned to Syria, 
 and affiliated himself with one of the numerous sects to which 
 Oriental fervor of imagination gave rise. 
 
 As far as can be ascertained where so much controversy 
 existed, Tatian joined the sect of the Encratites, although he 
 
Labor. 2 1 
 
 Church, says that the misfortunes of men come 
 less from their ignorance of the true God than 
 from their faith in false gods. This is equally 
 true in resrard to men's individual duties. Their 
 misfortunes and crimes result not so much from 
 igorance of real duty as from admitting false 
 ideas of duty, and from not regarding as their 
 sole duty that which is highest and most clearly 
 established. 
 
 Bondareff affirms that the crimes and mis- 
 fortunes of men result from their accepting as 
 sacred duties precepts that are frivolous and 
 hurtful, while they forget and conceal from 
 themselves and others that which is incontest- 
 ably the first and most important of duties, 
 and which is contained in the first chapter of 
 Holy Scripture : " In the sweat of thy face 
 shalt thou knead bread."* 
 
 was not its founder. (E. Strachlin, Encyclopedia of Religious 
 Science.) 
 
 The best known of his works of that period, the Diatessaron, 
 must have been a harmony of the four Gospels of which Euse- 
 bius speaks without having seen it. Tatian composed this to 
 expunge from the canonical text the genealogies and other 
 passages which make the Saviour belong to the race of David 
 in the flesh. 
 
 * Tolstoi and Bondareff thus render this verse of Genesis as 
 better expressing the idea of manual labor. It is usually 
 translated, " In the sweat of thy face shalt shou eat bread." 
 We gi^ a passage translated by Reuss from the Hebrew text: 
 " And the Eternal God said : Because thou hast hearkened to 
 the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I 
 commanded thee thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground 
 for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy 
 hf$. Thorns also and thistles shalt it bring forth to thee, and thou 
 
22 Labor. 
 
 To those who believe in the sacredness and 
 infallibility of the Divine Word as given in the 
 Bible, it will be evident that this command- 
 ment strongly asserts its own truth, since it 
 was given by God and has never been annulled. 
 
 As for those who do not believe in Holy 
 Scripture, if they will, without prejudice, con- 
 sider this precept as a simple and natural ex- 
 pression of hunian wisdom, they will see clearly 
 its sense and truth if they also examine the con- 
 ditions of human life: and it is precisely this 
 that Bondareff has done in his book. 
 
 They may be prevented making successfully 
 such an examination, because so many are 
 accustomed to the absurd and erroneous expla- 
 nations that theologians give to the Holy Scrip- 
 tures. It will need but to recall to them that a 
 doctrine is susceptible of different interpreta- 
 tions, and they will exclaim with disdain : 
 "What do we care for Holy Scripture? We 
 know that whatever one chooses may be based 
 upon it, and that it is all false." 
 
 Nothing could be more unjust; for we must 
 not take for Holy Scripture man's mistaken 
 views of it, and he who really speaks the truth 
 may well do so in the words of the Scriptures. 
 
 shalt eat the herb of the field, in the sweat of thy face shalt thou 
 eat bread, till ihoii retu n to the ground; for out of it wast thou 
 taken, dust thou art. and unto dust shalt thou return." 
 
 We see this interpretation of Tolstoi and Kondartffis not in- 
 exact. They have reason to believe that Genesis teaches us 
 that the natural condition of man is to labor in liie ground. 
 
Labor. 23 
 
 If we admit that what we call Holy Scrip- 
 tures is not the work of God, but of men, and 
 if, on the other hand, while it is purely and 
 simply the work of men, it is regarded as com- 
 ing from God, let us not forget there is a reason 
 for its continued existence. 
 
 It is easy to perceive this reason. 
 
 Superstitious men call it God's work because 
 it is more profound than all human science, and 
 because, notwithstanding continual attacks upon 
 its verity, it remains to this day without losing 
 its divine authority. It is called divine, and is 
 transmitted to us, because it contains the great- 
 est possible wisdom. And this is true of the 
 greater part of what we call the Bible. 
 
 This in fact, and in a literal sense, is what 
 Bondareff takes for his text, in proclaiming the 
 commandment that the human race has for- 
 gotten, or has so interpreted as to destroy its 
 force. 
 
 One usually regards this sentence of God and 
 all Adam's life in paradise as a real and historic 
 event, although we should also give it an alle- 
 gorical aspect, as showing the contrary tenden- 
 cies that God has placed in human nature. 
 
 Man fears death and is subject to it. One 
 who knows of neither good nor evil would seem 
 to us most happy, and yet we are eager to know 
 everything. Man loves the pleasures and the 
 gratifying of his wants which bring no pain with 
 them, and yet it is by pain and suffering that he 
 and all his race attain life. 
 
34 Labor. 
 
 These words, "Knead thy bread in the sweat 
 of thy face," are important, not only because it 
 is claimed that God himself uttered them to our 
 father Adam, but because \\\ty are true, because 
 they affirm an irrevocable law of human exist- 
 ence. 
 
 The law of gravitation is not true only be- 
 cause Newton discovered it; but, on the con- 
 trar}^ we know of Newton because he made this 
 discovery, and we are grateful to him for show- 
 ing us an eternal law which serves to explain a 
 whole class of phenomena. 
 
 It is the same with the law, " In the sweat of 
 thy face shalt thou knead bread." It is also a 
 law which explains a whole class of phenomena. 
 Having known it once, we can never forget it, 
 and we are full of gratitude to him who discov- 
 ered it. 
 
 This law would seem to be simple and Avell 
 known ; but that is but a delusion, as we discover 
 on looking around us. Not only is it not 
 recognized, but another that is diametrically 
 opposed to it prevails. All who believe in God, 
 from the emperor to the beggar, seek to evade 
 rather than to obey it. 
 
 To show its eternity and immutability, and to 
 explain how its infringement must necessarily 
 result in misfortune, is what Bondareff has un- 
 dertaken in his book. 
 
 Bondareff calls it the primitive law, the first 
 commandment, and places it above all others. 
 He shows that sin and all faults and disloyal 
 
Labor. 25 
 
 actions belong to those only who break it. In 
 his eyes, the principal of humanity's positive 
 duties, the first and incontestable need of each 
 individual, is to work with his hands for bread ; he 
 understands by it that each man, by long and 
 painful labor, should preserve himself from dy- 
 ing of cold and hunger, and that he should pro- 
 cure by manual labor food, clothing, warmth, 
 and shelter. 
 
 Bondareff's fundamental idea is that this law 
 (man must work to live), now regarded as 
 merely necessar}-, should be considered as the 
 highest of all. It ought to be held as a relig- 
 ious duty, like observing the Sabbath and cir- 
 cumcision are among the Israelites, fasting and 
 the sacraments among Christians, and the pray- 
 ing five times a day and other practices among 
 the Mahometans. 
 
 He claims that if men regarded working for 
 bread as a religious duty, no other occupation 
 would deter them from fulfilling it, even as 
 nothing can deter believers from celebrating the 
 feasts prescribed by the^r religion. 
 
 We have more than eighty feast-days in the 
 year, while working for bread only requires, 
 according to Bondareff's calculation, about forty 
 days. 
 
 How extraordinary it seems, at first glance, 
 that a means so simple, so easy to be understood 
 by airthe world, and requiring neither skill nor 
 science to accomplish it, should be able to save 
 humanity from all terrestrial evils, no matter 
 
26 Labor. 
 
 how numerous they may be! But how much 
 more surprising- is it that, having in our hands a 
 means so simple, so clear, so long known to all 
 the world, we should neglect it, and seek to 
 cure our woes by various false and subtle theo- 
 ries ! 
 
 It is acting like one who, instead of putting a 
 new bottom in a broken cask, tries to invent all 
 sorts of artifices to make it hold water. And 
 our efforts to cure our own woes are like these 
 vain artifices. 
 
 Whence come, then, all the misfortunes of 
 men, excepting those which result in assassina- 
 tions, prisons, combats, and all the cruelties of 
 which they become guilty because they cannot 
 forbear to use violence? 
 
 All human misfortunes, direct violence ex, 
 cepted, result on the one hand from hunger and 
 privation of all sorts, and from discouragement 
 in labor, and on the other from riches, idleness, 
 and the vices they engender. .Ought we not to 
 endeavor to destroy this inequality by which 
 some are plunged into the evils of misery and 
 want, and others into those which belong to the 
 temptations of wealth? , How can we do tliis 
 but by taking part in the labor which satisfies 
 our wants, and in abandoning wealth and idleness, 
 which are the parents of vice and temptation ; 
 in other words, in obeying the law which com- 
 mands men to labor each for his own bread, 
 and to earn their living with their own hands? 
 We are so overwhelmed with the multitude of 
 
Labor. 27 
 
 religious, social, and domestic laws that are im- 
 posed upon us ; we have invented so many com- 
 mandments in announcing, as Isaiah says, "line 
 upon line, precept upon precept," one rule for 
 this, another for that, that we have lost all clear 
 perception of good and evil. One says mass, an- 
 other recruits for the army, or collects taxes, a 
 third is a judge, a fourth is a student, a fifth cures 
 disorders, a sixth teaches ; all, in fine, by these or 
 similar pretexts evade the law of labor, leaving 
 it for others, and forgetting that there are around 
 them men who are dying with hunger and 
 fatigue. But before giving the people priests, 
 soldiers, judges, doctors, and professors, we 
 should know that they are not perishing with 
 hunger. Not onl}' do we forget that many duties 
 may present themselves for fulfilment, but also 
 that there is a first and a last duty, and that we 
 cannot undertake the last till the first is ful- 
 filled, any more than we can harrow the 
 ground before it has been ploughed. 
 
 It is to accomplish the duty which is the first 
 in practical order that Bondareff's doctrine is 
 given. 
 
 Bondareff shows that the accomplishment of 
 this duty does not interfere with any other 
 occupation, presents no difficulties, and saves 
 m^n from poverty, want, and temptation. 
 
 It destro3^s above all the odious division of 
 man into two classes who hate each other and 
 hide under a veil of humility their mutual dis- 
 likeg 
 
28 Labor. 
 
 Labor for bread, says Bondareff, renders all 
 men equal, and clips the wings of luxury and 
 covetousness. 
 
 One cannot cultivate the ground or dig wells 
 in rich clothing, with white hands, or on delicate 
 food. 
 
 By giving themselves up to an occupation 
 that is good and holy for ever}^ one, men come 
 nearer to each other. Labor for bread restores 
 intelligence to those who have lost it or have 
 led unworthy lives ; and it also bestows joy and 
 happiness ; for God and nature have reserved 
 this as a glad and interesting work for mankind. 
 
 Labor for bread is a remedy that saves man- 
 kind. If men would recognize this primitive 
 law as divine and immutable, and regard labor 
 for bread as an indispensable duty, all would 
 then be nourished by their own work, be 
 united by the same faith in God and in love for 
 one another, and thus destroy the poverty from 
 which so many suffer. 
 
 We are so accustomed to a contrary state of 
 affairs, and to regard wealth, freedom from 
 the need to labor, and high social position as 
 gifts of Heaven, that we do not choose to see 
 how unjust and incomplete it is. 
 
 Let us analyze it with care, and see if it is just. 
 
 There are on this point religious and political 
 theories to suit all tastes. Let us judge Bon- 
 dareff's theory as a mere theory. Let us con- 
 sider what would happen if, following Bon- 
 dareff's wish, all the clergy should undertake in 
 
Labor. 29 
 
 their sermons to explain this first command- 
 ment, and if all men should accept the holy law 
 of labor. What would be the result? 
 
 All the world would labor and eat the fruit 
 of their labor, and bread, being an object of 
 necessity, would neither be bought nor sold. 
 What then ? No one would die of hunger. If 
 a man could not earn enough for himself and 
 his family, his neighbor would help him. He 
 would do so because he would have no other 
 use for products that he could not sell. It 
 would follow that man would have no more 
 temptations ; he would have no occasion to 
 obtain by ruse or violence the bread he could 
 not otherwise procure. 
 
 Violence and deceit would not then be neces- 
 sary as they are now; and he who resorted to 
 them would do so from evil impulse, and not, 
 as now, from want or privation. 
 
 Those who are weak and cannot earn their 
 bread would no longer need to sell their labor, 
 and perhaps their souls, to obtain food. 
 
 No one would then, as now, seek to escape 
 from the burden of labor or to throw it on 
 others ; nor endeavor to crush the feeble with 
 it, while on the strong they heap all manner 
 of work. We would no longer find men devot- 
 ing all their intellectual forces to facilitate, not 
 labor for laborers, but idleness for the idle. 
 
 In taking part in the labor for bread, and in 
 recognizing it as the principal human occupa- 
 tion, we act as one who, seeing a carriage drawn 
 
30 Labor. 
 
 by fools with the wheels in the air, turned it 
 over and replaced it on its wheels. It then 
 went smoothly. 
 
 The life we lead in scorning labor, and in try- 
 ing to reform it contrary to nature, is as this 
 upset carriage with the wheels in the air. 
 And all our efforts will be vain till we place 
 the carriage in its proper position, and our- 
 selves in ours. 
 
 This is Bondareff's doctrine, in which I entire- 
 ly believe. 
 
 Let me further explain his notion. 
 
 There was once a time when men devoured 
 each other. The idea of equality gradually 
 developed among them, however, so that this 
 state of affairs did not continue. Thus canni- 
 balism was abandoned. 
 
 Then followed a period in which they made 
 slaves of their fellow-beings, and possessed 
 themselves of the fruits of their labor. But in 
 time human consciences became too enlightened 
 for this, and slavery was abolished. 
 
 While these gross forms of tj^ranny have now 
 disappeared, its spirit is still existing beneath 
 hypocritical deceptions. Man no longer openly 
 avails himself of the labor of others without 
 form of recompense. To-day exists another 
 phase of violence : the rich, profiting by the 
 needs of the poor, still enslave them effectually. 
 
 But, according to Bondareff, the time is com- 
 ing when all men will be equal, and one cannot 
 profit by the need of another, or through his 
 
Labor. 3 1 
 
 suffering from hunger or cold succeed in enslav- 
 ing him. Man, admitting that labor for bread 
 is a law imposed on all, will consider it a strict 
 duty not to permit the sale of bread (that is, 
 articles of actual necessity), but will nourish, 
 clothe, and care for each other. 
 
 I regard Bondareff's work from another 
 point of view, which is this: 
 
 You will often hear it said that we must not be 
 content with negative laws and command- 
 ments, that is, the rules which decide what we 
 must not do; but we should have positive laws, 
 which determine in a precise manner what we 
 ought to do. 
 
 For example, Jesus Christ gave five negative 
 commandments : * 
 
 I St. Never regard any one as a fool or idiot; 
 and never be angry with any one.f 
 
 2d. Do not look on marriage as a mere 
 source of pleasure. Let not the husband leave 
 his wife, nor the wife her husband.:}: 
 
 * Tolstoi's moral law is all contained in these Gospel pre- 
 cepts. See, for the development of this doctrine, and his ex- 
 planation of the Sermon on the Mount, his book entitled My 
 Religion. 
 
 f " But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his 
 brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment; 
 and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in dan- 
 ger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be 
 in danger of hell fire." (St. Matthew, chap. v. 22.) 
 
 ^ " It hath been said. Whosoever shall put away his wife, let 
 him give her a writing of divorcement; 
 
 But I say unto you. That whosoever shall put away his wife, 
 saving for the cause of fornication, causeih her to commit 
 
32 Labor. 
 
 3d. Swear not; do not make promises to any 
 one or for any cause.* 
 
 4th. Submit to offence and violence, and do 
 not resist wicked men.f 
 
 5th. Do not regard men as enemies. Love 
 your enemies even as you do your neighbors.:}: 
 
 It is said these commandments teach us only 
 what we must not do. 
 
 It may seem strange that there should not be 
 in the doctrine of Christ a precise command- 
 ment as to what we should do. But whoever 
 
 adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, com- 
 mitteth adultery." (Ibid. v. 31, 32.)' 
 
 * " Again, ye have heard that it hath been said, by them of 
 old lime, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform 
 unto the Lord thine oaths. 
 
 But I say unto you, Swear not at all, neither by heaven; for 
 it is God's throne: 
 
 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusa- 
 lem; for it is the city of the great King. 
 
 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst 
 not make one hair white or black." (Ibid. v. 33-37) 
 
 f " Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, 
 and a tooth for a tooth. 
 
 But I say unto you that ye resist not evil; but whosoever 
 shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." 
 (Ibid. v. 38-39-) 
 
 ^ " Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love 
 thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy: 
 
 But I say unto you. Love you renemies, bless them that 
 curse you, do good to them that hate you. and pray for them 
 which despitefuUy use you and persecute you. 
 
 That ye may be the children of your father which is in heav- 
 en; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, 
 and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." (Ibid. 
 V. 43-45.) 
 
Labor. 33 
 
 believes fully in the doctrine of Christ will find 
 there not only these five negative command- 
 ments, but also the positive doctrine of all truth. 
 
 Now, the doctrine of truth, as proclaimed by 
 Jesus Christ, is found not in laws, not in com- 
 mandments, but only in the sense by which we 
 understand life. 
 
 It teaches that life and its welfare consist not 
 in personal happiness, as many believe, but in 
 serving God and our neighbor. And this is not 
 a duty to be performed for recompense, it is 
 not a mystical expression of hidden and incom- 
 prehensible meaning, but a revelation of the 
 law of life hitherto ignored, a demonstration 
 that life cannot be good if it is not given its 
 highest phase. 
 
 So the doctrine of Christ and of truth is ex- 
 pressed in these words : Love God, and thy 
 neighbor as thyself. 
 
 Christ's direct laws and commandments, and 
 the Judaic and Buddhist precepts, indicate the 
 ways in which the world's temptations turn men 
 from the right way. 
 
 Thus, there may be many such laws and pre- 
 cepts, while it needs but one positive rule of 
 life to teach us what to do. 
 
 The life of every man consists in following 
 some one aim. Whatever it may be, he tends to- 
 wards it, as he sees it more or less clearly. 
 Christ has shown us the right way, and how 
 we may be turned aside from it. For this there 
 are many diverging paths, and the five com- 
 
34 Labor. 
 
 mandments are given to guard us from their 
 errors. But only one precept is needed to 
 show us the right way ; and for those who be- 
 lieve Christ's teaching, and know the true way 
 of life that he has pointed out, no positive laws 
 are needed to enforce his doctrine. 
 
 The different actions which result from fol- 
 lowing the true path of life are clearly defined 
 for those who accept Christ's teaching. They" 
 are, to use his expression, as a well of pure wa- 
 ter bursting from the soil , and their actions 
 flow naturally from the pure source, in spite of 
 all obstacles. 
 
 No man, believing in the doctrine of Jesus 
 Christ, would ask what were his positive duties, 
 any more than the water springing from the 
 earth would ask what it should do. It flows in 
 its abundance to refresh the grass, the trees, and 
 the flowers, while birds, animals, and men par- 
 take of its bounty. 
 
 Thus the man who accepts Christ's definition 
 of the path of life goes unquestioning on his 
 way straight to the goal. He need not ask what 
 he has to do. Love, which will become the prin- 
 ciple of his being, will show him clearly the right 
 path, and what duties belong to the present and 
 future. 
 
 (The first and most pressing claims of this 
 work of love are to feed the hungry, to clothe 
 the naked, to succor the sick, and to visit the 
 prisoners. This is the counsel of Christ as well 
 as of our own hearts. And above all are we 
 
Labor. 35 
 
 exhorted by reason, by conscience and feeling, 
 to secure to our brother-men their lives, to pre- 
 serve them from the suffering- and death which 
 result from their unequal contest with nature,* 
 and to urge upon them the labor for bread, the 
 most important and most wearisome of all 
 work, and which is distinctly imposed on all 
 men./ 
 
 Even as the spring may not ask where it 
 shall send its waters, whether it shall sprinkle 
 from above the grass and the leaves of the trees, 
 or seek their roots beneath the earth, so a man 
 who knows the doctrine of truth may not ask 
 in advance what he must do, whether he is to 
 teach men, to defend them from the enemy, to 
 amuse them and give them the pleasures of life, 
 or to succor those who perish in want. fX 
 spring does not flow upon the surface, quench- 
 ing the thirst of animals and filling the ponds, 
 
 * This idea of an incessant struggle with nature as being 
 man's principal duty and occupation occurs frequently in 
 Tolstoi's works, and notably In What should be done. " The 
 first and most undoubted duty of man," he says, " is to partake 
 in the struggle with nature for his own life and his neighbor's." 
 And again: " Whether it results for good or for ill, this is the 
 decree of God, or the law of nature which created man and the 
 world. The situation of man in the world, as we know it, is such 
 that, being naked, without shelter, and unable to find his food 
 in the fields, — like Robinson Crusoe on his island, — he is under 
 the necessity of contending always with nature for food, cloth- 
 ing, and shelter. Food must be prepared to satisfy his own 
 hunger several times in the day, and also that of the children 
 who are too young for labor, as well as of the feeble old 
 folk." 
 
36 Labor. 
 
 till it has first watered the earth ; thus a man, 
 knowing the doctrine of truth, cannot seek to 
 satisfy men's minor needs till he has relieved 
 the greatest want, and has aided to nourish 
 them, and to save them from the death that 
 attends the unequal contest with naturer] The 
 man who professes, not only by words"Dut by 
 actions, the doctrines of truth and love, will not 
 deceive himself as to the object of his life. 
 Never would the man whose idea of existence 
 is to serve others imagine that he can help 
 those who are dying of cold and hunger by 
 making new laws, by casting cannon or work- 
 ing on objects of luxury, or by playing on the 
 piano or violin. Love cannot be so foolish. 
 
 Even as love for a person does not consist 
 in reading to him a novel when he is hungry, 
 nor in giving him jewels of great price if he is 
 cold, neither can it consist in amusing those who 
 are satiated, while those who are cold and hungry 
 are left to die in misery. True love, showing itself 
 by actions rather than by words, is far from being 
 wanting in intelligence. On the contrary, it is 
 full of true wisdom and sagacity. So a man in- 
 spired by love will not deceive himself; he will 
 accomplish at once the first duty that his love for 
 mankind points out, in carrying succor to those 
 who suffer, or who are cold or hungry. But to 
 aid the famished and unhappy is to tight hand 
 to hand with nature. Only he who is willing to 
 deceive himself and others in the moment of 
 dangerous contest with misery will refuse to aid 
 
Labor. 37 
 
 them, and will augment their misfortunes, while 
 pretending to those who are perishing before 
 him that he has other occupations by which he 
 will seek a means to save them. 
 
 A true man, one for whom life consists in do- 
 ing good, could not use such language ; and if he 
 made such a response, his conscience would ever 
 reprove the falsehood ; he can find no defence 
 ior it save in the crafty and diabolical theory of 
 the Division of Labor!*' 
 
 Among all the doctrines of human wisdom, 
 from that of Confucius to that of Mahomet, we 
 find this idea strongly expressed only in the Gos- 
 pel. We there find ourselves convinced of the 
 necessity to aid men, not by a theory of division 
 of labor, but by means that are simple, natural, 
 and indispensable. It is the Gospel which 
 teaches us to minister to the sick, the prisoners, 
 and those who perish with cold and hunger. 
 
 But we can only do this directly by at once 
 laboring ourselves, for the sick and the famished 
 
 * Tolstoi' has discussed the theory of the division of la- 
 bor, showing its disastrous effects, in What should be done, at 
 page 104 of the French translation, and those following it. 
 
 Without doubt, according to Tolstoi, the division of labor 
 exists in human society, but the question is how to render it 
 just. It has made in our day an admirable progress, but, by 
 some unhappy chance, it has aggravated instead of ame- 
 liorating the condition of the greatest number, who are the la- 
 borers. 
 
 How then shall we make a just distribution of labor? To 
 preserve life by a manual labor, common to all, is the first 
 duty ; which is to be personally fulfilled, yet in a manner that 
 aids our neighbor also. 
 
3S Labor. 
 
 are still dying for want of aid. The man who 
 practises the doctrine of truth will demonstrate 
 in his life, that is consecrated to the service of 
 his fellow-men, the primitive law which is formu- 
 lated in the Book of Genesis: "In the sweat of 
 thy face shalt thou knead bread." This is the 
 primitive law, or the first commandment, as 
 Bondareff calls it, and he shows us that it is a 
 positive law. 
 
 This is a law as well for those who have not 
 comprehended the true meaning- of life as indi- 
 cated by Jesus Christ ; for those who lived before 
 him, and also for those who have not believed in 
 him. It is a positive law, exacting from all of us, 
 conformably to God's will, as it is manifested in 
 the Bible and to our intelligence, to support our- 
 selves by labor. It preserves this character even 
 when the true meaning of life, as indicated by 
 the doctrine of truth, is unknown to men. 
 
 But where men well know this aim of life as 
 pointed out by Jesus Christ, the law of labor for 
 bread will become part of Christ's positive doc- 
 trine (to love one another), and will then have a 
 negative and not a positive meaning. 
 
 When men comprehend the true Christian 
 doctrine, this law will show them the old temp- 
 tations which they must avoid, that they be not 
 turned from the true path. 
 
 To a believ^er in the Old Testament who does 
 not recognize the doctrine of truth, this law has 
 the following meaning : " Work for bread with 
 your own hands." 
 
Labor. 39 
 
 But to the Christian its signification is nega- 
 tive. It says to him : " Do not believe you can 
 do good to mankind while overwhelming them 
 withlaborfor others, and while not earning your 
 food with your own hands." 
 
 It shows to the Christian one of the oldest 
 and most criminal temptations that have assailed 
 mankind. Against this temptation, that is so fatal 
 in its consequences, and which we recognize with 
 difficulty as deceitful and contrary to human 
 nature, Bondarefi's book is directed. His words 
 are as obligatory to the believer in the Old Tes- 
 tament as to him who accepts the Gospel, to 
 the man who rejects Scripture and relies on his 
 own reason, as to him who comprehends the 
 doctrine of truth. 
 
 Reader, dear brother, whoever thou art, I love 
 thee ! Far from seeking to grieve thee, or to 
 bring evil or offence into thy life, I wish only to 
 serve thee. 
 
 I desire to prove fully the truth of this thesis, to 
 refute all the objections that are made against it ; 
 but I might write at greatest length and with ut- 
 most talent, I might give the most logical rea- 
 sons, and yet I could not convince thee, if thy 
 spirit contends with mine, and thy heart remains 
 cold and insensible. 
 
 One thing I should fear, lest, in disputing with 
 thee, tiie pride and coldness of my own spirit 
 should overshadow thine, and I should thus 
 harm thee. Then let us not reason. I only ask 
 of thee one thing: do not discuss or demonstrate 
 the matter, but only question thine own heart. 
 
40 Labor. 
 
 MVhoever thou art, whatever may be thy 
 qualities, however good thou art, in whatever 
 condition thou art placed, canst thou take tran- 
 quilly thy tea and eat thy dinner, canst thou oc- 
 cupy thyself with politics, fine arts, science, 
 medicine, or teaching, when thou seest and hear- 
 est the man who is lying at thy door sick and 
 starving? No! But thou wilt say, they are not 
 always there at my door. It maybe so; but 
 they are perhaps but a short distance away 
 from thy house, and thou knowest it. Then 
 thou canst not live tranquilly ; whatever may be 
 thy jo}^ it is poisoned by this knowledge. Not 
 to see those who are miserable, thou ma)^est 
 barricade thy doors, and drive them afar off, or 
 fly thyself to a retreat where there may be no 
 danger of finding them. But they are every- 
 where. And if thou couldst find a place where 
 thou canst not see them, canst thou escape thine 
 own conscience? What then is to be done? 
 
 Thou knowest, and Bondareff's book proves it, 
 that thou must descend into the depths, or what 
 appear to thee to be the depths, but which are 
 really the heights. Join thyself to those who 
 feed the hungry and shelter them from the cold. 
 Fear nothing. Far from being worse, thy new 
 estate will be better than that which preceded 
 it. (Place thyself on the level of others ; under- 
 take,^vith thy feeble and unaccustomed hands, 
 the work of nourishing and clothing the needy ; 
 labor for bread, contend with nature, and for 
 the first time thou wilt feel the ground firmly 
 
Labor. 41 
 
 with thy feet, thou wilt be filled with a sense of 
 independence, liberty, and strength ; thou wilt no 
 longer think of flying, but thou wilt taste, with a 
 pure joy, innocent pleasures of which the world 
 has never given thee the least notion. Thou wilt 
 know at last those strong, simple-hearted men, 
 thy own brothers, who, notwithstanding the dis- 
 tance at which they have hitherto stood apart 
 from thee, have always nourished thee.j 
 
 To thy great satisfaction, thou wilt see in them 
 virtues hitherto unknown; thou wilt find in 
 them a modesty and goodness of which thou 
 wilt feel unworthy. Instead of scorn and hatred 
 from those that wait upon thee, thou wilt receive 
 gratitude and respect, because, after having 
 lived by their services all thy life, thou wilt now 
 remember their miseries and endeavor with 
 feeble hands to succor them. Thou wilt find that 
 the islet on which thou didst seek refuge from 
 the flood that would have engulfed thee is but 
 a heap of rubbish, whilst the seeming sea thou 
 didst fear is the earth itself. Thou wilt now 
 tread it with bold, tranquil, and joyous feet. 
 
 It will be thus with thee, because in abandon- 
 ing the dark, false ways in which thou hast been 
 wandering unwittingly and against thy true 
 intention, thou wilt now enter upon the path of 
 truth and life. Having hitherto disobeyed 
 God's will, thou wilt now faithfully accomplish 
 it. 
 
 Lyof TolstoL 
 
 Moscow, March, 1888. 
 
Second fart. 
 
 LABOR, ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE. 
 
 BY THE PEASANT BONDAREFF. 
 
 " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou knead bread: dust thou 
 art, and unto dust shalt thou return." — Genesis, iii. ig. 
 
 Before undertaking to treat with all my en- 
 ergy of the questions of labor and idleness, let 
 me explain who I am. Am I not like those who, 
 in pointing out to others the good path they 
 should follow, wander themselves in that which 
 is evil, and most opposed to equity and right- 
 eousness ? 
 
 Up to the age of thirty-seven years I worked 
 as a laborer on the estate of a pomestchik* on 
 the Don, named TchernozouboflF. Every one 
 knows how one in that condition of life is over- 
 burdened with work. Later the pomestchik 
 enrolled me as a soldier, and my five children, 
 being under age, remained beneath his heavy, 
 intolerable 3'oke. 
 
 When I arrived in Siberia, in 1857, with my 
 wife and two children, we possessed only the 
 clothes on our backs, and those had been given 
 us by the State. 
 
 * The proprietor of an estate. 
 
 42 
 
Labor. 43 
 
 But within fourteen years I have acquired a 
 small cottage with a bit of ground, so that I am 
 as well off as though I had always remained a 
 peasant. 
 
 And how did I accomplish this? Simply by 
 cultivating the ground. And this is the way in 
 which I labored. When they reaped the grain, 
 where it takes two laborers to bind the sheaves 
 after the reaper, I did it alone, in spite of my 
 sixty-five years of age, and the work was well 
 done, the sheaves strongly bound. God is my 
 witness, reader, that I tell only the truth. 
 
 You will thus see that, while with you in the 
 great world the superiority is given to the gen- 
 eral, with us it is gained bv the good workman. 
 
 In strict justice, I should then have the right 
 to be seated by the side of the general. By his 
 side, do I say ? He ought to remain standing 
 before me. 
 
 And why? asks the alarmed reader. Because 
 the general eats the bread produced by my 
 labor, since the reverse is not true : and this I 
 will presently show in my justification. 
 
 The reader now knows who I am. 
 
 Have I then no reason to speak and write of 
 labor and of idleness ? I have it truly, and will 
 use it. 
 
 If, among the developments and reasonings 
 that follow, any be found that seem useless or 
 even hurtful, I desire they shall be ignored. 
 They will not result from an evil intention ; it is 
 
44 Labor. 
 
 that to the weakness of my mind, they have 
 wrongfully seemed to contain some interest. 
 
 You, of the higher classes, write your thou- 
 sands of books. Are they less mistaken or hurt- 
 ful than mine? And yet yours a're approved 
 and published. 
 
 But we, of the lower class, write this little 
 essa)' for all time and in self-defence, and doubt- 
 less you will reject it, as I have been assured you 
 will, claiming that it possesses neither talent nor 
 eloquence. It will be great injury to us, and 
 even to God ; and I know with great certainty 
 that Heaven will one day come to our side if you 
 thus reject the bread of life, which is the truth. 
 \jCan you deny this truth, and live without 
 food ? No! In an hour you would stretch out 
 3'our hand to the tree of life which is forbidden 
 to you, — to gather the bread earned by another's 
 labor, and to carry it away with you. That 
 deserves thoughtH 
 
 Therefore I pray you, reader, to have pity on 
 yourself; give due thought to this question, and 
 you will be reasonable. If others refuse to ex- 
 amine it, you will not be responsible. 
 
 Do I expect a recompen^se for the trouble I 
 am taking? Is it for that that I labor and 
 write? No ; I expect but punishment for it, as 
 the rich have assured me. 
 
 If you would address your reproaches, say 
 they, to an inferior class, you would receive a 
 recompense ; but since you stab to the quick 
 
Labor. 45 
 
 persons ot importance, you will not escape pun- 
 ishment any more than you will death itself. 
 
 But what may perhaps save you will be that 
 tliey will destroy this work. 
 
 One must have an aim, 1 have replied. For 
 the truth we profess we must be willing to 
 suffer, and even to die. But it may be that 
 their fault is the gravest, and that for them wia 
 be the severest punishment, as we will show 
 presently. 
 
 So I have answered the idle ones who have 
 predicted for me terrible sufferings. It might 
 be for my interest to speak in allegory, but I 
 will not; be they angry or no, I will still take 
 tlie straight path. 
 
 Many rich ones, having read my writings, 
 are offended by them. " You write," they say, 
 " not against the world, but against us only." 
 
 Therefore, in the name of the God of truth, 
 I pray 30U, reader, not to imagine likewise. I 
 have written, in the name of all laborers, against 
 those, whoever and how many soever they may 
 be, who do not produce the bread they eat by 
 the labor of their own hands. 
 
 All my writings may be condensed in two 
 sayings : 
 
 1. Why, according to the first commandment, 
 do you not labor for the bread that you eat, 
 instead of eating that which the labor of others 
 has produced ? 
 
 2. Why, in both secular and theological 
 books, are not the laborer and his work com- 
 
4^ Labor. 
 
 mended, instead of being treated with extreme 
 conten:ipt? 
 
 To state these questions ought to be enough. 
 But as you contemn manual labor in every- 
 way, I must write at greater length, on the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 To conclude, I pray you, reader, not to eat 
 for two days before judging my book. 
 
 The human race is divided into two classes: 
 one is noble and honored, the other humble and 
 despised. Those belonging to the first are 
 richly clothed, possessing tables well furnished 
 with exquisite dishes, and they are majestically 
 seated in places of honor; but those belonging 
 to the second are covered with rags, their 
 strength exhausted by poor food and hard 
 work, and they have an air of sorrowful 
 humility, as they remain standing on the thresh- 
 old : these are the poor laborers. 
 
 The truth of my words is confirmed by the 
 parable in the Gospel. ''There was a certain 
 rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine 
 linen, and fared sumptuously every day : and 
 there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, 
 which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and 
 desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell 
 from the ricli man's table: moreover the dogs 
 came and licked his sores." (St. Luke xvi. 
 19-21) 
 
 Well ! I will speak to my companions, the 
 laborers who stand on the threshold: Why do 
 
Labor. 47 
 
 you stay there always, as silent as so many quad- 
 rupeds? Without doubt one should be silent 
 before a man of greater merit, but we should 
 know wherefore and to what extent we are to 
 be silent, and not humble ourselves basely, or 
 adore him as an idol. 
 
 Thus, in the name of this latter class, I address 
 myself to the former, and I say : Reply to the 
 questions I will ask. 
 
 1. Adam, for having infringed God's command,' 
 " Ye shall not eat of the fruit of the forbidden 
 tree," lost paradise not only for himself, but for 
 all his race unto the end of the world. We see 
 by that that he was guilty of a great sin, but 
 we must not believe that his crime consisted 
 merely in eating the forbidden fruit, that is, the 
 apple. 
 
 2. Then he tried to hide himself among the 
 trees of the garden, as the Scripture recites. 
 
 But from whom would he hide? Men did 
 not yet exist. From God, then. 
 
 Behold, then, the madness in which sin 
 had plunged man ! Could he hide from the 
 eyes of God ? We see that, having recognized 
 his fault, he waited to receive his punishment, 
 and this is God's unexpected decree: 
 
 " For having disobeyed the command I gave 
 vou, behold your punishment: In the sweat of 
 thy face shalt thou knead bread : dust thou ait, 
 and unto dust shalt thou return." 
 
 3. Ought not Adam, then, to have shed tears 
 of gratitude towards God for the great mercy 
 
48 ' Labor. 
 
 shown him? What was this punishment to 
 that which he might hav^e looked to receive ? 
 
 4. — Ma}' we then believe tiiat Adam labored 
 for nine hundred and thirty years, and that he 
 eat his bread in the sweat of his brow, living 
 by the work of his hands, although he w^as a 
 noble, according to his time, since he is the 
 father of the human race? 
 
 5. Did he desire dominion, or any power 
 whatever? No. For though he listened in par- 
 adise to the words of the serpent, who said to 
 him and to his wnfe, "Ye shall be as gods, 
 knowing good and evil," — that is, you shall live 
 like pomestchiks, and you will be the most in- 
 telligent beings in the world, — they nevertheless 
 so lost spirit as to seek concealment from 
 God. . 
 
 Following the counsel of the serpent, Adam 
 hoped to live in the world without labor; but he 
 was, on the contrar)% condemned to seek his 
 nourishment in the sweat of his face, and instead 
 of being elevated to a supreme rank, he lost his 
 birth-place, and in exile was poor and with- 
 out shelter. Thus to him the serpent became a 
 horrible creature, to whose frightful influence 
 he owed his own loss and that of all his race. 
 
 6. Thus you will see, reader, what is the re- 
 sult of this desire for possessions. 
 
 And what must we think of one who thus 
 gains possessions, that is, who can be sheltered 
 beneath an umbrella, having white hands, and 
 who during all his life eats the bread that 
 
Labor. 49 
 
 others have earned ? The solution of this enig- 
 ma is beyond the limits of reason. 
 
 I know that you have already a crowd of ob- 
 jections to make to my ideas, but do not criticise 
 them, 1 pray, till you have heard me to the 
 end. 
 
 7. Did Adam hope for a moment, by means 
 of money that did not yet exist, or by any other 
 subterfuges whatever, to turn over his labor to 
 strange hands, to remain himself under an um- 
 brella, and wait for the results of others' labor, 
 like a beggar or a drone? Thus many do in 
 these days, who regard it as a great crime to 
 take from any one a blade of straw or a grain of 
 corn, but who do not think it a crime to take 
 and eat the food, earned by others, which is 
 served at their tables. 
 
 8. But if our father Adam received a pun- 
 ishment in proportion to his crime, and sub- 
 mitted to it willingly, — in other words, if he 
 labored with his hands to the end of his life, as 
 is said, " Thou shalt return to the ground, 
 whence thou wast taken," — we see that he is 
 now innocent, and has atoned to God for his 
 crime. 
 
 9. Holy Scripture again says : " For then 
 Adam will stretch out his hand and eat of the 
 fruit of the tree of life, and will live forever." 
 It has been supposed this means literally the 
 tree on which Christ was crucified. But that is 
 an arbitrary supposition. Can we admit that to 
 the merits of another, of Christ, that man, who 
 
50 Labor. 
 
 has no merit of his own, obtains pardon for his 
 sins? That notion was evidently invented to 
 strengthen the hope that we may without labor, 
 and while resting at ease, inherit eternal life. 
 
 But if this tree represents Adam's penance, 
 and means the duty of laboring for bread, then 
 a severe task is imposed on ourselves. 
 
 Is not, then, ray interpretation just, by which, 
 if Adam ate the bread his own hands had earned, 
 he should then, and then onl}', live throughout 
 all ages ? 
 
 For example, if no one stretches out his hand 
 towards the tree of life, that is, to labor for 
 bread, what would become of most of us? In 
 that case, could the world itself exist ? 
 
 We see, then, clearly that vvc, who are labor- 
 ers, are near the tree of life, but you, who will 
 not labor, are near the tree of death. Havel 
 spoken justly ? One must, at least, acknowl- 
 edge that my conclusions are trueli 
 
 ID. Thus it is evident that if Adam by his 
 punishment has won forgiveness of his crime 
 towards God, that penitence ought also to atone 
 for the sins of his whole life. 
 
 But as man continues to sin against God as 
 long as he lives, this chastisement is decreed : 
 " To dust shalt thou return." 
 
 Is this just? 
 
 II. And you of the higher classes, which are 
 but branches of the same trunk, why will you 
 not, in all your existence, submit to this penance, 
 and why must you eat several times in the 
 
Labor. 5 ^ 
 
 day ? Are you not as miserable as I am, and as 
 are the laborers, ray companions? 
 
 But as you are above us, you are more intel- 
 ligent and better educated, and yet you commit 
 the greatest of all crimes in the sight of God 
 and the world. 
 
 You say, '' We work harder than the laborer; 
 and it is with the money gained by our labor 
 that we buy bread." 
 
 We will speak of that presently. 
 
 12. We see by what has been said that we 
 vainly consider how we should atone for our 
 sins, for God knows what treatment should be 
 prescribed for our illnesses or wrong-doings, and 
 he has prescribed this ; only we should accept 
 it with sincere ardor, and not use divers pre- 
 texts to evade its application. 
 
 Is this true ? 
 
 13. But if we, x^dam's posterity, have inher- 
 ited liis sin, and share in the penance attached 
 to it, and if we are really more guilty than Adam, 
 because he did not know all that we have been 
 taught, then we ought not to try to escape that 
 punishment, nor to evade the penance which 
 God himself decreed for Adam and his posteri- 
 ty. Each of us should labor to gain his bread 
 with his own hands, whether he be rich or poor, 
 and whatever may be his merit or rank, excus- 
 ing only the sick or aged persons who are too 
 feeble to work. 
 
 14. Doubtless, if we do not examiie manual 
 labor attentively, the duty of earning our nour- 
 
52 Labor. 
 
 ishment, and their respective merits, they will 
 not seem of sufficient value to atone for all our 
 sins, and to render us innocent in the sight of 
 God. Because if we work only for ourselves, 
 what recompense can we expect ? 
 
 I have already said what this recompense is, 
 and I will repeat it. 
 
 But if the merit of labor seems to you insuffi- 
 cient, you will be little disposed to accomplish 
 it, even if an angel came down from heaven to 
 explain it. 
 
 15. You see, then, how Adam atoned for the 
 first sin. But it has been asserted that he was 
 for that exiled to hell during five thousand five 
 hundred years, and that he suffered there till 
 Christ delivered him. 
 
 But this is certainly an interpretation con- 
 trary to the law. And why do you assert what 
 is not conformable to law? Is it to be delivered 
 from " these abominable occupations," and to 
 live like a pomestchik? But if it is just to be- 
 lieve that Adam owes his deliverance to manual 
 labor, then let us devote ourselves assiduously 
 to J,hat duty. Is it just? 
 j[T6. I ask, then, why God did not prescribe to 
 Adam as a penance our most esteemed virtues, 
 such as fasting, prayer, partaking of the sacra- 
 ments, etc. Why did he, instead, direct this 
 labor in which men of education can find no 
 virtue, but .who regard it as almost a vice? 
 Why is this rj 
 
 17. From the developments thus far reached, 
 
Labor. 53 
 
 it would seem that Adam belonged to our class, 
 to that which is inferior and ignorant : he knew 
 not how to read, to write, nor to speak elegant- 
 ly. God gave him an occupation which suited 
 his spirit ; and he, being weak, submitted to it. 
 But God orders now the same duty for men who 
 are instructed in Scriptures and by the voice of 
 conscience ; and these make a thousand objec- 
 tions to it, which God himself would not know 
 how to answer. 
 
 Ii8. Till now, we have spoken only of Adam's 
 penance, and not that of Eve. Could not God 
 in the beginning have created many thousands 
 of people? Why did he create only these two, 
 the husband and the wife, Adam and Eve? 
 Evidently because in human life there are two 
 principal affairs, two duties of equal value and 
 importance: the one, that of motherhood ; the 
 other, that of manual labor. God said to Eve : 
 " 1 will greatly multiply thy sorrow, and thy 
 conception: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth 
 children." And he said to Adam : " In the 
 sweat of thy face shalt thou knead bread ; and 
 thou shalt return to the ground whence thou 
 wast taken^ 
 
 19. Now I ask why, in the woman's penance 
 only, there is no hidden meaning or allegory, 
 but it is accomplished literall}', as God pro- 
 nounced it? The woman who lives in a poor 
 hut and the empress on her throne, wearing a 
 crown on her head, have the same destiny : 
 they " bring forth children in sorrow." There 
 
54 Labor. 
 
 is no difference between them. No : they bring 
 forth children in such sorrow that it often costs 
 them life itseh^ 
 Is this true? 
 
 20. But the woman of the higher class may 
 say : " I have not time for maternal duties. 
 They would take me from urgent affairs of state, 
 and occasion more loss than profit. And then, 
 why should I descend to the level of the meanest 
 peasant ? Let me rather pay another with gold 
 to undertake this duty for me, or I will buy a 
 new-born child which will belong to me as 
 though it were my own." Can she do this, and 
 carry out such plans? * 
 
 21. No, that cannot be done; we cannot 
 cl^ige the order established by God. 
 
 ^^u may give all the treasures in the world 
 to purchase a child, but it will not then be your 
 own. It never has been yours, and never can 
 be. It belongs only to its own mother. 
 
 It is the same with the question of food. A 
 man may neglect the duty of laboring for bread, 
 he may buy a loaf with money ; but that loaf 
 
 * Bondareff's ideas, as given above, have inspired several 
 passages in Tolstoi's What should he done. 
 
 " Thou shall earn thy bread, he says (page 216 of the French 
 translation), in the sweat of thy face, and thou shall bring forth 
 children in sorrow. 
 
 " But we have changed all that ! as exclaimed Moliere's 
 rh.iracter, who proclaimed that the liver is on the left side. 
 Men no longer must labor for food : that will be done by ina- 
 rliinery; and women need no longer bear children. The woild 
 will not now be overcrowded with people." 
 
Labor. 55 
 
 still belongs to the person whose labor earned 
 
 For even as a woman cannot purchase moth- 
 erhood with money or in any other way, so a 
 man ought by the work of his own hands to pro- 
 cure the necessary food for his own subsistence 
 and that of his wife and children. He cannot 
 elude the obligation by any means, whatever 
 may be his rank or merit. 
 
 22. No species of animals, of birds, or of rep- 
 tiles, nothing that lives in the air or on the 
 earth, can escape the destiny God has planned 
 for it. Man alone, the most educated and intel- 
 ligent of being<^, attempts it. And how does he 
 excuse the attempt? Will he have recourse 
 anew to the falsehood : " I wgrk more than the 
 laborer, and I buy my bread with the money I 
 have earned by my work?" Let him abandon 
 this excuse which is so false! For he may buy 
 everything in the world with money excepting 
 only bread. 
 
 23. I ask once more, why is the penance in- 
 flicted on woman to be literally fulfilled, accord- 
 ing to God's command, and only man's penance 
 to be considered allegorical? What excuses, 
 falsehoods, and pretexts can you offer that are 
 not so many refutations in themselves of your 
 views? "This command," says the educated 
 and intelligent man, "does not say I must work 
 in the field with scythe, harrow, or flail. I eat 
 my bread in the sweat of my face. That suf- 
 fices." And a simple, ignorant man like me will 
 
$6 Labor. 
 
 believe that he is right and that he is perfect. 
 And for the thij^^.time I ask for an answer to 
 this question: \ Why is woman's penance to be 
 taken literally, while man's is regarded as an al- 
 legoryr { 
 
 24. Again, God says to the woman, according 
 to the Scriptures : " I will greatly multiply thy 
 sorrow." One sees here that there can be no 
 other meaning for her penance. The sorrows 
 of motherhood are beyond description ; the 
 heart only can comprehend them, "Thy desire 
 shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over 
 thee." Now all this occurs as it is written in 
 the Scriptures. Then wh}^ if the duty of the 
 laborer's wife is literally expressed, should it be 
 regarded as alleggrical with the woman of the 
 educated class ? 
 
 25. How I regret the want of eloquence ! I 
 feel all the truth and value of this reasoning, 
 and yet, for want of eloquence, I can only ex- 
 press it weakly and obscurely. But this hope 
 sustains me, that if gold can be rescued from 
 the very mire, so much more shall bread won 
 by labor be preserved, which is so much better 
 known and so much dearer to us than gold. 
 
 26. God said to the woman : " Thou shalt 
 not work to earn thy food, but thou shalt bring 
 forth children in sorrow." Why, then, do our 
 women work? Reader, while waiting till you 
 have found an answer to this, I will myself re- 
 ply to it. 
 
 You who eat in idleness the food we have 
 
Labor. 57 
 
 worked for are, in Russia, of the number of 
 about thirty millions ; but if our wives are not 
 to work, as says the commandment, what would 
 happen ? Just one thing : the world would 
 perish with hunger. 
 
 So we see clearly and certainly that our wives 
 vi'ork for you, and accomplish your task : you 
 cat the fruit of their labor. I wonder that you 
 do not fear the justice of God. But I forget 
 that you buy your food with money. 
 
 Do you think that excuses you ? 
 
 27. If a woman should destroy her children, 
 w^ould she not merit severe punishment for 
 violating God's commandment against murder? 
 
 And should not men be equally punished for 
 violating the command God has given them ? 
 It has been said : if they will not work, neither 
 should they eat. But no, they eat several times 
 a da_f with avidity ; without that they could 
 not live. 
 
 28. \A woman who has destroyed her child 
 does penance all her life. From her soul she 
 implores pardon of God, and to her dying hour 
 she will fast and pray in penitence for her sin. 
 1 hus she may hope to obtain forgiveness from 
 God for her crime. 
 
 But thou, reader, dost thou repent all thy life 
 for having eaten the bread that another has 
 earned ? Dost thou ask pardon of God and man ? 
 No, thou dost not even think of it ; thou art only 
 proud of thy wealth, thou livest well, and think- 
 est to owe God nothing. 
 
58 Labor. 
 
 29. T<3 woman, who is weaker than man, God 
 has given an imperative duty. We also of the 
 lower class, being weaker than thou in spirit, 
 have an imperative duty. 
 
 But thou, being better educated and more 
 intelligent than we are, dost as thou wilt in the 
 matter. If thou choosest to do so, thou wilt 
 labor with th}^ hands, but not otherwise ; and no 
 one can compel thee to work. 
 
 Since thou knowest thy duty, and leavest it 
 for others to fulfil, we may judge thee without 
 mercy, for thou dost not act in ignorance. As 
 for me, who have all my life eaten my own bread, 
 and nourished others through my labors, 1 show 
 perhaps a poor spirit, but I have thus gained 
 God'sfyrgiveness. 
 
 30.^()ne may ask why this commandment 
 which transcends in importance all others, should 
 be unknown among men. • 
 
 I think the cause is as follows: 
 
 If it were given to laborers to explain the law, 
 they would give it its full extent and meaning. 
 Then all the emperors, kings, and princes would 
 comprehend that the first and most sacred duty 
 is that of laboring with one's hands. Then the 
 lower classes, which are now so oppressed, could 
 take breath, and could carry in their hearts the 
 key of all laws, " Do not covet what belongs 
 to thy neighbor." 
 
 r^. Those who explain our laws scarcely know 
 what grain is, or how it is produced ; thus they 
 
Labor. 59 
 
 have overlooked its value, and the labor required 
 for its production : 
 
 Because, in the light of this law, all religious 
 practices which are easy of accomplishment, 
 and exact no labor, would lose their force and 
 fall into disuse ; 
 
 And also because he who explains a law 
 should exemplify it by his example, and in set- 
 ting those white hands to work, they would be 
 found incapable of such labor. 
 
 For all these reasons this law has slumbered, 
 and has been, as it were, consigned to a living 
 tomb, whence it will not be resurrected to the 
 end of the woria7| 
 
 32. If this commandment, the first which God 
 has given us, which promotes all the virtues, and 
 whence we derive all eternal good, whether 
 earthly or heavenly, were duly comprehended, 
 men would so cherish the cultivation of the 
 ground that a father would give this order to his 
 son : " When I am at the point of death, carry 
 me into the field of grain, that my soul may there 
 leave my body ; and in that same field inter my 
 remains." 
 
 But now, what happens? 
 
 The man who labors expects no recompense 
 from God ; and he who uses the fruits of 
 another's labor looks for no punishment. 
 
 33. If, I repeat, this commandment were com- 
 prehended, how abl}^ you would assist your 
 laborers in their work ! They would then do so 
 
6o Labor. 
 
 well that one acre would produce what is to-day 
 gathered from five. 
 
 But how shall we make you accept this law? 
 If it were we who failed in obeying it, you could 
 compel us to respect it ; but if it is you who have 
 withdrawn from its obligation, as the prodigal 
 son of the Gospel left his father's house, who is 
 able to recall you to your duty ? 
 
 For we are, in your estimation, but as ciphers 
 without units to give them value, as certain 
 might}'^ ones have said of us.* 
 
 And why would you abase us in this way? 
 Is it only because we nourish you ? 
 
 34.4God could certainly have found some other 
 way to fertilize the ground and to make it pro- 
 duce grain, but he has made this labor the pen- 
 ance for our sins. In other words, man could 
 not help sinning, and must labor for his own 
 support, and it is by this labor that God permits 
 us to atone for our sins.j 
 
 But you, neglecting tRis precious remedy, and 
 burying it in a tomb, where the inhabitants of the 
 earth may not find it, you decide that faith in 
 God alone can save you. 
 
 Satan also believed in God, and obeyed him, 
 as we see in the Book of Job, ii. 1-3. 
 
 * It might be believed that we invented this, and that no one 
 had so spoken of us. But the appellation has been given us 
 many times. It is thus we might reply to it: 
 
 You, then, are as the unit i, and we the cipher o. But as we 
 are bound to your service, you must unite these figures, i and o. 
 which make 10. Thus we are as nine to one. (Author's note.3 
 
Labor. 6i 
 
 You have made labor for bread a secondary 
 virtue ; and you will be severely punished by 
 God, and judged without mercy, because for 
 thousands of years vou have hidden this law 
 under a bushel, and have slain a living thing. 
 Read all the books in the world, and you will 
 in them never find labor or the laborers held in 
 the least esteem. They are classed below all 
 else. And yet it is to the laborer that you must 
 go to buy bread, and its productions depends on 
 his good-will. Reflect on that. 
 
 35. All the crimes that are committed on the] 
 earth, such as thefts, assassinations, frauds, pil-^ 
 lage, exactions, etc., result from the concealment 
 of this law from men. 
 
 The rich man will do all in the world to es- 
 cape this odious occupation; the poor man is 
 eager to throw it off. But explain to men its 
 importance and virtue, and all crime will cease 
 forever, while men will be delivered from 
 poverty and misery, because every one will do 
 his best to fulfil this duty to God. 
 
 I remember well that, fifty years ago, the 
 money tax was four roubles a head, the custom- 
 house dues were trifling, and the king's treasury 
 was well filled. 
 
 To-day, the money tax is thirty-five roubles 
 a head, and all others are ten times as much as 
 formerly; the number of persons liable to be 
 taxed is doubled, and yet they complain that the 
 amounts collected are insufficient. Thus it may 
 be foreseen that in fifty years more the tax will 
 
62 Labor. 
 
 be increased to one hundred roubles a head, 
 and the people will all be ruined. 
 
 And why? Because every one wishes to be 
 elegantly attired, without working for it. On 
 all sides you offend us in an insupportable man- 
 ner. People have become tricky and given to 
 intrigue; they love to deceive ; and thus, having 
 no claim on the treasury for the least sum, they 
 will assert that it owes them not five but ten 
 thousand kopecks, and they will receive them. 
 
 In the last days of March 1883 I learned 
 that capital punishment had been re-established. 
 I trembled at this news. As one chops meat' 
 with a blunted axe, so strikes the executioner. 
 It is better to kill outright than to torture in 
 this fashion. j 
 
 I asked myself often what was the best way' 
 for the executioner to accomplish his duty. 
 
 If there is no other way, if we cannot by any 
 possibility constrain men to do right, then we 
 must, against our will, consent to shed their 
 blood. 
 
 But there is a means, a decisive remedy for 
 crime, to be found in God's most ancient law. 
 For it was not without intention that God has 
 not imposed any command before this, nor 
 that he has not ordered us to avoid any vice ex- 
 cept neglect of labor. 
 
 We thus see that labor embraces all virtues, 
 while idleness and luxury, on the contrary, pro- 
 duce all vices. If, then, a malefactor is found 
 
Labor. 63 
 
 amonof laborers, it is because he does not observe 
 this law. 
 
 We must not deny that other works have 
 merit, but they are only to be considered after one 
 has earned his nourishment with his own hands. 
 
 You have permitted the executioner to flog 
 men, but what men? Evidently us only. He 
 touches not the rich man, who has for his de- 
 fence friends, eloquence, cunning, and, above all, 
 money. We have no such advantages. 
 
 Of course the rich man must expiate his crime, 
 if the affair reaches the ears of supreme au- 
 thority. But it is usually smothered from the 
 beginning. It is said in Deuteronomy': " Presents 
 dazzle the judges' eyes." 
 
 Of all the petitions I would make to you the 
 dearest to my heart is this: Do not crush the 
 poor while sparing the rich. And if you must 
 crush any, begin with the head rather than the 
 tail. Think of my argument against your 
 custom of shedding human blood. Let the exe- 
 cutioner disappear from among men, and let 
 even his name become unknown in all the world. 
 
 36. But will not the baser sort among the 
 people say, Here are such and such ones who 
 live on the labor of others, why may not I do 
 likewise? 
 
 Then I will rob, slay, and exact the uttermost 
 penny; I will live like a pomestchik, with my 
 hands in my pockets; I will command, and no 
 longer obey. For it is not by honest labor that 
 you acquire your fine houses. " Honest labor 
 
/64 Labor. 
 
 will not make you rich, but hunchbacked; if 
 you do not sell your soul to the devil, you will 
 not make money." * 
 
 And you will condemn such a man and exile 
 him to Siberia, when you are yourselves the 
 sole cause of his crimes. 
 
 f-' 37. You see now, reader, how much evil there 
 is in this wrong, this neglect of labor for bread. 
 You see the evil that white hands may do, and 
 jthe good that labor-stained ones can cause to 
 ispring from the earth. You see, in fine, the good 
 result of making known this commandment. 
 
 Have good writers given themselves much 
 trouble to explain and teach it? They should 
 have shown how useful is its observance, how 
 wrong its evasion. They should have en- 
 deavored, by speech and writing and by relig- 
 ious ceremonies, to exhort all the world to 
 manual labor. That would be worth a thousand 
 times more than founding a faith on the works 
 and merits of Christ alone, and of abandoning 
 the task prescribed by God. It would be well if 
 writer and preacher should set the example ; but j 
 how can we make people labor who find it so! 
 great a fatigue to carry their food to their ', 
 mouths? 
 
 38. If I were, in truth, a man who would avoid 
 labor, and who knew nothing of it, and still 
 sought to impose these opinions on others, every 
 one would have the right to spit in my face, and 
 
 * Russian proverb. 
 
Labor. 65 
 
 to treat me with disdain. And if I had hitherto 
 been held in esteem among men, I might well be 
 henceforth treated as a nobody. 
 
 This is the reason why writers have never 
 spoken of this commandment, nor ever will 
 speak of it to the end of the world. 
 
 Adam committed a crime. God punished 
 him according to the greatness of his fault, as 
 we see in Holy Scripture, and he thus gained 
 forgiveness from God. Why, then, should tradi- 
 tion say that he was sent to hell for five thou- 
 sand five hundred years? 
 
 The New Testament makes no allusion to this 
 exile. Whence, then, comes the legend? If it 
 is true, God, in imposing on him the penance of 
 labor, deceived Adam by a false promise. For 
 if this labor was of no utility to Adam, if, after 
 enduring all its fatigues during his life, he was 
 condemned after death to the torments of hell, 
 every one would exclaim, " Is this the recom- 
 pense God gives us for our labor?" If that be 
 true, what can we do? How shall we act? 
 How must we live ? by robbery and murder ?. . . . 
 
 And then you invent new laws, you have need 
 of the executioner, you brand men with hot 
 irons, you send them into exile, women remain 
 widows, and orphans become in their turn a 
 prey to vice and crime. 
 
 And whose is the fault ? 
 
 Evidently his who has concealed, and con- 
 tinues to conceal, the law of labor. 
 
 39. If there were in the world a man having 
 
66 Labor. 
 
 over you the same power that you hold over 
 us, he might permit you — though with reluc- 
 tance and much gnashing- of teeth— to live 
 without manual labor. But you excite envy 
 in the laborers; and in displaying the idleness 
 of your life, you weaken the hands that are de- 
 voted to labor. Instead of helping them, the 
 sight of your idleness discourages their work, 
 and even tempts them to commit crimes. 
 
 What a pity there is not such a man in au- 
 thority over you ! For we hear the cry, " God 
 is in heaven, and the Czar afar off." 
 
 40. We may see, by what has been said and 
 by what follows, that the man who eats the bread 
 he has earned by his own labor is happy in this 
 world and blessed in the world to come. 
 
 But the contrary happens to him who con- 
 sumes the results of another's labor. No other 
 virtue can save him, because he has disobeyed 
 the principal commandment, and obedience to 
 others cannot supply a remedy. 
 
 41. All the products of the earth are bought 
 and sold at their price, which is neither more 
 nor less than is suitable, and each nieiit has its 
 own recompense. But when our labor, that is, 
 our bread, is taken from us for nothing, we are 
 neither paid nor recompensed. Why is not our 
 labor paid, you ask, reader? Must I, then, 
 repeat the same thing ten times over.-^ 
 
 42. Tell me, I pray you, conscientiously, will 
 you labor for your bread as much as thirty days 
 in the year ? Does that seem impossible to you ? 
 
Labor. 6/ 
 
 Is it because you cannot, or that you will not 
 do this? Tell me sincerely. 
 
 43. Labor for bread is a sacred duty for each 
 of us, and we should not make excuses to avoid 
 it. The more a man is educated, the more he 
 owes the example of labor, neither pretending 
 to discover obstacles to it, nor abandoning it 
 altogether. 
 
 44. Ought I to seek theological proofs because 
 I desire your salvation ? No, but because only 
 that theology offers good reasons in favor of 
 labor ; and because, also, people of my class be- 
 lieve firmly in God, in a future life, and in the 
 Holy Scriptures. When they hear these words 
 they will eagerly grasp this, and all other kinds 
 of labor, like those who are dying of hunger and 
 thirst. 
 
 45. Then the dark night will become to them 
 as the bright day, the passing storm will reveal 
 a serene sk}^, cold will become warmth, and old 
 age will blossom into a flourishing youth. 
 
 Therefore I draw from the Holy Scriptures 
 the arguments therein contained, but I do not 
 address them to you. 
 
 Who will read these articles to the people ? 
 You have not the right to do so. Must you 
 persuade the laborers themselves to read them? 
 That is impossible, for in so doing you will com- 
 mit a grave error. 
 
 46. As the proverb says, " we have not every 
 day a feast," but on the contrary it is alvva3^s 
 Lent. We should always instruct others to be 
 
68 Labor. 
 
 pleasing to God and useful to society. But the 
 time has come when we have but to ask this 
 question : Why do you teach others, when you 
 cannot teach your own selves ? As is said in 
 the same sense, '' You place upon the shoul- 
 ders of men heavy burdens, that 3^ou would not 
 so much as touch with your little finger." We 
 must set the example of virtue, and encourage 
 people to cultivate it, lest the scythe in cutting 
 the grass shall become broken against a stone. 
 
 47. O ye who belong to the upper classes of 
 society, reflect on this : If all the laborers in the 
 world should abandon labor for bread as you 
 do, then every one would die of hunger. Do 
 you admit that we could do this with as much 
 reason as you do? 
 
 We do not rest, you say, we work unceas- 
 ingly. We do not eat food without paying for 
 it with the money we have earned by our work, 
 and we give the price that the lat)orer demands. 
 We eat our bread in the sweat of our face. 
 
 And if we all work, where will the poor get 
 their money ? We give it them, and they 
 give us bread. We live by them, and they by 
 us. We cannot govern and direct others, and 
 at the same time labor with our hands. 
 
 The commandment given to Adam applies 
 not only to labor for bread, but to all our other 
 occupations. Even as we cannot live without 
 bread, we cannot live without the things with 
 which we occupy ourselves. God, in creating 
 the world, intended that we should labor at dif- 
 
Labor. 69 
 
 ferent sorts of work. Man amasses wealth to get 
 rid of this uncongenial labor. In short, it is im- 
 possible to be occupied with many affairs at once. 
 
 1 have no rest ; night and day I have my oc- 
 cupations, I have scarcely the time to eat food 
 already prepared. If we too must labor for 
 bread, then the universe must of necessity per- 
 ish. I have plenty of money, and I use it in 
 great enterprises without labor, and yet you 
 want me to go into the fields and torture myself 
 for thirty kopecks a day ! I would be regarded 
 as a simpleton. I prefer to work with my money 
 at home. 
 
 But if all the world must labor, let those begin 
 who are a hundred times richer than I ! 
 
 48. These are the pretexts and objections that 
 you make to the law ; these are the reasons 
 why you who belong to the upper class would 
 decline to labor for bread. If all of us laborers 
 did the same, would you admit it as a justifica- 
 tion when the plea is made by us? 
 
 No ; but with your absolute power, you would 
 smother us and our reasons together. 
 
 But, I ask you, why do you look upon your 
 excuses as legitimate ? 
 
 Bring together a number of men belonging 
 to the great world, who waste their thoughts 
 on its vanities, and ask them what answer you 
 ought to make to this question. 
 '49! Bread should be neither bought, nor sold, 
 nor used in traffic. You cannot with bread 
 heap up riches, for its value is beyond human es- 
 
70 Labor. 
 
 timation. It is only in certain cases that it may 
 be given away, as to hospitals, to orphanages, to 
 prisoners, to countries ruined by bad harvests, 
 to people deprived of everything in a fire, to 
 widows, to orphans, to the infirm and aged, and 
 to those who have no home^ 
 
 50. This law is ignored in the world, as we 
 have seen, and as I will show you further. 
 They might have placed it among virtues of less 
 importance, but they have not even accorded it 
 that much honor. 
 
 Nature herself leads the laborer to seek the 
 highest good; that is to say, bread. 
 
 But if, not content onl}'' to see that it is indeed 
 an excellent thing, he can penetrate Nature's 
 profound mysteries, he will then realize what 
 has been said in the preceding article. It will 
 no longer be said, " Give me bread," but rather, 
 " Take of my bread," and I do not believe any 
 man will enjoy eating the bread that another 
 has prepared. 
 
 But at present, what must be done? You 
 have put away this commandment as one plunges 
 a stone into the depths of the sea, so that its 
 name and its memory are lost to the world. 
 God will judge between us and you. 
 
 51. Here are some objections that a rich man 
 has made to me : " How can you say that it is 
 forbidden to buy and sell bread, and to make a 
 profit by the traffic ? Besides that which histor- 
 ians relate, we see in the Holy Scriptures that 
 bread was bought and sold and used in traffic, 
 
Labor. 'JX 
 
 yet in spite of that, they sinned not against God. 
 You maintain also that bread cannot be ex- 
 changed for money ; that we must absohitely la- 
 bor for it with our hands. It is an evident absur- 
 dity. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and other ancestors 
 of the human race were rich, and had their 
 slaves, both male and female. We must conclude 
 that they did not work themselves, but ate bread 
 produced by the labor of others ; and yet they 
 were not for that reason held guilty before 
 God. 
 
 52. And to prove more strongly the falsity of 
 your assertions, the two great legislators, Moses 
 and Jesus Christ, have never spoken of this 
 commandment. When Moses wrote : " Knead 
 thy bread in the sweat of thy face," he referred 
 to all occupations. This must be the sense we 
 are to give to his words, if we remember that 
 Moses lived for forty years at the court of 
 Pharaoh, king of Egypt, without working. 
 During the following forty years, he herded 
 sheep in the pastures of his father-in-law Jethro, 
 in the land of Midian * ; but he did not labor for 
 bread. During forty other years he commanded 
 the Israelites in the Wilderness,without laboring. 
 Thus he never labored. Nevertheless, God ac- 
 cepted him, loved him, and placed him above 
 all other prophets ; but, according to you, Moses 
 was a parasite. 
 
 53. It is the same with Jesus Christ. He is 
 
 * " Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the 
 priest of Midian." ' Exodus iii. i.' 
 
']2 Labor. 
 
 himself God, the Creator of heaven and earth, 
 and it was he who judged Adam in paradise ; 
 but instead of " Knead thy bread in the sweat 
 of thy face," he says in the Gospel, " Behold 
 the fowls of the air; they sow not, neither do 
 they reap, nor gather into barns ; but God feed- 
 eth them." 
 
 Do you not, then, see that labor for bread is 
 of slight benefit, nor has it in this life even util- 
 ity? It is indeed the most useless of all labor, 
 and God imposes it on the idle. 
 
 54. And furthermore, show me a laborer 
 whom God has admitted into heaven for his 
 work's sake. We do not know if the prophets 
 were rich, but neither do we know that they 
 were poor. But as their books were approved, 
 we may conclude they were rich, because a poor 
 man's book would never be approved, no mat- 
 ter how useful it might be. 
 
 To this Sirach, a man inspired by God, bears 
 witness \vhen he says : " The rich man uttereth 
 a folly, and all are silent, his words are vaunted 
 to the skies. The poor man speaks reasonably, 
 and instead of approving him, they say, * Who 
 art thou ? ' * 
 
 * " If the rich man is deceived, every one helps him; if he 
 gpeaks insolently (if he reveals what should have been a secret), 
 he is justified. But if the poor man is deceived, he is re- 
 proached; if he speaks wisely, he is not listened to. 
 
 " When the rich man speaks, all are silent, and they vaunt 
 his words to the skies. When the poor man speaks, they say, 
 Who art thou? (they reproach him with his poverty, and force 
 him to be silent.) And if he makes a mistake, they will pass 
 it over." (Ecclesiasticus xiii. 26. Translated by Sacy.) 
 
Labor. 73 
 
 It is true Jesus Christ calls the poor " his 
 brethren," but this is only to encourage them, 
 lest they fall into despair. The proof of this is 
 that He himself frequented only the houses of 
 the rich, and never entered those of the poor. 
 
 55. My adversary continues by saying : When 
 Noah came into the world, his father Lamech 
 said : " This same shall comfort us concerning 
 our work, and toil of our hands, because of the 
 ground which the Lord hath cursed." (Genesis 
 V. 29.) 
 
 And thus we are delivered from the curse of 
 labor ; but you, the laborers, are still kept un- 
 der it ; and it must be hoped that God will not 
 condemn you, because our class has trampled 
 you under its feet. And is that a sin in God's 
 eyes ? No, for it has been God's will that it 
 should be so. 
 
 56. It is further written in the Scriptures : 
 
 " Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed 
 shalt thou be in the field. 
 
 "Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. 
 
 " Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and 
 the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, 
 and the flocks of thy sheep. 
 
 " Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, 
 and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. 
 
 "The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, 
 vexation, and rebuke in all that thou settest thy 
 hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, 
 and until thou perish quickly ; because of the 
 
74 Labor. 
 
 wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast 
 forsaken me." (Deuteronomy xxviii. 16-20.) 
 
 The adjective cursed signifies unhappy. I 
 ask, cries the rich man, to whom do these words 
 apply? to the rich or to the poor? Certainly 
 to the poor laborer, he adds. Do you see now, 
 Bondareff, how many curses God sends upon 
 the poor laborer, upon his goods, and even upon 
 future generations ? 
 
 On such laws is founded the society of the 
 world. 
 
 57. Have I told the truth ? he asks, and I have 
 replied, yes. 
 
 Can I contradict him ? It would be useless. 
 Could my arguments overcome him ? 
 
 I am content to say to myself, You speak 
 falsely, sir ! You have not so much brains as 
 you think, nor am I the fool you imagine me to 
 be. On both points you deceive yourself greatly. 
 
 There are many distinguished persons who 
 feel no horror of my poverty ; they can judge 
 fairly between us. 
 
 58. The rich man says: If a man of your in- 
 ferior class obtains some education, he will seek 
 an occupation in which he may dispense with 
 manual labor. 
 
 Thus if you were all educated, you would 
 labor no more, but would imitate us. 
 
 But, I ask, what will we then eat? 
 
 We will live as Christ's commandment points 
 out: "Behold the fowls of the air; they sow 
 not, neither do they reap ; nor gather into 
 
Labor. 75 
 
 barns; but God feedeth them." So he answers 
 me. 
 
 All these arguments are absolutely opposed 
 to the primitive and to the natural law. 
 
 I ask of the rich man: Which is the most 
 immutable law? Is it the theological law that 
 man has written upon paper, or the natural law 
 that God has written in our hearts? Tru^y, 
 neither is to be rejected, but I myself prefer the 
 natural law, and I hope, reader, that you will 
 agree with me. 
 
 59. Well, Bondareff, if you will present your 
 propositions to the government, with mine by 
 their side, my arguments will be approved, and 
 recognized as true and praiseworthy, while 
 yours will be rejected. 
 
 60. You see now, reader, how far I have 
 carried my loyalty. I might have concealed 
 these objections to my arguments, but I will 
 not palter with the truth, because it is wrong 
 to speak of this great and sacred duty of labor- 
 ing for bread, and at the same time to disguise 
 the truth under an ignoble flattery. 
 
 But if, in my answer, you find a bitterness 
 that seems to you insupportable, clench your 
 teeth and say nothing. I pray you, do not seek 
 a quarrel with me. 
 
 You are so accustomed to listen to flatterers, 
 that my frankness will seem to you intolerable. 
 
 61. Let us return to our question. How many 
 thousand measures* of wheat, how many 
 
 * The measure spoken of contains about i6 kilogrammes. 
 
76 , Labor. 
 
 roubles, are taken from us each year for taxes 
 and other exactions?* 
 
 Besides this revenue, the great lords, the 
 pomestchiks, the merchants, and all the rich 
 possess innumerable millions. But money is 
 not given away. It must he earned by our 
 arms of flesh and blood, according to the com- 
 mandmefit I have given, and not by the pen or 
 the tongue. 
 
 62. Your manner of living is to us a most 
 cruel offence, and to yourselves a shame. I 
 know you are a hundred times more educated 
 and intelligent than I, and therefore you take 
 my money and my bread. But since you are 
 so intelligent, you should have pity on me who 
 am weak. It is said, " Love thy neighbor as 
 thyself," and I am your neighbor, as you are 
 mine. 
 
 Why are we poor and clownish ? It is because 
 we eat the bread of our own labor. Have we 
 time to study and to be instructed ? You have 
 taken both our bread and our intelligence from 
 us by fraud or violence ; you have criminally 
 appropriated all. 
 
 *The taxes are not levied on us, but on the mines and 
 other works. The manufacturers, however, raise the prices 
 of their merchandise, and so make us pay the amount of the 
 taxes. And I ask you, whose hands have labored to earn this 
 money? In truth they are ours. But in whose hands does 
 the money remain ? 
 
 In your white hands, that you may enjoy your luxury. 
 
 In a word, tjie whole world is in our hands. {Author's note.] 
 
Labor. 77 
 
 It is so, reader, whether you like it or not. 
 It is not my fault that the truth is bitter. 
 
 63. The eagerness of your desire makes you 
 ask of God for purity of air and an abundance 
 of the fruits of the earth. It is well. But to 
 whose hands do you owe this abundance? Who 
 ought to cultivate the ground? Is it you, or 
 some other one ? 
 
 Can it be I, with my white hands? you an- 
 swer. Truly it is to you, laborers, that this 
 work belongs. I would rather die of hunger 
 than to gather a blade of straw or a grain of 
 wheat. 
 
 64. You should ask, before meals, for a bless- 
 ing upon your food, not from God, but from us, 
 the laborers; and after 3^our repast you should 
 thank us for it, and not God. 
 
 If God sent you manna from heaven as he 
 did to the Israelites in the Wilderness, you 
 should thank him ; but since it is from our hands 
 that you receive your manna, you should thank 
 us, because we nourish you as though you were 
 infants or invalids. 
 
 65. When I had written this much, some 
 laborers said to me: "All this is useless. Do 
 you believe you can make the rich man labor 
 for his bread ? If the prophets and the masters 
 of all wisdom came to urge it upon him, he 
 would not listen to them. If God should cry 
 in his ears with the trumpet of doom, * You are 
 about to die, and to present yourself to me for 
 judgment, and your disobedience to my com- 
 
78 Labor. 
 
 mand merits eternal punishment,' — even then 
 the rich man will remain unmoved, for he pre- 
 fers his wealth to all divine benefits. Laboring 
 for bread is to him more horrible than torture. 
 And you, who are but as the dust beneath his 
 feet, would seek, by expressing 3'our own con- 
 victions, to induce him to work !" 
 
 66. I know, 1 replied to them, that it is in- 
 deed impossible. 
 
 But they may approve of my arguments, 
 since they are taken from the chief divine laws ; 
 and perhaps they may make them known to 
 their laborers. For this good action alone God 
 would greatly reward them. Then, like per- 
 sons suffering from hunger and thirst, men will 
 hasten to accomplish this work. They will not 
 give themselves to other occupations till after- 
 wards, for they all depend on labor for bread. 
 Then the obscure night will be as the brightest 
 day, and all will be easy. For this reason, 
 amid all the cares and labors of my life, I have 
 undertaken this task. 
 
 dj. And then the superior class will see our 
 merit, which it had never before remarked or 
 heard of. It will feel culpable towards God and 
 man ; it will no longer depend on or oppress us 
 as it does now. We are bought at half price, 
 and sold for double the amount. When a 
 rich man finds himself in a poor country, far 
 from the cities and commercial centres, he meets 
 no one with whom he can buy or sell. At each 
 mouthful of bread men will ask, in spite of 
 
Labor. 79 
 
 themselves : Whose hands have prepared this 
 food ? And as for their conscience ! Wealth 
 cannot silence it. It will compel men to be 
 kinder to those who supply them with food. 
 Hoping this, I have undertaken ray task. 
 
 68. And even if this commandment is graven 
 but superficially in your hearts, O you of the 
 educated class, you will not the less employ 
 all your powers to eat only the bread of your 
 own labor, and you will reason thus: Among 
 the poor and the laborers, not only the strong 
 men are Irboring for bread, but also feeble 
 women, wlio have young children that are 
 thus neglected. The new-born child, in its 
 cradle, suffers from the hot air and the insects 
 that torment it, while its body is scorched by 
 the sun. (Children of seven years also labor 
 so far as they have strength for it, and old 
 men of seventy who cannot bend their backs 
 when reaping the harvest, must do it on their 
 knees. Thc^se things occur even yet; but for- 
 merly, in the days of slavery, it was much worse. 
 All these families live and die on the earth, 
 following the precept, " Dust thou art, and unto 
 dust must Ihou return." Think a little about 
 this, ye educated men! 
 
 69. But among us, you will say, a man of 
 thirty, in good health, continues all his life, even 
 in summer, to whistle, with his hands in his 
 pockets, while waiting for these poor martyrs 
 to put his food between his teeth. 
 
 With us, the laborers, on the contrary, not 
 
8o Labor, 
 
 only in summer, but even in winter, our gar- 
 ments are soaked in the dews of labor. 
 
 Among all Christians, the first and most im- 
 portant sacrament is baptism. But I ask you, 
 which washes away the most sin? Is it the 
 water of baptism, or the sweat which streams 
 from our faces, while all our lives are conse- 
 crated to laboring for bread ? There is a prov- 
 erb often cited amongst us, " The peasant's 
 frock is gray, but the devil has not devoured 
 his reason." This proverb is not true, for 1 
 know certainly that I might ask questions for- 
 ever without getting an answer. Conse- 
 quently, the devil has devoured my reason!'' It is 
 certain that we cannot discover with our nar- 
 row minds the secrets of God's ways with the 
 world, but we may believe that while you were 
 washed in the water of baptism at your birth, 
 that never since has any labor bathed your face 
 in sweat. 
 
 For me, I have not been washed in the water 
 of baptism ; thus must I all my life be bathed 
 in sweat. Nevertheless, which is the cleaner 
 of the two — you who have been baptized, or 
 I who have not ? 
 
 You see, then, what your falsehood is worth. 
 At each word, at each step, you have been com- 
 pelled, against your will, to yield to me, who 
 am but a feeble man. Possibly you may yet 
 triumph over me through your power, which I 
 
 * In other words, they look on me as an imbecile. 
 
Labor. 8 1 
 
 cannot resist ; but you can never destroy my 
 arguments, or prove them to be false. 
 
 During 6884 years* we have been silent be- 
 fore you. Now we have spoken a word that 
 you have never before heard, even in your 
 dreams. I do not depend on you, but on your 
 conscience. I hope it will come to my aid. 
 
 70. There are in the world many inventions 
 that astonish the mind. To produce one ob- 
 ject, of however little importance, machines 
 have been invented. A labor that formerly re- 
 quired the efforts of several men, is now done 
 more perfectly by a machine than any hand of 
 man could have accomplished it. 
 
 But the labor for bread has been done by 
 peasants from time immemorial. 
 
 71. Would it not be easy for an inventor to 
 say these simple words, " Make this or that," 
 that men and beasts should be delivered from a 
 wearisome labor? 
 
 No ! He would not come near the labor he 
 abhors, or the people who perform it He 
 would have no pity for the poor martyrs, — I 
 mean the laborers, — nor even for the animals 
 themselves, although he will several times in a 
 day eat this bread — or rather the blood and 
 tears of both beasts and men. 
 
 It is thus, O you of the upper class, that you 
 offend us, and at the same time you disobey 
 God's command. 
 
 *This article was wrUten in 1884. 
 
82 Labor. 
 
 Does not your conduct clearly show the ha- 
 tred you feel towards God and your neighbor? 
 Well, what answer have you to make to that? 
 You cannot justify yourself before the peasant 
 nor have you any excuse to offer. 
 
 72. Here are further facts to show that you 
 debase and trample everything under your feet. 
 If some one of you makes a discovery, you 
 honor him with a medal bearing this inscrip- 
 tion : " Honor to Labor and to Art." Has any 
 one ever been rewarded for labor and art in 
 gaining bread ? No. And if one were offered, 
 it would be given to the proprietors who culti- 
 vate a thousand acres of ground by the hands 
 of others, but who would not themselves come 
 near this shameful labor nor those who perform 
 it. Behold, then, those who have always re- 
 ceived all such recompense, and always will. 
 
 73. What occurs in the homes of the poor? 
 The husband and wife must support not only 
 
 themselves, but perhaps a dozen children, be- 
 sides their aged parents. And yet they sell you 
 part of their bread, or rather they give it to you. 
 But, though they have numbered several 
 millions in each century, has even one of them 
 had any reward whatever? Never! Far from 
 being recompensed, they have instead received 
 the name of " moujiks," which signifies a 
 "beast."* 
 
 * According to Fr. Michel, this meaning of the word mou- 
 jik was given to the French word msuchique about 1815, form- 
 ing a souveniir of fhe Russian peasants. 
 
Labor. 83 
 
 Is not this sufficient for you, O peasants ? 
 
 We see, then, that society regards labor for 
 bread as the hardest work in the world. Am I 
 not right, then, in proclaiming that these men 
 love neither God nor their neighbor, but only 
 themselves ? 
 
 It is painful to see a millionaire, who has re- 
 ceived several medals for pure trifles, marching 
 about with his hands in his pockets, and seeming 
 to say, " Look at me !" 
 
 And what is his merit compared to ours ? It 
 is but as ashes dispersed by the wind. 
 
 What shall we do ? " God is in heaven, and 
 the Czar afar off !" If I may, I will write all 
 my griefs in a memorial, and present it myself 
 to the Czar, and having gained or lost every- 
 thing, it would only remain for us to live or 
 die. I have taken the right path. I will con- 
 tinue to follow it till I die ; for I have no inter- 
 est in deceiving myself. I have one foot on the 
 earth, and the other in the grave, and I am al- 
 ready more than sixty years old. 
 
 74. When they read my writings to a laborer 
 who does not know a from b, he will well under- 
 stand them. My words will sink deeply into 
 his heart. How he will thank me for discover- 
 ing the law of salvation ! How he will apply 
 himself the more zealously to his work! 
 
 But he who would escape labor is like the 
 dog who gnaws the stone that has been cast at 
 him. He will criticise these reflections, and 
 
84 Labor. 
 
 hate me for having written them ; and he will 
 threaten me with future evil. 
 
 Why should there be such a difference be- 
 tween these two men ? Because the laborer 
 and his superiors are so far apart that their 
 opinions can never be the same. 
 
 But what has God willed to do with me ? 
 
 He has given ns the law of labor for bread. 
 This labor is not difficult, but easy and useful ; 
 it is not long, but short and readily understood. 
 
 Then why are we not grateful to him for it? 
 
 And what happens in the world? One half 
 of mankind seeks this labor, and the other half 
 avoids it as though it were a mortal poison, 
 while they conceal themselves in retired places 
 that they may not behold it. 
 
 But who are these who thus fly and hide 
 themselves? Are they ignorant? No; they 
 are the most educated and intelligent of men ! 
 Perhaps they do not believe in God ? No ; they 
 are true believers. 
 
 75. Your principal objection to labor for 
 bread is this: Whatever may be a man's occu- 
 pation or mode of work, he obeys the command- 
 ment, " Thou shalt knead thy bread in the sweat 
 of thy face." This explanation cannot please 
 God nor man. 
 
 It has been said, " Cursed is the ground for 
 thy sake." Does this allude to your occupa- 
 tions ? No. 
 
 And again : " In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all 
 the days of thy life." Here labor for bread is 
 
Labor. 8$* ' 
 
 less precisely designated. And ag-ain : " Thorns 
 also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." 
 Does this allude to your constant occupations? 
 
 And still further : " Thou shalt eat the herb 
 of the field." Is there in this an allusion to your 
 occupations? No. 
 
 And, finally : " In the sweat of thy face shalt 
 thou eat bread : dust thou art, and unto dust 
 shalt thou return." 
 
 Well, the wise men find still a loophole ; they 
 say, all this applies to the pen as well as to the 
 plough, and they give solid reasons for saying 
 so. 
 
 ^6. But is it possible that God gave only to us 
 the painful obligation of laboring in the ground, 
 while he permits you to evade it by means of 
 your money? v. 
 
 With me, says the rich man, money labors for\ 
 bread. | 
 
 It is false ! Money has not sinned against \ 
 God. Nor was the commandment set forth | 
 against money. Besides that, money does not   
 eat bread ; it is not, then, obliged to labor for it. < 
 How, then, can you say. With me, money labors 
 for bread ? Do you find yourself entirely just 
 before God, and needing no commandment? 
 But were you more holy than the Holy of Holies, 
 you do not the less eat bread labored for by 
 another. 
 
 In truth, you cannot escape alive out of the 
 hands of an adversary like me. 
 
 )Here is another excuse that you give. If all 
 
86 Labor. 
 
 the world were occupied in agriculture, the fac- 
 tories and work-shops must stop, and the uni- 
 verse would perish.— Nothing- could be more 
 false. The universe need not perish for that. 
 There are eighty festivals in the year, on which 
 we are free from all labor, and men will spend 
 eighty more in idleness. Do you think because 
 a man and his wife shall labor in a piece of ground 
 during thirty days, at different periods of the 
 year, that the universe will perish ? 
 
 In all large cities, as in Moscow, where there 
 is a great number of factories and workshops, 
 there are about a million inhabitants. Where 
 would you find land enough if all the world 
 undertook agriculture? This is but another 
 excuse to avoid labor. 
 
 I reply to this objection that the manufac- 
 turers and work-people came of their own choice 
 to the cities. But might not the factories be 
 built in the midst of the country, so that the 
 workmen could by turns labor for bread and in 
 the factories? That could easily be arranged, 
 if you desire to help the lower classes. But you 
 only care to be concerned for your equals. 
 
 Do you refuse to labor for bread because, if 
 all the world should be so occupied, there would 
 not be enough land ? With more reasonableness, 
 if you decided to labor, you would cultivate 
 alone the whole earth ! 
 
 For my part, I now cultivate a bit of ground; 
 but if this revolution takes place, I must divide 
 it with another. You, my friend, may work by 
 
Labor. 87 
 
 my side, with your white hands, in frost or heat, 
 in storms and snow, when you will tremble as 
 with fever, and your hands will become like 
 spiders' feet. 
 
 Is it right that we alone shall endure these 
 evils? 
 
 79. If you are so convinced that we eat the 
 bread which you have gained by your labor, 
 why do you sell it to us? — We do not compel 
 you to do so. You beg us to buy it. Is it, then, 
 our fault? 
 
 If all laborers understood the primitive law, 
 they would not sell their bread, nor even give 
 it away, except in certain admissible cases. — 
 Where, then, would they get money ? — They 
 would know how to find it. 
 
 The idle man, like a door on its hinge, passes 
 all his life lying on his bed. He has never seen 
 how labor for bread is done. Thus he will 
 scarcely have read ten articles in my book than 
 he will throw it aside, saying, '■'It is vitriol T 
 This verdict appears to me profound and well 
 merited. 
 
 It is not he who has found this word, but 
 Providence has put it in his mouth, because to 
 him the bread of his own labor would be as 
 vitriol, while that gained by another's labor is 
 sweeter than honey. 
 
 Do you see, my readers, how' deceit loves 
 itself? And if it did not seem lovely to itself, 
 to whom could it appear agreeable or virtuous ? 
 
88 Labor. 
 
 80. I have asked myself, why do they give 
 deceit the name of deceit? 
 
 They might have given it a better name, be- 
 cause it is more veracious than even truth. 
 It exposes and betrays itself. 
 
 It has been said: " The voice of thy brother's 
 blood crieth unto me from the ground." Thus 
 God spoke to Cain, that is, to the voice of deceit. 
 If it cries to God, why is it silent to all the 
 world ? " And God set a mark upon Cain," the 
 token of the evil doer. Does he not to-day 
 mark with this token all wicked ones, and with 
 them the sluggard of whom I have spoken, he 
 to whom I owe an eternal gratitude ? 
 
 81. You do not answer. Do you, then, ap- 
 prove of what I have said ? You might, how- 
 ever, make this answer, which is the objection 
 you offer in reality against labor for bread : 
 " I cannot do several things at once. If I am 
 occupied in agriculture, I should have no time 
 for other things." 
 
 But, I reply in turn : " I have, besides labor- 
 ing for bread, many others things to do. How 
 do I, who am an ignorant peasant, bring them 
 all to completion ? If I were as educated and 
 intelligent as you, I would occupy myself with 
 many thousand affairs. Why, then, with your 
 infinite spirit, can 3-ou attend to only one ? 
 
 82. When you fly from the labor for bread, 
 or from the conscience which torments you, 
 you say : " If we all labor for bread, where will 
 the poor get their money, for they live by their 
 
Labor. 89 
 
 labor ? They supply us with bread, and in 
 return we give them money; and thus the pea- 
 sants live by us, and we by them; one hand 
 washes the other, and so both are clean." 
 
 No, your argument does not disconcert us. 
 We are not as stupid as you believe, and you 
 yourselves are not as intelligent as you think. 
 Do not forget that I who speak am standing 
 at the threshold of your palace (like Lazarus). 
 
 Half the people living do not labor for bread ; 
 the other half, laboring for and not selling it, 
 can scarce support themselves. But why should 
 these last not know where to find money, if 
 all the world labored for bread ? 
 
 Far from being useful, the sale of bread isi 
 hurtful. This present year the harvest is good,! 
 and the laborer sells his wheat to the rich man 
 for thirty kopecks the measure. He thinks 
 what he has left will suffice for his wants. But 
 suppose that, next year, the harvest shall be 
 bad, and we have a famine : the laborer will buy I 
 his wheat from the same rich man for a rouble \ 
 and fifty kopecks the measure ;and if he have not 
 enough money to pay for it, he will sell his 
 beasts at half price. And while he has not sup- 
 plied his wants, he has sold his wheat, is de- 
 prived of his cattle, and will become a beggar. 
 Thus many are ruined by selling their wheat. 
 Then how can you say that the peasants cannot 
 live without selling their wheat, when by doing 
 so they die of hunger ? The true conclusion is 
 that it is you, not we, who live on others. 
 
90 Labor. 
 
 Cultivate, then, according to the command 
 ment, a piece of ground, and all will belong to 
 you that you need. 
 
 83. Sometimes I have not a single kopeck for 
 one or perhaps two months. However, when 
 I am fatigued with my day's work, I make 
 tiira.'^ I eat well — the tura seems to me better 
 than all your dainty dishes are to you; and I 
 return to my work singing. 
 
 But you, if you were for two months without 
 my bread, what song would you sing? 
 
 Now consider well which of us two lives at 
 the expense of the other, . Is it you or I ? It is 
 you. 
 
 Then why do you not place yourself among 
 my friends? Which of us should occupy the 
 first place at the table ? It is surely I. But 
 why have you taken it ? Who has given it to 
 you, or accorded you this honor? 
 
 Defend yourself by valid excuses, or else do 
 not eat our bread. Or, if you will, cultivate 
 with your own hands a piece of ground, and 
 then take your place at the table. Otherwise, 
 be off with you ! 
 
 84. I think your reply would be like this 
 which the rich man made to me : I would labor, 
 but I know not how. Once in my life I took 
 up a scythe ; I raised it in the air with all my 
 force, and it but glanced over the grass. Then 
 I used more strength, and half buried it in the 
 ground. Next I took a reaping-hook, and after 
 
 * Bread crumbled and soaked in kvass. 
 
Labor. 91 
 
 great efforts I had gathered half a sheaf, when 
 I cut my hand. This is what happened to me 
 one day that I was in the fields. And if I 
 should take seriously to work, all my com- 
 panions would laugh in beholding such an 
 astonishing spectacle. 
 
 But how do you know how to eat? I asked 
 him. When you were only two years old you 
 could eat, but now, though already old, you do 
 not know how to work ! Is this for want of 
 strength, or because you do not wish to know ? 
 
 85. The rich man has also made me the fol- 
 lowing excuses : ist. I would labor for bread, 
 according to the commandment, but I am 
 ashamed to do so; people would point their 
 fingers at me. 2d. Is it proper for a rich man 
 like me to labor with the poor ? 3d. All in- 
 telligent and well-educated men would exclude 
 me from their society. 4th. In laboring for 
 bread, I would earn but 30 kopecks a day, 
 while at home, with my pen, I can earn 10 
 roubles. Behold the reasoning by which the 
 educated classes reject this labor in which they 
 can see only loss and humiliation ! 
 
 86. But, they add, are we for that reason 
 culpable in God's eyes.? No ; for Jesus Christ, 
 when dying for us, exhorted us not to commit 
 sin, and not to fulfil this commandment, that is, 
 not to labor for bread, in saying : " Behold the 
 fowls of the air," etc. Therefore we do not, 
 and never will, labor for bread. 
 
 87. But if you are thus redeemed, I repl}-, 
 
92 Labor. 
 
 why, then, do you eat the product of another's 
 labor? Can it be, that he has redeemed )^ou, 
 and not us? If he had thus redeemed the whole 
 human race, he should have arranged that wheat 
 would be produced already kneaded into bread 
 and baked to each one's taste, or he should 
 have sent us manna from heaven, as was done 
 to the Israelites in the Wilderness. 
 
 But we see clearly that he did not redeem 
 men either from sin or from labor for bread. 
 Each of us must redeem himself by good works, 
 and not rely only on the merits even of Christ. 
 
 88. We sin, we disobey the divine precepts, 
 and we incur all the maledictions pronounced 
 in Deuteronomy. It is not so, according to 
 you. Jesus Christ, you would say, takes on 
 himself our sins, our impieties, and our maledic- 
 tions. What a fine invention ! and how exact 
 your calculation is ! No ; each one must re- 
 deem himself by obeying the primitive com- 
 mand, " Eat the bread of thy labor." There is 
 no greater virtue ; and to fail in it is the most 
 dangerous of crimes. 
 
 89. If you are rich, live in luxury as much 
 as you can, be as haughty as 3'ou will, and aug- 
 ment your dainty dishes, but instead of evading 
 labor for bread, hasten to accomplish it. 
 
 90. There is always a great enmity between 
 the rich and the poor. But when they are to- 
 gether, they dissimulate. Who has created this 
 hatred — the rich or the poor? Says Sirach : 
 " What agreement is there between the hyena 
 
Labor. 93 
 
 and the dog ? And what peace between the 
 rich and the poor? 
 
 *' As the proud hate humility, so doth the rich 
 abhor the poor." (Ecclesiasticus xiii. 18-20.) 
 
 Whose is the fault? It is the rich man's, not 
 the poor laborer's. 
 
 I ask you again, and still more loudly, not 
 to forget that I who stand on the threshold 
 of the rich man's palace, like Lazarus, address 
 myself, in the name of all laborers, to the higher 
 classes, and not only to the reader. 
 
 91. They say : We accomplish ten times 
 more work than the laborer. Can we, then, be 
 regarded as sluggards ? 
 
 On festivals the laborer works, while the rich 
 man rests on his couch, serving neither himself, 
 his neighbor, nor God. They say then, the 
 idle man does his duty, while the laborer com- 
 mits a crime, in breaking the fourth command- 
 ment. 
 
 Is not that the position we occupy ? 
 
 During 330 days in the year do what you 
 will; occupy yourself as it shall please you ; but 
 during 35 days, at different times in the year, 
 every man should labor for bread. 
 
 92. But why do I speak at such length, when 
 a few words ought to suffice ? It is because I 
 must oppose a solid barrier to the subterfuges 
 behind which you entrench yourselves ; and for 
 that, I must reply fully to your many argu- 
 ments. 
 
 Can it be because there is neither a past nor 
 
94 Labor. 
 
 a future for God, but all is to him as the present, 
 that he has not comprehended that if man 
 must always eat, he must also always labor? 
 If he inflicted on you a penance for your sins, 
 and said, Take a stone of a hundred pounds 
 weight and carry it, you would reply: I can- 
 not do it, Lord, for you have not given me 
 strength sufficient. Or if he said, Fly in the air 
 like a bird, you would answer: You have not 
 given me wings, and it is impossible to obey 
 your command. Such excuses would be legiti- 
 mate. 
 
 But why can you not labor for bread ? In 
 truth, you will reply, it is because of my con- 
 dition in life. I have white and delicate hands, 
 and the ears of corn will scratch my skin. 
 
 94. Again, you will evade labor for bread 
 because you say that in occupying yourself in 
 any work, you obey the commandment, "In the 
 sweat of thy face shaft thou knead bread." 
 
 One will say : " I have written, to - day, nine 
 hundred and ninety-one lines ; thus I have eaten 
 my bread in the sweat of my face." Another 
 says : " I have, to-day, given my orders to my 
 people, I have seen that they labored well for 
 me ; thus have I eaten my bread in the sweat of 
 my face." A third says : " I have, to-day, been 
 driven about the city in a rich carriage ; I have 
 thus eaten my bread in the sweat of my face." 
 A fourth says: "I have, to-day, sold damaged 
 merchandise for good, and I have defrauded 
 
Labor. 95 
 
 inexperienced men : I eat my bread in the sweat 
 of my face." 
 
 And the thief says in his turn : 
 
 "I have not slept during the night, I have 
 labored with my hands: I eat my bread, more 
 truly than you, in the sweat of my face." 
 
 If it is not by truth, it is by cunning and 
 eloquence that you gain your cause, as Kriloff 
 has said.* " All the animals who are provided 
 with claws and teeth are innocent, they are al- 
 
 * Kriloff (Ivan Andreiewitch), the Russian fabulist, was born 
 in a small village of Orenburg in 1768, and died at St. Peters- 
 burg in 1864. Attracted by the theatre, he composed in early- 
 youth a farce called "The Coffee-pot" (1783), and several 
 comedies and tragedies, of v?hich the principal ones are Cleo- 
 patra and Philomela. 
 
 But this was not his real vocation. In 1808, by the advice 
 of one of his friends, who foresaw his true talent, he translated 
 two of La Fontaine's fables, The Maid and The Oak and the 
 Reed. His translation was striking in its originality and its 
 picturesque character. 
 
 Published in the Spectator cf Moscow, they obtained a great 
 success. Kriloff then devoted himself exclusively to the com- 
 position of fables, and became the La Fontaine of Russia. 
 
 Nevertheless, the pen of Kriloff gave all subjects a Russian 
 aspect. He distinguished himself from La Fontaine and 
 Lessing by his coarse pleasantry and cynical wit, which are 
 qualities that are popular in Moscow. 
 
 His Fables form a considerable collection (St. Petersburg, 
 1847, 3 vols, in 8vo). Count Orloff published in Paris, in 
 1825, Russian Fables taken from M. Kriloff's Collection, and imi- 
 tated in French and Italian Verse by several Authors (2 vols, in 
 8vo). M. A. Baugeault has translated in verse Kriloff's prin- 
 cipal fables (Paris, 1852, 8vo). We must also mention the 
 metrical version of Charles Parfait (Plon, 1867.) The fable re- 
 ferred to by Bondareff is an imitation of The Animals Sick of 
 the Plague, by La Fontaine. 
 
96 Labor. 
 
 most holy; but they accuse the timid ox; the 
 tigers and wolves cry out against him ; and they 
 at once strangle and devour him." 
 
 It seems to me that Kriloff by the animals, 
 meant the laborers, and intended the timid ox 
 to personify the rich man. What do you think 
 about it, reader ? 
 
 95. You who, here in Russia, eat the bread 
 produced by our labor number about thirty 
 millions, including Jews and Gipsies. How 
 can we support you all, supplying you with fine 
 clothes, good beds, and warm covei-ing? 
 
 It is for you that we must labor day and night, 
 without rest, and endure great privations. 
 
 Is it not unjust? Is it not criminal on 3'our 
 part ? 
 
 96. And as though you had not heard what I 
 have been saying, you will ask: Of what injus- 
 tice are you the victims, and what crime have 
 we committed? We do not take your bread 
 for nothing, but we buy it with the money we 
 have earned by our own work. 
 
 And where did )'Ou get this money? 
 
 It was earned by working according to the 
 commandment. 
 
 But with us our money does not accrue from 
 our work. Money is not given for nothing; it 
 must be earned by the body, by flesh and bones. 
 And then, can you atone for sin with money ? 
 Can you buy the law of God with money ? 
 
 Your excuse condemns you still further. You 
 have the right to buy what you please with 
 
Labor. 97 
 
 money, but bread cannot be bought at any 
 price. 
 
 97. Do you think you are saved by the con- 
 secrated wafer which you receive in church 
 from the hands of the priest? But, you reply, 
 it is not the wafer that saves me, it is my faith 
 in Christ, whom I receive under the symbol of 
 the wafer. No! faith without works, that is to 
 say, without the commandment, is dead. You go 
 to church, having one sin, and you return with 
 two, because you have eaten the bread of an- 
 other's labor. And where, do you ask? In 
 church. 
 
 98. Not only, O ye rich, do you now live by 
 the labor of others, but you hope in the future 1 
 life to obtain by the merits of another, who is 
 Christ, eternal happiness. Thus you believe 
 you have no duty to fulfil, and that you may 
 enjoy at ease all the comforts of this world. 
 You walk on a wide and spacious path, but 
 whither will it lead you ? You know as well as I. 
 
 99. Often among you are found men who, 
 when fortune deserts them and they lose all 
 their wealth, being forced by circumstances to 
 labor for their own bread, fall into despair, and 
 become thieves and drunkards, and undertake 
 all sorts of criminal enterprises. And usually 
 they die a violent death, to escape labor for 
 bread. But revive this commandment, whose 
 life does not appear among you till you die, and 
 the millionaire, finding himself in the same con- 
 
98 Labor. 
 
 dition with us, will no longer seek to avoid this 
 labor, but will turn to it eagerly. 
 
 100. Let us speak now, reader, of these three 
 classes of men: the Jew, the Gipsy, and the 
 educated European, who, like the others, eats 
 the bread of another's labor. Which is most dis- 
 pleasing to God and man ? 
 
 It is certainly the European, for we cannot 
 consider the Gipsy, who is but a half-savage. 
 As for the Jew, he was once master of the 
 world, and compelled every one to labor for 
 him ; but this is no longer so. To-day the Jew 
 has gone from the head to the foot, and the 
 European from the foot to the head, and, like 
 the first mentioned, he also eats the bread of 
 another's labor. 
 
 1 ask, which of these three is most displeasing 
 to God and man ? 
 
 loi. I know the reader will say: Can I com- 
 pare myself to a Jew or a Gipsy ? I who live 
 by the truth, and they by falsehood and deceit ? — 
 Yes, if you have the body of an angel and not 
 that of a man. But when you eat the bread of 
 another's labor, there is not in this food a particle 
 of truth. It is but two hours since you have 
 eaten, and you are thinking of again stretching 
 out your hand towards the tree of life, to take 
 the forbidden bread. How can you, then, boast 
 that you live by the truth? 
 
 102. From all the preceding arguments, we 
 may conclude that there is nothing in the world 
 more evil and infamous than to eat the bread of 
 
Labor. 99 
 
 another's labor. On the other hand, there is 
 nothing more healthful and sacred than to eat 
 the bread of one's own labor. I do not say this 
 as a supposition, but in accord with God's 
 fundamental law, with which our natural law 
 also agrees. 
 
 103. I have said that, according to you, an 
 idle and luxurious life is conformable to the 
 laws of salvation. I did not at the moment an- 
 swer this sufBciently. But I will now do so in 
 a peremptory manner. (I do not speak of those 
 who live from day to day, from hand to mouth.) 
 
 To gain eternal happiness, the servants of God 
 retire to monasteries, deserts, mountains, and 
 isles, where they lead a wandering life. 
 
 What do these men, who trample under foot 
 God's law by eating the bread of other men's 
 labor, seek in these places ? 
 
 Can they not be virtuous while accomplishing 
 the labor God has blessed ? 
 
 104. When the harvest is bad, the poor man 
 is sorrowful; but the rich man is content, be- 
 cause, during a famine, he increases his riches. 
 Thus he will call a famine a good harvest, 
 while it is the chastisement of God. And 
 if he joins in the prayers of the poor, do not 
 believe him, for he is a hypocrite. 
 
 105. And you say the two classes are not at 
 enmity with each other ! The rich man will at 
 once make this excuse: What is my wcaltii ? 
 There are many who are a hundred times richer 
 
lOO Labor. 
 
 than I ; it is to them and not to me that 3'ou 
 should attribute the evils of which you speak. 
 
 To that I reply : We must not measure wealth 
 by figures, but b}^ the number of peasants who 
 surround the rich man ; for, in the country, those 
 who have each five thousand roubles are richer 
 than the millionaire of Moscow. 
 
 If )'ou readers of the city could see the miser- 
 ies that are inflicted on the poor by the rich in 
 the country, you would take my arguments 
 into consideration. Else you could never be- 
 lieve me. 
 
 106. The poor man, the laborer, studies day 
 and night, during all his life, for better ways to 
 prepare the earth for wheat, or for duly caring 
 for his implements and his cattle. He brings 
 up his sons from infancy to the same labors. 
 His efforts are crowned with success. And on 
 the other side the rich man ponders day and 
 night how to buy from the poor man at half 
 price and to sell to him again at double rates, 
 and he accustoms his sons from infancy to these 
 speculations. 
 
 The first and last of God's laws concern la- 
 bor, and the principal one is that of labor for 
 bread ; but educated and intelligent people 
 evade this labor, and live like pomestchiks, with 
 their hands in their pockets. They have im- 
 posed all labor upon the poor and weak, but 
 these, in retaliation, do not sleep or lose their 
 presence of mind ; they steal, kill, burn, and de- 
 fraud each other, v 
 
Labvr. ID I 
 
 It is well. As says the proverb, the master is 
 for his bread (that is, his own interests), and the 
 workman is not less cunning than his master ; 
 for, if intelligent people put the candle under a 
 bushel, there is no reason why we should watch 
 it. Act, then, as you can, O laborer ! 
 
 107. Nevertheless, the poor man is very hum- 
 ble before thee, O rich man ! And if thou treat- 
 est him with hypocrisy, he will fall alive into 
 thy hands. 
 
 Thus the poor man goes in his poverty to the 
 rich man's house, and returns half naked. Sirach 
 says with reason: "Hunting lions is like hunt- 
 ing savages in the desert ; so the poor are the 
 prey of the rich." * 
 
 This is what often happens in a poor country 
 where a single rich man is settled. The poor 
 must sell to him, and must also buy of him. 
 
 And the rich man still says: I make fair and 
 honest bargains. I buy and sell loyally. Every 
 bargain has an amiable intent. Would you sell 
 to me, or would you buy ? There is no sin in 
 commerce. I do not sell by false weights or 
 measures ; I do not deceive in my accounts. In 
 a word, it is just to say that, according to the 
 commandment, I eat my bread in the sweat of 
 my face. 
 
 And now, to discuss this with him ! ' . : v 
 
 All that he has said is injurious to us. Hd^ 
 does not understand the meaning of the com- 
 
 * " As the wild ass is the lion's prey in the .wilderness : so 
 the rich eat up the poor." (Ecclesiasticus, xiii. 23.) 
 
IG2 Labor. 
 
 mandment, although his conscience is beginning 
 to awaken. 
 
 109. The rich also present this excuse : I give 
 men money that they may work for me. It 
 would be to my interest not to give them work, 
 but still I do it. And I hope to be rewarded by 
 God for my good work. And then without me, 
 where would they get money for their neces- 
 sities ? 
 
 I reply : You should employ in your good 
 works treasures gained by your own labor, fol- 
 lowing the commandment which I have given, 
 that is to say, wash you with clean water, and 
 not with that which is impure. But you pretend 
 to help men with the product of their labor! 
 Who, then, has earned the money that you give 
 them ? Is it your money ? No, it belongs to the 
 laborers. Then what reward can you look for? 
 
 1 10. It is said in the Law : " As is the laborer, 
 so is the work ; as is the ground, so are the fruits." 
 In other words, if we are but ignorant peasants 
 and useless portions of society, why do you love 
 our work, that is, our bread? Believe me, 
 reader, if I were as educated and intelligent as 
 you are, I would never eat bread at all, but only 
 silver or gold. 
 
 111. They will tell you: I esteem with my 
 tvhole heart all laborers, and I also love labor 
 for bread, and I detest and scorn all sluggards. 
 To this 1 reply, in the words of the proverb : " I 
 hear the voice of Jacob, but it is Esau that draws 
 near to me." 
 
Labor. 103 
 
 112. We ought not to give away a single ear 
 of wiieat. — Why is that? asks the reader. Be- 
 cause one half of the world will not come near 
 to cultivate the earth, and the other half work 
 against their will, because they do not know 
 where to take refuge, since all the corners 
 of the earth are filled with sluggards. Where 
 three or four men would suffice, ten or a dozen 
 arrive ; and not having eaten for two or three 
 days, they crowd one upon another. If one were 
 driven away, he would become one of the most 
 terrible and criminal of brigands. 
 
 113. I repeat, we should not give away one 
 ear of wheat. We except only women who 
 fulfil exactly the penance God gave to them, 
 and which we have cited ; the aged, who labored 
 formerly, but now have lost their strength. ; the 
 infirm ; and the children, whose day of labor is. 
 yet to come. O Heaven! hear my prayer! 
 Grant us for them an abundance of the fruits of 
 the earth. 
 
 114. "Do unto others as you would they 
 should do unto you." This is the law. — Very 
 good ; for my part, I do not think there are any 
 other virtues. — But, I ask you, as you would 
 not wish others to eat the bread of 3'our labors, 
 why do you eat the bread of theirs? In other 
 words, why do you do to others what you 
 would not wish they should do to you? 
 
 I bu}' my bread with money. 
 
 Well, let us discuss that. You have always 
 
I04 Labor. 
 
 the same song on your lips, and it sets my teeth 
 on edge. 
 
 115. Have I not said openly that bread cannot 
 be bought at any price, that it can only be bought 
 with labor, because its value cannot be fixed by 
 human reason ? In certain cases it can be given 
 and received gratis. But you have arrived at 
 such a result that in certain cities of Russia a 
 loaf of bread costs no more than a piece of dried 
 muck. 
 
 What ignominy ! I shudder at the remem- 
 brance of this injury that we have received. 
 
 But for you, rich men, there is no better 
 bargain than bread. All is for the best. This 
 is what you call law. 
 
 1 16 Ah, have pity on us, O you of the upper 
 classes! Do not destroy my words! If they 
 are illegal, let my body perish, but let my work 
 rest among the archives where you preserve 
 what is most important to the State. Among 
 the future generations one man may be found 
 sufficiently just to publish it, I would perish 
 gladly, if onlv my work ma}^ give to the millions 
 of laborers who will come after me one great 
 joy, and that they may obtain from it some 
 solace in their labors ! 
 
 117. Notwithstanding your close studying 
 from infancy to extreme old age, consider what 
 is the distance that separates you from the igno- 
 rant laborer: it is but one step only! A man 
 of elevated position, a functionary of but one 
 degree inferior to yourself, and a man of our 
 
Labor. 105 
 
 class, the starchina (the magistrate of a canton), 
 will meet to make an inquiry in view of a pro- 
 posed lawsuit. The canton gives the functionary 
 some cases of wine, and he consents to arrange 
 matters. He changes the statement of facts, 
 and he presents a false report to his chief, who 
 does not observe anything irregular in it, and 
 signs it. Thus the innocent become guilty, and 
 the guilty innocent; and this is through the 
 complicity of the superior with the inferior. 
 
 118. But why have they deceived him? Not 
 only because he does not labor himself, but 
 because he knows nothing of how labor for 
 bread is accomplished. If he had joined to his 
 science this labor for bread, his intelligence 
 would be so enlightened that he could not be 
 deceived. See how many faults and errors are 
 engendered by idleness! 
 
 1 19. Behold how the good writers act : if 
 they must criticise a superior, they soften their 
 terms, and soothe him, as in Kriloff's fable of the 
 geese. " It would be easy," he says, " to make 
 this fable still more intelligible ; but I am afraid 
 of irritating the Geese."* 
 
 *THE GEESE. 
 
 A long rod in his hand, 
 
 Peter drove on a band 
 
 Of geese to market bound ; 
 
 And being pressed for tin:ie, he was not overkind. 
 
 But hunted them and hurried them lest he should be behind ; 
 
 And would not let them stray, or straggle o'er the ground. 
 
 With rage the birds now gobbled, and in furious manner hissed, 
 
io6 Labor. 
 
 In other words, they do not cast the truth into 
 his face, but approach it by a by-path. 
 
 But I, whether from awkwardness or from 
 love for the truth, I do irritate the geese. What 
 do you think of it, reader? Shall they give me 
 blows with their beaks, till death threatens to 
 follow ? Never mind ; cost what it may, I will 
 not be silent. I will not hypocritically conceal 
 
 Till the lad was fairly puzzled and his way to market missed. 
 A man who chanced to pass that way, the gander soon espied, 
 And then began his neck to stretch, as wrathfully he cried, 
 (In the goose language,) " Look, kind sir, how cruelly we are 
 
 treated 
 By this audacious peasant, who our tempers thus has heated. 
 We're geese of noble lineage ; our ancestors were holy, 
 And in the Roman capitol were worshipped all and solely. 
 Karasmin and d'Hosier agree on this if nothing else." 
 Said the stranger, " Worthy creatures, I do not doubt your 
 
 words. 
 Your manners show me that you are most aristocratic birds." 
 " Truly and of our ancestors we share the glorious name. 
 And strive to live up to the deeds that won them endless 
 
 fame." 
 " 'Tis well. Of your great deeds recount me some, I pray." 
 " Our ancestors — " " I know that yarn for many a weary day. 
 They saved great Rome by hissing ; but yourselves, what have 
 
 you done ?" 
 " Our ancestors — " " Oh, bother them! what merits have you ?" 
 
 " None !" 
 
 Ah, if I chose to listen to the vauntings and the boast 
 
 Of geese who don't wear feathers and who are not good to 
 
 roast, 
 What sermons I could preach! " Hush, hush ! I prithee, not 
 
 a word !" 
 To-day shines forth the glorious bow of promise from the Lord. 
 
Labor. I07 
 
 my thoughts. Since I have taken the right path 
 I will follow it while I live, not deviating to the 
 right nor to tiie left. 
 
 There is a book called The Civil Marriage. 
 I have never read it ; but I know that the po- 
 mestchik Novossesslky therein complains to his 
 wife of a peasant: ''Would you believe," he 
 says, " that this miserable servant has neglected 
 to air my shirt ? " (I can scarcely help laughing 
 in writing this ) " I have scolded him, and he 
 replies : * I have always given your late father, 
 the general, a damp shirt, and he never com- 
 plained.' " 
 
 This characteristic confounds me ! Idleness 
 has so taken possession of a man that he finds it 
 an insupportable task to put on his own shirts. 
 We must conclude that if he was shown the 
 everlasting fire in which he and his descend- 
 ants must burn eternally, according to the 
 Christian doctrine, he would consent to be 
 thrown into it, rather than gather one blade of 
 straw or one grain of wheat. 
 
 Ah, in what a profound abyss are men 
 plunged by idleness and luxury ! Talk to the 
 rich of the divine commandment, and he will 
 bring up eloquently a hundred arguments to 
 prove that he eats his bread in the sweat of his 
 face. 
 
 121. I would like to ask (if I knew whom to 
 address) whether the pomestchiks do have 
 their shirts put on them by their servants. It 
 is true, comes the answer from all sides ; their 
 
io8 Labor. 
 
 clothes are put on them like dead men's shrouds ! 
 Then what do they do with their owft hands all 
 the while ? 
 
 This is a feature of slothfulness no one could 
 have imagined, if it had not been true. 
 
 122. How these peasant-slaves suffer! The 
 very recollection of their sufferings grieves me. 
 I shudder when I think of them. It would have 
 been better for them never to have been born. 
 Had I a thousand tongues, I could not tell all 
 the fatal calamities which befall them, or the 
 torments these martyrs endure. 
 
 Human lips could not express their sufferings. 
 But I will tell you one outrage we undergo. 
 It may be that you who listen are yourselves 
 pomestchiks. I will not the less tell the truth, 
 for I would not be accused of falsehood. And 
 I have myself been a laborer with a pomestchik 
 on the Don. 
 
 123, Three days in the week, the peasant 
 labors for himself; the other three days he and 
 all his family labor for the pomestchik. His 
 wife, his children scarcely twelve years old, and 
 the old men of sixty, work in their turn, and like 
 beasts of burden. The implements of labor, the 
 plough, the cart, the harrows, the scythes, the 
 axes, etc., all must be bought by the peasant. 
 
 If he has involuntarily caused some waste in 
 laboring for the pomestchik, he must repair it 
 at his own expense. He must, besides, thrash 
 the corn in a field far from all habitations, and 
 there, notwithstanding the cold, he must work 
 
Labor. r09 
 
 all day for the pomestchik. Many labor while 
 half naked, and tortured with hunger ; but it 
 matters not, they must labor for the pomestchik. 
 Is it not a cruel punishment? And yet these 
 people have neither defender nor protector. 
 
 124. Three days for himself and three days 
 for the pomestchik ; in a word, one year for 
 himself, and one year for the pomestchik: this 
 is the peasant's life. But from the year in which 
 he works for himself he must first deduct eighty 
 days which are festivals, — for these people are 
 very pious, — then eighty other days of idleness 
 resulting from the accidents of labor. And, 
 finally : the peasant is not a stone, he may fall 
 ill, perhaps for fifty days in two years. There 
 remain, then, only one hundred and fifty-five 
 days in which he can labor for himself. 
 
 125. I ask if, in this case, he can, on one hun- 
 dred and fifty-five days of work, supply all his 
 wants for two years, that is, for this year and for 
 the next (in which he labors for the benefit of 
 the pomestchik). Consider that he must, besides, 
 collect enough money to pay each year the fis- 
 cal and personal taxes. If the husband or 
 wife should die, there remain perhaps a dozen 
 children under age : to-day they have the fu- 
 neral, and to-morrow they must resume work 
 for the pomestchik. 
 
 126. Besides that, the pomestchik takes from 
 the peasants divers provisions, as chickens, 
 geese, eggs, butter, etc. He keeps note of what 
 is given, and with those who give nothing he 
 
1 10 Labor. 
 
 will deal trickily, and they have no one to 
 whom they can complain. Endeavor to speak 
 to him of the commandment, and he will not let 
 you utter a word. He will overwhelm you 
 with arguments, and will prove to you that 
 he follows the commandment, and that he is 
 himself content to eat his bread in the sweat of 
 his face, and that the peasants on the contrary 
 are sluggards and parasites, etc. 
 
 Perhaps there are some good pomestchiks 
 somewhere; but I insist that at least all those 
 on the Don are such as I have described them, 
 
 127. Is it right, you ask, to thus insult the 
 benefactors who nourish you, or, in other 
 words, to return evil for good, and hatred for 
 love? 
 
 But how can you always thus praise your- 
 selves, and claim that no one is just or compas- 
 sionate but yourself.? 
 
 128, They say : A pomestchik may be a vir- 
 tuous man. 
 
 Well, without doubt he might if he labored 
 for his own bread. That never has happened, 
 nor ever will. 
 
 In the eyes of the true believer, the principal 
 means of being absolved from sin is in receiv- 
 ing the holy communion. But according to 
 God's first commandment, the absolution gained 
 by laboring for one's own bread is a thousand 
 times more to be esteemed. But the million- 
 aire has paid twenty kopecks the measure for 
 wheat, and so he is free of the commandment.' 
 
Labor. MI 
 
 129. It is claimed that the condition of the 
 pomestchik's peasant-slaves is preferable to that 
 of the peasants employed by the State. They 
 say that, because they do not know us, for there 
 are many thousand of us, and we can prove the 
 contrary a thousands times. But the pomest- 
 chik stands by himself, and he has but to say 
 that the peasants under his protection are 
 happier than those employed by the State, and 
 his words will be believed. 
 
 130. All that is now over, and slavery is 
 abolished ; but the sorrow that the sight of its 
 infamies has caused me has not yet disappeared, 
 and it will for a long time leave its traces on my 
 soul. 
 
 Till the age of sixty, the peasant labors 
 for the pomestchik ; deducting from this his thir- 
 teen years of childhood, there remain forty-seven 
 years, of which twenty-four are spent in labor- 
 ing for the pomestchik, and the twenty-three 
 which remain in laboring for himself. 
 
 Try now to hire a peasant who is employed 
 by the State, and say to him : Labor for me one 
 year with your wife, your children, and your 
 cattle : maintenance, clothing, implements, etc., 
 to be all at your own cost: if you waste any- 
 thing while laboring for me, put it in the account 
 against yourself. For what price would the 
 peasant consent to labor thus for a year? 
 
 He would ask at least 500 roubles, which 
 would amount in twenty-three years to 11,500 
 roubles. 
 
1 1 2 Labor. 
 
 This is the sum that the pomestchik has 
 stolen, if not in money, at least in labor, from 
 the peasant who has given all his life to his ser- 
 vice. 
 
 And this money the pomestchik has lost at 
 cards, or has used to satisfy similar caprices. 
 
 Why, I ask, has he taken this money ? Did 
 the peasant owe it to him ? No. Had he any 
 reason for acting thus? Not one. Then why 
 has he taken this large sum ? For nothing ! 
 
 131. From the entire universe complaints are 
 being made against God. If his goodness is 
 infinite, whence comes the misery that over- 
 whelms the poor ? 
 
 If God governs the world with justice, why 
 is there this inequality among men? Why is 
 vice happy, and virtue miserable? 
 
 But is it the fault of the mirror if our face is 
 ugly ? In other words, is it God's fault if we re- 
 ject the law that would establish equality among 
 men? 
 
 132. Enforce this law which says that no one 
 shall eat bread that another has labored for, ex- 
 cept in legitimate cases, and then, if men are not 
 yet equal, they will nevertheless approach more 
 nearly to one another. Labor will cut the wings 
 of those who would soar too loftily. 
 
 We are poor through your riches, but you 
 are rich through our povert3\ 
 
 133. Our great-grandfathers, say you, our 
 grandfathers, our fathers, our ancestors in a 
 word, have labored, and we also, as you see, 
 
Labor. 115 
 
 labor till old age. All that they gained by their 
 labor they left to their children, and these have 
 transmitted it to theirs. 
 
 Then why am not I rich ? why can I not even 
 practice the least economy ? I owe no more 
 than my grandfather did, perhaps even less. 
 
 134. Is it that there are sluggards and drunk- 
 ards in our family? No, my grandfather has 
 said, never ! Have my goods been destroyed 
 by fire or flood? No, nothing like that has 
 happened. 
 
 135. Then what has become of my labor? 
 What brigand has stolen my fortune ? Whence 
 come your treasures, O rich man? Answer me 
 faithfully. 
 
 136. Oh, if the wrong they do us were only 
 temporary ! But it is eternal. As the genera- 
 tions pass, those of to-day must still suffer 
 misery. They will never have defender nor 
 protector. But that is only because you have 
 buried alive our father, that is to say, the com- 
 mandment. 
 
 137. Here is what I have had a glimpse of all 
 my life, and what I see clearly to-day, after 
 having for a long time studied the meaning of 
 this commandment : all the world over the peas- 
 ants go into the fields and labor for bread, as- 
 sisted by their little children. The newly born, 
 who have not yet tasted bread, suffer for want of 
 it. To see these people, would they not seem like 
 bees flying over the fields and gathering honey 
 by the way ? 
 
114 Labor. 
 
 And in beholding men of the upper classes, 
 I have compared them to drones, who are con- 
 tent to buzz without working, and to live by the 
 labor of others. 
 
 Every day robbers are arrested ; but are they 
 really robbers, or merely rogues? I have found 
 a robber, a real robber who has stolen from God 
 and the Church ; he has taken away the primi- 
 tive law which belongs to us laborers. I wish 
 to show you this robber in person. He who 
 does not labor with his own hands for bread, 
 but eats the bread of another's labor, he is that 
 robber : arrest and sentence him ! 
 
 He has carefully hidden the commandment 
 of God, and no one for 7390 years has been 
 able to discover it. Furthermore, he has stolen 
 innumerable millions from the poor, and he has 
 left them and their infants, half naked and 
 starving, while he has by this means exalted 
 himself to the clouds. 
 
 138. The bees clip the wings of the drones, that 
 they may not eat up the honey they have them- 
 selves gathered. Your turn has come, ye para- 
 sites, and we have clipped your wings, that you 
 may not eat the bread of our labor. I know 
 that you will not the less continue to eat it ; but 
 when you lift the bread to your mouth, your con- 
 science will take you by the throat, and nothing 
 can deliver you from its grasp. If bread could 
 be acquired by fraud, and if like all other things, 
 it could be hidden in a secret place where it 
 would remain in safety, all would go well. But 
 
Labor. \\% 
 
 we cannot hide bread away ; it must be eaten 
 at once. 
 
 That deserves reflection. 
 
 139. Now you of the upper classes, who have 
 placed yourselves among the clouds, consider 
 that you have imprisoned yourselves in the 
 bonds of impiety, and that you have not the 
 strength to break your chains. 
 
 Behold yourselves plunged in a profound 
 abyss, whence you cannot come forth till God 
 casts out of you the tyrant Idleness and his 
 twin-brother Luxury. 
 
 We pray you, then, to surrender to us the 
 treasure that God has created especially for our 
 use, and which is the fundamental law of human- 
 ity ; in other words, promulgate it everywhere. 
 Then we will enrich you, and heap up gold for 
 you, because, hoping henceforth for safety, not 
 only labor for bread, but all other kinds of labor, 
 will seem to us easy. 
 
 140. The most weak-minded men, and even 
 children, would comprehend, in hearing this law 
 proclaimed, that it is the first that God gave to 
 the first man, and that it is more important than 
 all other virtues or commandments put together. 
 They will at once say to themselves : " I must 
 labor more than ever; but I will pass my life 
 willingly in the fields, to merit happiness in the 
 next world.'' 
 
 Surrender to us, then, O ye rich, the treas- 
 ure that you, or rather your ancestors, have 
 stolen and concealed from us ; give up to us the 
 
1 1 6 Labor. 
 
 most sacred of our goods, the gift we hold from 
 God! 
 
 Above all authorities, the laws that are trans 
 mitted by tradition have seemed to me most 
 important. But now they are insignificant, 
 because this one commandment, " Knead thy 
 bread," etc, has filled my heart and mind. 
 
 It will result, if it is promulgated, in depriv- 
 ing the priests of bread ; for now they eat it 
 without laboring, and no one dare reproach them 
 with their idleness. But then, every one will 
 cast this truth in their face. 
 
 141. When I left my manuscript after having 
 transcribed the preceding article (for I have 
 taken six months to copy my work at odd mo- 
 ments), the}^ came to ask us to lend bread to 
 the city of Krasmoiarsk. The inhabitants of 
 our village — veritable Jews — had by a vote 
 taken in the communal assembly, accorded fifty- 
 measures of wheat to the magazine of the Mir.'*' 
 Why have they given so little? " Because the 
 mare has eaten all the bread." f 
 
 Several persons congratulated the man who 
 took the initiative in this proposition ; but many 
 were angr3\ "Fifty measures! fifty measures ! 
 But that is only twenty pounds to each house. 
 
 * Or communal magazine, where each household should 
 contribute, for the use of the indigent, the tenth part of its 
 harvest. 
 
 See, on this subject, A. Leroy-BeauHeu, Religion in Russia. 
 Revue des Deux-Mondes, Sept. 15, 1888. i' 423. 
 
 f Russian proverb. It is a pretext employed to evade giv- 
 ing this alms. 
 
Labor. yvj 
 
 Why do you give only twenty pounds ? they 
 say, at the communal assembly. You might as 
 well have given nothing at all. If you under- 
 take to give at all, you should at least contribute 
 two or three measures from each house, or even 
 two sacks." 
 
 142. You see what I predicted has happened. 
 Bread must not be sold, but in certain admissi- 
 ble cases it must be given gratis. And they 
 give it, while you conceal the commandment of 
 labor for bread. But if it had been made known 
 to all men, without diminishing its importance, 
 the burned city of Krasmoiarsk would have re- 
 ceived from our district of Manoussinsk alone, 
 several thousand measures of wheat, and each 
 commune would cause the necessary succor to 
 be distributed. It would be doaie in all cases, 
 for no one knows what may "happen to himself 
 to-morrow, or even to-day. 
 
 143. Ask instead for money. It will not be 
 given: 1st, because the peasant rarely has any; 
 2d, because the commandment above cited di- 
 rects the laborer to give bread, rather than 
 anything else. Besides, money is a lifeless 
 thing compared with bread ; it is as a mere 
 stone. No one makes gifts in nione}' ; the more 
 one has of it, the more the desire increases for 
 it. Give all the money and treasures in the 
 world to one person: will it make him happy? 
 will it satisfy his cupidity? No. But what 
 could he wish for more? why would he be dis 
 contented ? He will cry, " I would hold the 
 
lit Labor. 
 
 whole world in my hands, I would control all 
 men, and behold in one glance the whole uni- 
 verse! Whichever way I look, nothing is 
 
 mme 
 
 144. But, I will answer him ; you must for 
 that live a thousand years, because, whatever 
 may be your powers, you could never, in an 
 ordinary life, absorb everything. You would 
 be suffocated. 
 
 But bread is a thing absolutely opposed to 
 money ; they are two enemies, even as the la- 
 borer is the enemy of the idle man. 
 
 145. They say that henceforth taxes will be 
 levied on the land ; that is, the amount will 
 be proportioned to the area of the land we 
 possess. Why do you say, on the land ? Ad- 
 mit frankly that it is the laborers alone who 
 pay the taxes. Here is some land that is not 
 cultivated ; go and take thence the money and 
 bread you need. "According to the decree of 
 Him who created me, it will answer, I await 
 some one's coming to cultivate me; if you come 
 for any other purpose, depart, O parasite." 
 
 Permit me to ask why you exact taxes from 
 those who nourish you with their bread, while 
 from thos3 who never labor for bread you do 
 not take a single kopeck. If the land were but 
 free ! But the State has taken it to give to the 
 pomcstchiks, and they exact from us ten times 
 its value. Whether the wheat ripens or not, 
 give us the money: and where shall we get 
 "it? 
 
Labor. II9 
 
 Although the law says : " Turn thy cheek to 
 him who smites thee," when I consider the cry- 
 ing injustice of which you are guilty towards 
 us, I refuse (and I include all our class of labor- 
 ers, the young, the old, and infants at their 
 mothers' breasts), I refuse, I say, to grant you 
 the right to wrangle over bread, and over the 
 earth that produces it ; be contented to speak 
 of the stones, and the land that only produces 
 bitter wormwood. 
 
 If you had an earnest desire to labor, and 
 could not do so for any reason, you would be 
 pardonable; but you evade it from idleness. In 
 this case, what pardon can you hope for.? I 
 know you cannot answer these questions. 
 
 You will employ, you say, even violence to 
 procure your food. But could you so live, could 
 you swallow one mouthful of the bread that you 
 had gained by violence ? No, no ! that mouth- 
 ful would choke you, body and soul, no matter 
 what rank you occupy. 
 
 Rich man, have pity on us! For how many 
 thousand years have you, like a wild horse, 
 galloped over our backs ! Consider, for how 
 long a time you have torn the flesh from our 
 bones ! .^ 
 
 The bread you eat is our body, the wine you f 
 drink is our blood. '^ 
 
 146. When I had learned the first command- 
 ment, notwithstanding my sixty-five years, my 
 weakness and emaciation, I labored in the 
 ground for a whole year (1881). I harrowed 
 
126 Labor. 
 
 without any assistance eight acres of fallow 
 ground ; I led the first plough-horse ; I culti- 
 vated the same ground a second time ; I labored 
 in the fields by day, and at night I took care of 
 the horses. But, in spite of all that, I felt no 
 fatigue. Then I gathered in the wheat and 
 hay with the help of my son and my son's 
 wife. 
 
 147. You see the effect that this commandment 
 can have. Thanks to it, the old man becomes 
 young, the feeble strong, the idle industrious, 
 the imbecile intelligent, the drunkard sober, and 
 the poor rich. Could I have done all that, 
 could I have so labored in the earth, if I did 
 not know I was digging where you had hidden 
 the commandment ? If the poor knew their own 
 strength, they would not submit to such out- 
 rages. Man would then deliver himself from 
 the indigence and misery which strangle him. 
 
 148. If God vSends an abundant harvest to the 
 eight acres I have cultivated, I and my family 
 will have more than enough to satisfy us. 
 Know, also, O idle men, that I could support 
 thirty men with the produce of my labor. 
 
 149. If you have an earnest desire to labor, 
 and cannot for good reasons do so, you would 
 be pardonable by God and man ; but it is from 
 idleness that you do not work ; is it then possi- 
 ble to esteem you? Never, in any degree. 
 Hitherto a superior seemed to me a high per- 
 sonage ; but now he is in my eyes the lowest of 
 men. I would like to get this notion out of my 
 
Labor. I2l 
 
 head ; but I cannot, it comes back in sp'le of me. 
 I hear often that it is proposed to unite all men 
 in one religion. Is it true? I know not. But if 
 it is attempted, I declare that, instead of uniting 
 men, they will remain divided in as many sects 
 as ever, and the result will be more hurtful than 
 useful. It was easy to influence men in ancient 
 times, when they were still savage ; they could 
 then be led by a mere thread, without fear of 
 its breaking. But to-day you may bind them 
 with a triple rope, and you will not lead them 
 one step, first because of their own customs, 
 and then because they have a pride which keeps 
 them from submitting one to another. 
 
 Found religion, however, on the primitive 
 law, without adding strange rules, and soon all 
 the universe will be united. Otherwise it is 
 impossible to obtain the union you dream of. 
 
 150. From poverty to riches is but a step; 
 inversely the distance is even less. It is the 
 same with the general and the soldier. A man 
 knows not when his chariot may be overturned ; 
 or, in other words, destiny may to-day give him 
 a million, and to-morrow make him as poor as 
 we are ; to day he may be a general, and to-mor- 
 row our equal. 
 
 151. Behold, then, the path you should fol- 
 low. 
 
 Hasten to teach the child, however noble ma}' 
 be his family, the first commandment. When 
 he has grown up, show him by example how to 
 labor for bread. Then, should misfortune over- 
 
1 22 Labor. 
 
 take him, he will not even sigh, as he hastens 
 with ardor to labor for his own bread. 
 
 " For a long time," he will cr}', " I have wished 
 to occup}'^ myself with this labor, but I could 
 not withstand my fortune ; to-day I thank God 
 for having delivered me from the burden which 
 made me give way to sin." Turning back 
 his sleeves and the lappets of his coat, he will 
 take the plough in hand, which he already knows 
 how to use, and will go singing to his work. 
 
 152. But what do we now see? When for- 
 tune proves false to a man, and he is forced to 
 earn his bread with his hands, he becomes dis- 
 couraged, and even disgraces himself, bringing 
 misfortune on all his race. And whose is the 
 fault ? Yours, because you have hidden, and you 
 still hide from him the divine commandment. 
 It should not be the subjects who are condemned 
 to enforced labor, but our rulers. And why ? 
 they ask. Because you should not have con- 
 cealed the law of God. The responsibility of 
 this crime should rest on the priests and on the 
 Israelitish Rabbi, and not on the civil and mili- 
 tary authorities, who are not culpable in this ! 
 
 153. You see now, readers, that all your 
 books are of no value by the side of mine. 
 Your eloquent subterfuges are empty nonsense 
 compared with our simple language. All your 
 precious labors for which you pay so generously, 
 are as nothing compared to ours. Neither can 
 )'Ou compare with us in merit. The treasures 
 which fill your houses have no value compared 
 
Labor. j 23 
 
 to the bread for which we labor. All your 
 great intelligence is weak before our simple 
 faith. Your millions have no more value than 
 our poor possessions. 
 
 154. During all ages we have had the rich 
 and the poor, but no one could see why there 
 should be any difference in position between 
 these two classes of men because one had a 
 small capital, another's was twice as great, a 
 third's three times as great, etc.; and each one 
 points with his finger saying : " Is it I that am 
 rich ? Such a one, or another, may indeed be 
 called so." 
 
 It is these rich men of whom Jesus Christ has 
 said : " It is easier for a camel to go through 
 the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter 
 into the kingdom of God." (St. Mark x. 25.) 
 
 But I have seen a distance between the rich 
 and poor like that between heaven and earth, or 
 between the east and west. Between us and 
 you, as has been said, is a great gulf fixed : we 
 cannot come to you, nor you to us. >_ 
 
 155. Suppose, for example, I gave a rich or 
 an educated man this counsel: "You see on 
 your side only baseness ; come over to ours. 
 Do not labor for bread, since you never have 
 done it, but, by the mere fact of coming to 
 us, you will escape the insupportable reproaches 
 of your conscience." " I cannot do it," he will 
 reply; " I would rather die than join you." 
 
 156. Will it not be the same at the last judg- 
 ment, as says the Holy Scriptures? In his 
 
1 24 Labor. 
 
 merc)% God would welcome you, but for ver}* 
 shame you will shrink from him. God, never- 
 theless, will not withdraw his mercy, though 
 you have scorned the labor for bread that he 
 has prescribed, and trampled under foot those 
 who have cultivated the ground. 
 
 157. For 7382 years your festival has lasted, 
 while we have labored. Now, in 1882, com- 
 mences our festival and your labor, if the com- 
 mandment is comprehended b}' every peasant. 
 What joy, what triumph this will be for our in- 
 ferior class ! 
 
 158. If you have occasion to remain some 
 time in the country, you must borrow for some 
 days the eyes of an animal, for you could not 
 remain there, having human eyes. As much as 
 we shall be elevated, you will be abased. No 
 one, nevertheless, will reproach you openly ; 
 ihey will give you to eat and to drink, but the 
 reproaches that will follow your steps will be 
 more painful than if they were made to your 
 face. 
 
 159. If you earned your bread by labor- 
 ing with your hands, and not by buying it 
 with money, your feast would be the more com- 
 plete. We are now your inferiors. We would 
 then be still lower, for we labor under compul- 
 sion and pressed by want, while you would be 
 laboring in obedience to the commandment. 
 Your merit would be but the greater and more 
 estimable. 
 
 160. You occupy now, in spite of us, our 
 
Labor. 125 
 
 place at the table ; and we remain standing so 
 humbly before you that your conscience per- 
 mits it. But then true justice will triumph. It 
 may spare you, but it will no longer wrong us. 
 You will not always have the place of honor, 
 and we will not always take the foot of the 
 table. 
 
 161. The sluggards say to me: If you had 
 found out how to be rich and happy without 
 labor, all the world would have thanked you 
 for it. But when you invite us to a painful, 
 wearisome, and humiliating task, who will give 
 your words an}'- consideration? You would 
 persuade the government that the primitive law 
 is founded on labor for bread. But many well- 
 educated people see the law only as through 
 an obscure mist. Must we then deceive our- 
 selves for bread ? What is the use of writing 
 on a subject that is not worth the trouble ? Or 
 of speaking, even, when for fifteen or twenty 
 kopecks one may have a measure of grain ? 
 
 In fine, if this labor leads to salvation, all ed- 
 ucated persons, and above all the priests, should 
 hasten to undertake it. But thev' disdain it, 
 and like better a life of ease. Then there is noth- 
 ing in it of value to salvation. The theory you 
 maintain is but as a tale in the Arabian Nights. 
 
 162. The principal scourge of our class, that 
 which throws us in spite of ourselves into mis- 
 ery, dejection, and all similar unhappiness, is 
 the division of goods among brothers. It is 
 impossible to speak of this evil in few words. 
 
1 26 Labor. 
 
 The cause is alwa3''S the same : they have hidden 
 from the world the law of hibor. If this law was 
 made known, a hundred men could live together. 
 He who should command need not be haughty, 
 and he who should obey need not be quick to 
 take offence. If among this group a father or 
 mother should die, the children would rest in 
 this centre of cordial harmony, and the bereaved 
 spouse would feel the blow less keenly. The 
 orphans would find among them fathers, mo- 
 thers, brothers, and sisters, in a word, many 
 protectors and defenders. 
 
 Women are usually compassionate : they will 
 care for orphans in preference to their own 
 children. Thus this law carries with it all vir- 
 tues and is opposed to all vices. It was not in 
 vain that God said in creating the world : " Let 
 there be light, for that is good." * You have 
 taken away this gift of God in the sight of men, 
 and you say softly to each other, " What fools 
 these men are who nourish us and supply us 
 with good clothes for nothing ! We give them 
 orders, and they obey us !" 
 
 163. If a man speaks of a crime before a nu- 
 merous society, he does not designate any one 
 as its author, for he cannot look into the con- 
 sciences of those present ; he speaks of the crime 
 from a legal point of view, and touches no one's 
 
 * Alluding to this passage in Genesis : " God made the sun; 
 he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament 
 of heaven to give light upon the earth. And God saw that it 
 was good." 
 
Labor. 127 
 
 sensitiveness. But if he speaks of the primitive 
 law, " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou 
 knead bread," he cannot conceal the name of 
 the criminal, because he bears the mark of 
 Cain. 
 
 To disobey this commandment is the greatest 
 of crimes ; and if it is committed by an inferior 
 man it may not be noticed ; but as it is addressed 
 to those who are elevated among the clouds, all 
 the world sees their infringement of it. 
 
 I would rather praise men than criticise them, 
 but here that would be impossible. In the pres- 
 ence of the holiness of labor, would it become 
 me to disguise my thoughts in cowardly adula- 
 tion? 
 
 164. God gave two commandments to our an- 
 cestors Adam and Eve. The first is, " Be fruitful 
 and multiply and replenish the earth ;" the sec- 
 ond, " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou knead 
 bread." Why, I ask you, do you execute the first 
 commandment of God with alacrity, and dis- 
 dain the second, flying to conceal yourselves in 
 different corners, while you say, I will employ 
 a good workman to make my bread ? 
 
 You fulfil the first commandment personally ; 
 why not the second ? 
 
 It is inadmissible to labor for bread by the 
 hand of another, and it can only be done in cer- 
 tain permitted cases. Tell me why you disdain 
 one commandment more than the other. What 
 if your wives should say to you : " We have ful- 
 filled our commandment ; we bring forth chil- 
 
1 2$ Labor. 
 
 dren in sorrow, and in death : and )"0u, why do 
 you not keep the commandment which concerns 
 you ? Give your children bread earned by )'our 
 own labor."* In brief, you cannot reply to 
 that, and you are left like a fish gasping on the 
 sand. 
 
 165. How blind you are, O wise man! You 
 search the Holy Scriptures with all your eyes, 
 but you cannot see there the way to relieve 
 yourself and the flock that God has confided to 
 your care from the burden of sin. You do not 
 see the path that will conduct you to life 
 eternal. You are like the inhabitants of Sodom 
 who were struck with blindness when they 
 sought for Lot's door.f But these were in- 
 
 * Compare these reflections of Bondareff's with Tolstoi's 
 ideas in the admirable chapter ' ' To Women !" which completes 
 the book What should be done: 
 
 "This woman, who, with all the attraction of her personal 
 charms, still evades her own duties under the law of mother- 
 hood, becomes a fit companion for the man who has denied the 
 obligations of his own law of labor; and they thus both lose 
 the true meaning and intention of their existence. 
 
 "From this proceeds the astonishing folly called the rights 
 of women. These rights we here formulate. 
 
 " ' Ah, you men,' says woman, ' you transgress your own 
 law of labor, but you wish us to fulfil ours. Truly no ! As 
 it is with you, it shall be with us. We will share your pre- 
 ccnded labors at banks, universities, and academies ; and we 
 will, like you, adopt the pretext of division of labor, and will 
 have a hand in all the social and worldly occupations that we 
 please.' " ( What should be done, page 372.) 
 
 f Alluding to Genesis xix. 10, 11: " But the men put forth 
 their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to 
 the door. And they smote the men that were at the door of 
 
Labor. 1 29 
 
 deed blinded ; while you, though sightless, 
 believe that you see clearly, and that you know 
 everything, and no one has the right to give 
 you counsel. Your blindness is like that of 
 Balaam, who did not see the angel of God that 
 stood armed with a flaming sword in the path 
 before him, while the ass that he was riding 
 perceived it distinctly. I am the ass ; and you, 
 who are Balaam, have ridden upon my back 
 since my childhood. 
 
 166. From all that has been said, we see, as in 
 a mirror, that man learns to read, not that he 
 may do good, but evil. The proverb is not 
 without reason which says : " If educated people 
 should lose their eyes [and I, BondarefF, as well 
 as they], and their horses should founder, we 
 should then be the better." 
 
 I did not formerly believe in proverbs, but now 
 I see that it is as though God himself had given 
 them to us. 
 
 167. The world has a thousand religions, 
 while there- should be but one faith, even as 
 there is but one God. 
 
 The first commandment, " In the sweat of 
 thy face shalt thou knead bread," would unite 
 all religions. When men shall have compre- 
 hended all its import, and shall have it graven 
 upon their hearts, then, in one century, perhaps 
 even in less time, all the world, from east to west, 
 from north to south, will be united in one 
 
 the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they 
 wearied themselves to find the door." 
 
1 30 Labor. 
 
 faith, one church, and one love. (See article 
 
 35-) 
 
 168. Many people have asked me: Why do 
 you regard those who avoid labor, not only 
 without good will, but even with hatred? 
 Whatever you feel in your heart, you should at 
 least speak with gentleness and kindness. 
 
 This is my answer: Where could I find pa- 
 tience and hypocrisy enough to speak with 
 gentleness and kindness? How many millions 
 oi people there are at this moment, how many 
 there have been since the beginning of the world, 
 and will be yet in the future, who have been and 
 will be ignominiously wronged by you who are 
 the masters of the world ! In this state of affairs, 
 I do not say a man, but an angel even, could 
 not bear such offences, and the recital alone of 
 our miseries would " set his teeth on edge." * 
 And I, who am but a man, have endured this 
 wrong for a long time. Many times I would 
 have spoken gently, but the moment I commence 
 to write, I am so inflamed with indignation that 
 I forget all my resolutions. And I have said to 
 myself, I can die but once; I have started upon 
 the right way, and I will go forward. 
 
 169. I address myself once more to you, O 
 ye of the upper classes. I do not entreat, I do 
 not ask, but I strongly require of you that you 
 shall give us our due, that you shall teach us the 
 primitive law that God himself gave to us la- 
 
 * An expression often used in the Bible. 
 
Labor. 131 
 
 borers when he created the world. You have 
 taken it from us by fraud or by violence, and 
 you have hidden it in the depths of the earth, 
 like the slothful servant in the Gospel who hid 
 his talent in the ground. Give it back to us 
 now, without delay; give it back! We will take 
 no excuse. 
 
 Those who preceded you had some reason to 
 keep this law to themselves, because no one 
 asked them for it ; the welfare of others matters 
 little to strangers. 
 
 But, now, give us this law, or at least explain 
 it to us. 
 
 170. You all give us the same excuse. It is 
 not I who am to blame, says one; nor I, says 
 another; nor I, says a third: and the nor I will 
 never finish : but who will say. It is I? If we 
 address the chief men of the State, they say also, 
 we are not to blame. In a word, the universe 
 has become, as it were, a perfect circle, where 
 no one is on the circumference, and all the 
 world are in the centre. Ask this one or that, 
 and he answers invariabl}^ // is not I ! 
 
 If the question were of boasting, of raising one- 
 self to the clouds, or of riding on the backs of 
 poor people, you will all cry, // is I! It is I! 
 But if we speak of holding out the hand to the 
 millions Avho are perishing in misery, // is not L 
 you sa}' at once. Who among 3-011 will say // // 
 Though our emperor, Alexander Nicolai'e witch, 
 has delivered us from slavery, that has nothing 
 
132 Labor. 
 
 to do, in my mind, with the question that occu- 
 pies us ; it is quite another affair. 
 p 171. We should, without doubt, persuade men 
   by good advice, and by divers warnings, but 
 . never bv force. Print these counsels in primers 
 \ and prayer-books, charge the priests of all 
 I nations and of all religions, to preach this doc- 
 trine unceasingly, by persuasion and not by force, 
 and to recall to their flocks the qualities which 
 \ distinguish before God and man him who care- 
 • fully executes the primitive law of God, and, on 
 ithe contrar}^ to point out the faults that charac- 
 terize him who shamefully avoids its execution. 
 /These are the means by which, to my mind, we 
 I shall force men to labor, without emplojdng 
 violence. 
 
 But excepting the government, who would 
 have the power to do what I have said ? No 
 one. 
 
 172. If all these counsels were inserted in the 
 daily papers, and in other publications, under 
 different forms, we might wait as many thou- 
 sands of years as there are days in a century, 
 and no profit would result. (See article 36.) 
 
 173. Implore, my soul! (and by my soul I 
 mean the souls of all laborers) implore the gov- 
 ernment as much as you will, shed all your 
 tears, multiply your groanings, bend your knees 
 to whom you will, but no one will be touched 
 by your supplications, or moved by your tears. 
 I know my double demand has been made in 
 vain. If they had but said yes or no, I would 
 
Labor. 133 
 
 have been more content; but they have said noth- 
 ing! nothing!* 
 
 Ah! deign, O Eternal Father, from the height 
 of heaven to cast one look upon the earth ! 
 
 Behold! there is but one man, who by one 
 single word can oppress millions of men !f 
 
 * Compare these reflections of Bondareff's with those of the 
 celebrated sectary Soutalef. "If the Czar knew!" said Sou- 
 talef to a throng of his followers. One day he departed for St. 
 Petersburg ; he would inform the Czar. Vain task : they 
 would not let him approach him. The unfortunate reformer 
 was obliged to return to his own village, accusing himself of 
 sin for failing in perseverance." (A. Leroy-Beaulieu, Revue 
 des Deux-Mondes, Sept. 15, i883, page 426.) 
 
 f Probably alluding to the Czar. 
 
APPENDICES. 
 
 Zo tbe /IDemor^ ot Bonbarett 
 
 LABOR AND LOFE, 
 
 BONDAREFF'S WILL. 
 I. 
 
 Love of our neighbor is the principal com- 
 mandment. It is the commandment of com- 
 mandments, the law of laws, the virtue of virtues. 
 There is no other virtue like it, neither in hea- 
 ven nor on the earth. No other possesses the 
 hundredth part of its perfection ; and in saying 
 this, I do not mean to depreciate existing laws 
 and commandments, but only to give love its 
 full value. 
 
 II. 
 
 And now, I ask yon, which is the most useful 
 to man and the most agreeable to God, labor 
 or love? Labor beyond a doubt. But there 
 is onlv one labor that is more useful than love, 
 and that is the labor that is done by virtue of 
 the commandment, " In the sweat of thy face 
 shalt thou knead bread." This is the only labor 
 that is more useful to man and more agreeable 
 to God than love. Without it all others are 
 useless, and even hurtful. 
 
 in. 
 
 But it has never happened that any one has 
 labored by virtue of this commandment, that is, 
 
 134 
 
Labor ajid Love. 135 
 
 not to satisfy his desire for food, but to obey 
 the law (for it is thus that I, Bondareff, interpret 
 this expression in Genesis) ; neither has any one 
 ever known the joy this labor produces, and 
 therefore there can be none among you, O my 
 readers, that can disprove my words, when I 
 claim that labor is more useful than the love of 
 our neighbor. 
 
 IV. 
 
 And here is the proof. I have found at each 
 instant, and in all books, praises in honor of love 
 for others. They laud it, among all people, 
 among savages even, in all languages and dia- 
 lects. They honor it in proverbs and sayings, 
 they make it the foundation of all civil and re- 
 ligious law. Preachers are wearied in celebrat- 
 ing its praises. But, I ask you, have these 
 praises and sermons in honor of love for others 
 borne any fruit, or resulted in any virtuous ac- 
 tions? Never! It is not only with love that 
 we can feed the hungry, satisfy the thirsty, 
 clothe the poor, give alms to mendicants, help 
 the widow, or do good to the orphan, etc. 
 
 If men would only help each other, and 
 have compassion for the misfortunes of others ; 
 but no, they will steal, kill, burn, pillage, 
 and deceive one another, they will detest and 
 wish each other all manner of evil ; they will 
 set traps and snares for each other, they will 
 commit wilful murder ; and, to sum up all, if they 
 did not fear the authorities, and if there were no 
 sermons in the world, they would eat each other 
 alive. These are the results which the praises 
 of love for others and the sermons in its honor 
 
1 36 Labor and Love. 
 
 produce ; and if sometimes one does good to 
 another, he is influenced by the instinct that 
 binds us together and not by love. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Why do they not appreciate this love for 
 others? My reply will be brief: Although love 
 is an excellent virtue, it is narrow and secondary ; 
 and besides that, labor, properly speaking, in- 
 cludes love, while love does not include labor. 
 We may add that labor was created by God in 
 the terrestrial paradise, while this love came to 
 the world four thousand years afterwards, with 
 Moses. We see now clearly why labor is the 
 first of all virtues, and the base of all laws. 
 Love without labor is like a man without a head, 
 it is dead. Love is therefore a narrow, secon- 
 dary virtue. 
 
 vn. 
 
 To prove still further what I have advanced, 
 I propose to you to make this essay : Suppress 
 and erase all the passages in Holy Scripture 
 which rest on love for our neighbor, and replace 
 them by the explanation of this law, " In the 
 sweat of thy face shaft thou knead bread." 
 Make known these modified passages, and soon, 
 before the close of the day, all men will be led, 
 in spite of themselves, to love their neighbor. 
 It is in bread, in the labor of the fields, that 
 we must seek for the love of others. It is 
 to demonstrate the force of this law that the 
 laborer should direct his endeavors, if he be 
 not also a sluggard. Idleness and luxury are, 
 on the contrary, the principal enemies of social 
 love. But you who have never labored, have 
 never tasted the joys which attend the accom- 
 
Labor and Love. 137 
 
 plishment of the law and of the labor it requires ; 
 thus you cannot believe my words. It is my 
 duty to speak them ; with you it rests to beheve 
 or to deny them, 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Then I pray you, my readers, to preserve 
 these words, and to fix them in your hearts: 
 Labor done according to the primitive law is the 
 condition of love for others. Labor is strong 
 without love; it can, by itself, win for man the 
 highest prize he can attain before God, whilst 
 love without the aid of labor can do nothing, 
 because, as we have already said, true love 
 freed from all hypocrisy, is concealed in labor ; 
 but without labor, love is dead. Love your 
 neighbor and esteem him, but above all, O you 
 who preach love, do not eat the bread" of his 
 labor. Again, the preachers have exhausted 
 their strength, worn out their throats, and 
 fatigued their tongues in preaching love, and 
 what has been the result ? Love does not exist 
 anywhere. 
 
 IX. 
 
 If love reigned in the world, would the present 
 state of things exist? In creating heaven and 
 earth, God has given forever, to us laborers, 
 and not to sluggards with white hands, this 
 unchangeable law : " In the sweat of thy brow 
 shalt thou knead bread." God has based on 
 this law both temporal and eternal happiness. 
 
 The supreme lawgivers, from the commence- 
 ment of the world, have taken from us bv fraud 
 or by violence this precious treasure. Having 
 stolen it, they have buried it deep in the earth, 
 like the slothful servant in the Gospel who hid 
 
138 Labor and Love. 
 
 his talent. During all these past ages, we, the 
 laborers, have not perceived our loss. Amid 
 the innumerable cares of life, we have over- 
 looked it, and it is only to-day that we think of 
 it. The thief is now discovered ; we have found 
 the guilty one, and have unveiled his crime be- 
 fore the entire universe. What do you desire? 
 they ask me. Give up the treasure that God 
 has given thee ? No, I will guard it well ! The 
 prey which the wolf holds in his teeth, says the 
 proverb, was given him by J^gor (Georges). 
 What ! you preach in every tone of love for 
 others, and you commit like crimes yourself! 
 And why? My question is worth answering. 
 
 X. 
 
 If love reigned in the world, would twenty- 
 four millions of men be placed under the author- 
 ity of lords, as it is tiiis day among us, and as it 
 has been for a long time? If love reigned in 
 the world, would the fertile earth have been 
 given forever to sluggards, whilst men, and 
 still worse, infants, are each day in danger of 
 dying for want of food ? But these lords, these 
 masters of the earth which they have appropri- 
 ated since the creation of the woiM (thence 
 has come the word " property "), sell it to others 
 at a great price, and then throw away the money 
 at cards, or spend it in unheard-of caprices. 
 Such is the depth of their love for others ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 The sixth day God said : " Behold, I have 
 given you every herb bearing seed, which is 
 upon the face of the earth, and every tree, in 
 the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed ; 
 to you it shall be for meat." But the greater 
 
Labor and Love. 1 39 
 
 part of mankind will not submit to the com- 
 mand that they should till the earth ; they put 
 this painful labor on the defenceless poor man, 
 whilst they walk to and fro whistling and with 
 their arms folded. If, at least, they had only 
 given to the poor the labor for bread, it might 
 be borne ; but they have heaped upon him all 
 sorts of painful labors, and he even pays for the 
 privileges of doing them ! I do not speak of 
 taxes, but of rents, and the services of all sorts 
 with which they overwhelm him. This is done in 
 the name of the law. Not content with making 
 him submit to these wrongs, they take from 
 him the fertile earth. They have given that for- 
 ever into the hands of those who evade labor, 
 and they call that for which they have never 
 labored, their property. 
 
 This is the love for our neighbor which you 
 preach but never practise ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 Many times I have resolved to speak to you 
 more affectionately ; but when I behold your 
 treachery, I forget all my resolves. 
 
 We see clearly that between the primitive 
 law of labor and the civil and religious laws 
 which exist there comes the eternal enmity that 
 separated the serpent and the woman. But be- 
 tween these two classes of men, the laborers on 
 the one side and those who evade labor on the 
 other, there exists an enmitv created bv God 
 himself and not by man. They say there is 
 this difference between the primitive law and 
 later laws, that the first was given to man by 
 God as a penance lor his sins, and we know 
 that God has not ordered us to atone for our 
 crimes by any other virtue or merit. But if 
 
140 Labor and Love. 
 
 this be so, why is not labor prescribed by law 
 and tradition as indispensable to salvation? 
 Thus we are tempted to think that God's de- 
 cree is not just; and for this reason I have said 
 that there is enmity between these two sorts of 
 law. Besides that, since the days of Adam, 
 there have been milHons of laborers; was there 
 never among- them one single man who was good 
 and acceptable to God ? 
 
 The question is of importance. But instead 
 of solving it, writers who are more competent 
 than I am, speak of the progress of labor and of 
 idleness, without designating any one. Thus 
 have they always neglected, and will do so till 
 the end of the world, the discussion of idleness 
 and labor. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Here is a new argument to prove that labor, 
 accomplished in conformity with the primitive 
 law, is more useful than love for others. If you 
 speak of this love to an ignorant man. or to one 
 but slightly educated, he will not listen to you. 
 You will see that in his eyes and in the expres- 
 sion of his face: he puts on a dejected air, he is 
 drowsy, he yawns, and is weary. He endeavors 
 to lead the conversation to other subjects, or 
 will tell you he is in haste ; he prepares to de- 
 part, and what you have said he will not, or can- 
 n*)t, understand. It was useless to engage him 
 in such a conversation. 
 
 I have witnessed all that myself. I have not 
 invented it. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 When, in reading passages of Genesis to a 
 man, you arrive at these words, " In the sweat 
 
Labor and Love. 141 
 
 of thy face shalt thou knead bread," explain 
 them to him bv saying that this penance was 
 decreed by God for original as well as for actual 
 sin. Add that God, when creating hea\en and 
 earth, has not given us any other way of atoning 
 for our sins, etc. etc. Soon your interlocutor will 
 look at you in amazement; he will no longer 
 be drowsy, or weary, or dejected, he will even 
 forget that they wait for him at home. Then he 
 will look down, embarrassed by these truths of 
 which he had never dreamed, and by the re- 
 membrance of all his actions since his youth, for 
 which he had not thought God reserved for him. 
 such penalties. 
 
 1 know, reader, that )^ou will not give any 
 faith to my words. But I swear before God 
 that they are true. 
 
 XV. 
 
 He will presently raise his eyes, and show that 
 reason has awakened within him. Then he will 
 ask questions, and return each instant to the sub- 
 ject. Afterwards he will repeat to his friends 
 what he has learned, and the story vvill go from 
 one to another. Why, then, would he not listen 
 when love for others was spoken of ? That seems 
 mysterious. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Observe always that only the laborers will 
 approve of your words.' As for those who avoid 
 labor, — and they are numerous in the world, — 
 they will dispute your arguments, word for word ; 
 and as a crowning refutation of them, under the 
 painful circumstances in which they ai^e placed, 
 they will show you the money they have taken 
 
142 Labor and Love. 
 
 from the poor laborers, which ihey pretend they 
 will use in their aid. You know well, readers, 
 that, whatever may be the subject under discus- 
 sion, the rich always gain their point. It has 
 always been so, and always will be to the end 
 of the world, as says Sirach, the man who was 
 inspired by God : " When a rich man speaketh, 
 every man holdeth his tongue, and look, what 
 he saith they extol it to the clouds : but if the 
 poor man speak, they say. What fellow is this ?" 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Have I not proved, beyond dispute, that love 
 without labor is dead, and that labor, accom- 
 plished according to the commandment, can live 
 alone without the aid of love? Love is hidden 
 in labor: labor is the home in which love dwells. 
 Love without labor is as the body without soul. 
 The law lives only when its power is used for 
 man's profit ; otherwise it is dead. Besides that, 
 the law lives only for those who accomplish it 
 willingl3% and not for those who refuse to sub- 
 mit to labor with all their heart. And in fine, 
 the sluggards — w'ho are truly criminal — are 
 dead to the law as it is dead to them. 
 
 As for love to others, we will not speak of it 
 here. 
 
 It is impossible for me to explain to the world 
 the law of Iab(;r, that T have only learned by 
 myself, and that no one has taught me. 1 have 
 comprehended its truth with my whole soul. 
 You deny, and you will deny forever, that it is 
 gifted with a force that will, one day, unite all 
 men in one faith, one church, and one love, be- 
 cause it is the chief of all virtues. You would 
 
Labor and Love. 1 43 
 
 gain, O you of the upper classes, by holding in 
 your hands the head of all virtue, whereas you 
 now hold only its tail — and by tail 1 mean love. 
 Love itself creates your words, but not your 
 actions. And why? Because your money has 
 so blinded you that you cannot discern the head 
 from the tail. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Could you believe, readers, that he who shall 
 have welcomed the law of labor with the eager- 
 ness that 1 have described would do to others 
 what he would not have them do to him ? 
 Would he take, by any means whatever, the 
 goods of another ? Can we suppose that, having 
 resolved to eat the bread for which he has la- 
 bored with his own hands, and to live an honest 
 life, he will retain whatever he may have ac- 
 quired dishonestly? No, we cannot imagine 
 such inconsistency. 
 
 Could a man, whose conscience is so pure, re- 
 frain from holding out a helping hand to his 
 neighbor, or, in other words, could he behold 
 one who is an hungered and not feed him, or one 
 who is dying of thirst and not give him to drink, 
 or a weary traveller and not give him rest in 
 his own house, etc., etc. ? A pure conscience 
 has the eyes not of a man, but of an angel. 
 Nothing can escape them. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 For him who has not tasted the joy ot labor 
 that is accomplished conformably with the prim- 
 itive law that God himself has given us wiien 
 creating the heavens and the earth, it is difficult, 
 very difficult in fact, to believe what I have been 
 
144 Labor and Love. 
 
 saying. But in claiming that labor, blessed by 
 God, is a hundred times more useful than love, 
 I but use a right that belongs to me. You ma}" 
 approve or disapprove of ray opinions. But to 
 judge which of us is right or wrong, God and 
 the Czar only have the right. 
 
 XX. 
 
 My readers will say, or at least think to them- 
 selves. How is that? All the universe and the 
 highest authority are founded on love for others, 
 as a mountain rests upon the rocks, for there is 
 not in the eyes of the world a more elevated 
 virtue than love for our neighbor. But alas! 
 behold how this edifice suddenly falls down, f(jr 
 they have here and there undermined its base; 
 in short, love for others is dead. Love is the 
 least, and not the greatest of these virtues. If 
 we eat without good reason the bread of others, 
 and thus disobey the primitive law, love is then 
 a virtue without any value. But, some readers 
 will say, we have centred our hopes in money, 
 as on God, believing that we will secure both 
 temporal and eternal happiness ; now this Bon- 
 dareff does not esteem money, and he exacts 
 personal labor. Must we. tell him he lies? But 
 we cannot base our opinions on legitimate rea- 
 sons. Man's inconstant fortune rests always on" 
 a tottering throne; and he does not know when, 
 or from what side, it will bc'^overthrown. When 
 the moment comes in which their fortune shall 
 perish, my readers will say and think that the 
 proverb is true which says : " The thunder does 
 not always come from the clouds, but often from 
 a heap of dust." 
 
Labor and Love. 145 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Even as the universe could not live without 
 God, it also cannot live without bread, and 
 therefore not without laborers. It is evident 
 that after God and bread the laborer comes in 
 the third rank, for on this triple foundation rests 
 all the world, as we will show clearly in the 
 following- articles. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 God is a Spirit who is present everywhere, in 
 heaven, on earth, and beneath the earth. But 
 which is his usual habitation ? This is a question 
 not yet resolved at this day. But it is evident to 
 any reasonable man that, without doubt, God's 
 principal habitation is with bread and with the 
 laborer. Suppress one of these three existences, 
 God, or bread, or the laborer, and soon the uni- 
 verse will disappear. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Can we not now affirm that tne second one of 
 
 this trinity will truly save our souls from death ? 
 We would not commit a sin in calling it the first 
 trinity, for that which is formed of the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost is not universally 
 accepted. One half of the world believes it, 
 and the other half does not, making of God but 
 one person. If all the world recognized the 
 trinity of which I speak, which is composed of 
 God, bread, and the laborer, they would with- 
 out doubt admit that these three are contained 
 in one God. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 And now what do you think, readers, would 
 happen if all the laborers understood my words .^ 
 
I4<5 Labor and Love. 
 
 They would not fly beyond the clouds, nor 
 hasten to seek other labors, or other virtues. By 
 cultivating the earth, they will enrich themselves, 
 and they will heap up gold for you also, O, ye 
 rich ones ! You cannot deny that all your joys 
 depend on our labor: without it you could not 
 be happy. But what will you do to restrict all 
 these men to cultivating the earth? It is im- 
 possible to do so. Ah ! pity and deplore the 
 misfortune of a laborer who sows good seed in 
 a sterile soil, and gathers no harvest ! It is I 
 who am this laborer; the good seed is the first 
 commandment of God, with its consequences ; 
 the sterile soil, those hearts of 3'ours, that amid 
 all the comforts of the world, turn with disgust 
 from the labor that God has imposed on all. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 I return once more to what 1 said just now. 
 If God is, above all, present with bread and 
 with the laborer, it seems to me reasonable that 
 we should revere bread as we do God himself, 
 and honor the laborer as the most precious of 
 his creatures in heaven or on the earth. (I do 
 not speak of myself, already so old, who could 
 only join in honoring the others.) To-day the 
 price of bread is fixed at one rouble and forty 
 kopecks the measure, while its real value cannot 
 be understood by the human mind. Once 
 more, it must never be sold, and only in extra- 
 ordiniry cases can it be given away. Bread is 
 estimited at one rouble and forty kopecks, and 
 the laborer is quoted at a still lower price. He 
 standvS at zero. And yet he is one of the three 
 persons in this one and indivisible trinity which 
 saves us from death. 
 
Labor and Love. 147 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 God could, I grant, nourish man without 
 liaving need of bread or of the laborer; but to 
 do that, he would be obliged to change all the 
 plan of the world, and to withdraw the decree 
 he pronounced when creating the heavens and 
 the earth. He must destroy his creation, be- 
 cause its laws would no longer have any value. 
 But for whom should he do this? For the 
 sluggards? No, no ! I repeat, God, bread, and 
 the laborer form the true and indivisible trinity 
 which saves us from death. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 It is for me to ask whether or no a thing is 
 useful for the common good ; and it is for you 
 to answer me or not, as you will. Wh}', then, 
 I ask you, do you treat the laborer as an im- 
 becile^ an idiot, or a fool, and scorn the great- 
 ness of his merits who eats the bread of his own 
 labor, and preserves from famishing other men 
 as well as the animals? We are fools, I admit, 
 fools in all the force of the term. But it is this: 
 the more we are instructed, so much the more we 
 make progress ; but we cannot attain the limit of 
 progress which is perfection. During this life 
 man cannot reach the limit of science, but after 
 death he will at once attain perfection. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 And further, the more a man is educated, the 
 better he perceives his intellectual defects. 
 Since, then, you look down upon the man who 
 n >urishes himself by his labor, as well as his fel- 
 low-creatures, and also the animals, what, I pray 
 you, will you call him who, far from nourishing 
 
148 Labor and Love. 
 
 any one else, lives in idleness, on the labor of 
 others, and who, as it were, turns the blood of the 
 poor into money ? Will you call him a brig-and ? 
 No; a brigand falls by the sentence of the law, 
 whilst this man is esteemed and elevated to su- 
 preme greatness. You have bestowed on us all 
 humiliating epithets; what have you reserved 
 for the sluggard? But why do 1 thus interro- 
 gate you? A stone might answer me, but you, 
 my readers, will not. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 If a great famine were inflicted upon Russia 
 during one year only, every one would die 
 of hunger. But where is the wheat of which 
 there was an excess in the preceding years, and 
 which they (the imbeciles) have stored up? 
 The intelligent ones have eaten it, is the reply. 
 Can we believe an intelligent man would com- 
 mit such a crime? To eat the bread of the 
 ingnorant, to trample under foot the love of our 
 neighbor, and the primitive law — it is almost 
 incredible ! 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Desire for food is man's strongest inclination, 
 yet what he most disdains is labor for bread. 
 There are actually in Russia millions of children 
 whom they teach to read, that they may be free 
 from this labor, and that they ma}' eat bread for 
 nothing; that is to say, to ride on the backs of 
 poor laborers. If that were not their intention, 
 they would never consent to be instructed, and 
 their parents would not let them go to school. 
 Not to be willing to live without doing any- 
 thing would seem to them as a crime, a 
 
Labor and Love. 1.49 
 
 suicide! So they do not labor: that condition 
 is too shameful. 
 
 Whence comes this state of things'* From 
 their not explaining the divine law " In the sweat 
 of thy face shalt thou knead bread," to young 
 and intelligent minds, and from its not being 
 placed in books of science. For by this means 
 men would have comprehended from their 
 youth, that they must compel themselves to eat 
 the bread of their own labor, and to live honestly. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 They do not speak of labor, that virtue of 
 virtues, in the primers or in the books of high 
 science. The masters make no allusion to it, 
 because they themselves live in idleness. Thus 
 the child can learn nothing that is good, in the 
 schools. He will be like the earthen vessel, 
 which retains always the odor of the first liquid 
 it has contained. Many examples prove this. 
 Historians relate that the Roman emperor 
 Caligula was so cruel that, not content with 
 taking the life of those who displeased him, he 
 even drank the blood of his victmis. The 
 daughter of Darius could find no more exquisite 
 article of food than the serpent. How will you 
 explain these facts? Must it not have been that 
 Caligula was brought up by a cruel woman, 
 and that the daughter of Darius had a nurse to 
 whom the serpent's flesh was the daintiest of 
 food ? 
 
 xxxn. 
 
 Theologians claim that God offered the milk 
 of wisdom as nourishment for a child, but that 
 the devil offered him the milk of impiety. If, 
 by fault of the parents, the child drank the 
 
150 Labor and Love. 
 
 devil's milk, no other food could thenceforth 
 please him. Even as Caligula loved to drink 
 blood, and the daughter of Darius preferred 
 the serpent's flesh, so the child would ever like 
 the devil's food only. 
 
 Thence, what hope can the laborers have? 
 We still must expect the worst. But if all 
 men learn to read and write, who will nourish 
 them } That is an important problem that no 
 one is willing to solve. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 I pray you, readers, not to forget that I 
 speak to you humbly, * standing with bowed 
 head and sad aspect at the threshold of your 
 door. But you are occupying the place of 
 honor at the table where they serve the pro- 
 ducts of our labor. You will not reply. Is 
 it because you feel that you are in every way 
 culpable in the sight of God and man, and 
 even before your own conscience ? If you try to 
 justify yourself, you will fall still more deeply 
 into sin ; if you try to contradict me, your 
 infatuation will be an outrage, not against me, 
 but against God, against bread, and against 
 your conscience. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 You see now, you of the upper classes, that 
 the laborer is your second father; we may even 
 say, without fear of sinning, that he is your 
 first father. Remember that all the dishes 
 of which you eat at your table are the pro- 
 
 *I mean that I speak in the name of all our class, men, 
 women, children, and old persons. I do not speak personally, 
 but in tb» natnt of my companions. 
 
Labor and Love. 1 3 1 
 
 ducts of our labor. In short, we nourish you 
 as a father nourishes his children. 
 
 Nothing can be more contrary to the law 
 than the excuse you present in saying, " I pay 
 for my bread." Where did you get your 
 money ? Is not this money that you keep at 
 home with you, the fruit of our labor? You 
 cannot obtain our pardon unless you agree with 
 all your heart to eat the bread of your own 
 labor. — Impossible ! you reply again ; how could 
 all men do the same work ? 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 The law of labor may be incomprehensible if 
 we compare it to that of love, because this word 
 love alone suffices to show all its nature, while we 
 need numerous developments to make clear the 
 meaning of the primitive law. I have written 
 already nearly three hundred articles* in com- 
 ment upon it, and I doubt if I have completely 
 persuaded my readers of the necessity of labor. 
 How can I present in few words all the 
 mysterious virtue which belongs to the law 
 which God gave in creating the heavens and 
 the earth ? Besides, it encounters the greatest 
 of obstacles in the influence of money which de- 
 prives this law of so much of its lorce. It is 
 money which renders men blind and insensible. 
 Hear them answer simply : " I pay for my 
 bread ! I pay lor my bread." That is their 
 only reply. How, then, can I dispute with 
 them ? 
 
 * Labor according to the Bible contained originally 263 
 articles or verses. We have modified the numeration, so that 
 the text of Bondarefl now contains only 173 paragraphs. 
 
1 52 Labor and Love. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 It is time to finish my discourse, or rather my 
 sermon. 
 
 At the moment in which I write, the govern- 
 ment has not yet considered the law of labor. 
 It has not explained its force by any edict: 
 nor has it preached to its subjects the love 
 of labor, notwithstanding the urgent requests 
 that I have addressed to it, and of which it 
 takes no notice. I pity its blindness. God 
 is my witness that I speak only the truth. 
 An individual is pardonable if he is ignorant 
 of some things ; but is it admissible that the 
 government should hide from the people's 
 eyes the greatest happiness that can be in 
 heaven or on the earth ? I can never be- 
 lieve it. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 I have just been told that I will not be per- 
 mitted to publish my sermon. Why ? ist. Be- 
 cause the administrative authority also seeks to 
 escape this horrible labor lor bread. 2d. Be- 
 cause they hate us who nourish them. " Let 
 these sixty millions of laborers suffer with 
 hunger and cold, so long as we and ours may 
 be happy !" And if you speak to them of love 
 for our neighbor, they will respond by preach- 
 ing philanthropy : but always in word, never 
 in deed ! 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 For five years, now, this state of affairs of 
 which I speak has existed. In the presence of 
 
Labor and Love. I $3 
 
 one among you * we are as so many tomtits 
 before an eagle. 
 
 By one word, one stroke of his pen, he can 
 crush us, and he has truly crushed and annihi- 
 lated us. What millions of men he has op- 
 pressed ! I said but now, that, thanks to the 
 government, idleness would flourish and increase 
 everywhere : that labor and bread would be 
 scorned and debased. It is done. You see now 
 the truth of my predictions, and the exactness 
 of my words. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 The blood and the tears of men have attested 
 the truth of all the laws, and all the command- 
 ments of the Old and the New Testament. But 
 in favor of the primitive commandment, which 
 is the chief of all the others, and of love to our 
 neighbor, no one has shed one tear or one drop 
 of blood : no one has borne witness to its truth. 
 This is why it has been reputed as false ; this 
 is the reason that it has been unknown in the 
 universe, and that it has now been angrily 
 rejected. Did Jesus Christ affirm it by his 
 death ? No, he said in the Gospel: " Behold 
 the fowls of the air, etc." We see 'Christ did 
 not give precedence to the law of labor, be- 
 cause from his infancy he saw in it little 
 virtue, and considered it to be a great mis- 
 fortune. 
 
 XL. 
 
 We see from the preceding articles that 
 Heaven has designed that I should bear witness 
 
 * An evident allusion to the Czar. It is to be noticed 
 that Bondareff often speaks of the Czar without openly nam- 
 ing him. 
 
1 54 Labor and Love. 
 
 to this law, and should seal its truth with m\' 
 blood and my tears. My blood is dried up in ray 
 veins at the spectacle of the world's corruption ; 
 as to my tears, they do not fall from my eyes 
 (my strong constitution forbids me to weep), but 
 they sink within ray heart. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 I ask myself why I am so ardently impressed 
 with the meaning of the primitive comraand- 
 ment, amid all the cares and troubles that sur- 
 round my life. Will the world give me credit 
 for all the griefs that 1 endure ? Will I receive, 
 for this discovery which is of interest to all the 
 world, a reward such as they give to inventors 
 of trifles? It is useless to thmk of such a thing. 
 My greatest recompense will consist in escap- 
 ing punishment ; for their attacks upon me are 
 vigorous. But against whom are they directed ? 
 Reflect on this important question. Why should 
 these menaces disquiet me, when I am guided 
 by an invisible and mysterious hand, which im- 
 pels me to act as I do, so that it is, as it were, 
 against my will that I labor. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Formerly I hoped to obtain from God in a 
 future life, some reward for this work, although 
 I have not accomplished it perfectly. And 
 now well-educated men, understanding the ob- 
 ject I sought, say to me : " You have not labored 
 for love of your neighbor, but for love of your- 
 self. To love your neighbor and at the same 
 time to love yourself is to offend God and to 
 hate your neighbor." Their arguments seera to 
 me pure and simple truth ; one would thinli 
 God had inspired their words. 
 
Labor and Lovt. 155 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 I sec but one means to avoid these difficulties. 
 If they will divide my work into ten parts, and 
 only hold me accountable for the tenth part of 
 it, 1 will be satisfied. If they take from mc 
 even this benefit, I shall not be wronged, because 
 I am convinced that 1 need not wait to be 
 judged by God in the life beyond the grave. 
 My conscience will be my judge ; and it will 
 not torture me with remorse, for I believe that 
 I have always applied myself to do right. And 
 yet if there is any doubtful case, I will resign 
 myself to the decision of God. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 My readers desire perhaps to know what arc 
 the griefs that have dried up my blood. Thej 
 are these : 
 
 I St. I have not the habit of writing, as you 
 may see. I have been obliged to re-write the 
 same article several times. You will see from 
 that, the imperative need 1 have felt of doing 
 m}^ work. 
 
 2d. I have composed this work in the midst 
 of painful labors in the field. I go to my labors 
 in the da^'time, and at night I write, and with 
 much difficulty, because I do not see well, even 
 with spectacles. 
 
 3d. If I had been rich, I would have had 
 teachers, counsellors, and literary aid. But 
 while I am not entirely poor, my possessions 
 are very modest. And 1 have also not been 
 well received where I have spoken of my proj- 
 ect. 
 
 4th. Ismy family numerous? In other words, 
 
1 56 Labor and Love. 
 
 how many are there of us who labor ? We are 
 seven : myself, my wife, our oldest son and his 
 wile, and their three young children. We are 
 far from being all of us able to work. 
 
 Our fortune does not permit us to employ 
 laborers ; and besides that, as I have shown, 
 we must not eat the bread of another's labor. 
 
 5th. It is four )'ears (we are now in De- 
 cember 1886) since 1 addressed the govern- 
 ment on this subject that I have at heart. 
 I have asked permission to publish my sermon. 
 What is the result? It is as though I had had 
 to do with the deaf and blind ; they do not an- 
 swer me. At least they might ^■Ay yes or 710. 
 
 6th. But that which most oi all dries up my 
 blood is that sixty millions of Russians are suf- 
 fering in ignorance and misery because the law 
 of labor is hidden from them. Why? That 
 some persons may live in comfort and idleness, 
 and enjoy all the earthly pleasures that for 
 very shame's sake I will not enumerate before 
 honest people. 
 
 Have I told you all the sorrows, the evils, the 
 weariness, and the pain from which I suffer? 
 No ; for it is impossible to express it all. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Nothing is more true. Heaven has designed 
 that 1 should seal with my blood and bathe with 
 my tears the truth that I have taught. I have 
 sealed it Avith my blood, and bathed it with my 
 tears. Perhaps after my death the command- 
 ment I have proclaimed will flourish. I can- 
 not believe otherwise. What obstacle could 
 stand in the way ? I have told but the truth ; 
 my prophecy cannot vanish without leaving 
 
Labor and Love. 1 5 7 
 
 some traces. Do I seek to gain glory ? No. 
 I am old ; of what use would glory be to me? 
 To-day or to-morrow I will descend into the 
 tomb, where the light of the sun will not enter ; 
 why, then, should I seek glory ? 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 My task is now finished. I have withdrawn 
 the primitive law from the hell into which men 
 have cast it since the beginning of the ages. 
 1 have bedewed it with my tears, and sealed it 
 with my blood, as I have said, and I have re- 
 signed it into the hands of the government, or 
 rather into those of the most powerful man in 
 the world ; I have given it to the czar of czars, 
 the monarch of monarchs, the king of kings — 
 to the Emperor. 
 
 Let what will happen, I have done my duty. 
 It is for you, O Czar, to act according to your 
 power and your will! 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 One more word, and I have done. During 
 the last days that are left of my life, I will con- 
 sign myself to the sepulchre, and I will raise 
 above it a monument in conformity with the 
 primitive law, " In the sweat of thy face shalt 
 thou knead bread." I will raise, I say, a mon- 
 ument worthy of this precept, which is more 
 precious than all earthly treasures. 1 will show 
 you my design in the following articles. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 I, Bondareff, will make a written rather than 
 a verbal will, in which 1 will say to my son 
 Daniel : At my death, when you place me in J:he 
 
1 58 Labor and Love. 
 
 coffin, put in my hands the papers that are 
 here. God, who sees everything, the surface as 
 well as the depths of the earth, will know why 
 I shall hold these papers in my hands. He can 
 judge of their contents when he summons to 
 the last judgment all our enemies who, having 
 heard of or read my doctrine, have made no ef- 
 fort to propagate it. He will summon also the 
 defenders of the law of labor, and he will re- 
 compense them. I assure you with all my soul 
 that my prophecy will be accomplished. If 
 you offend a man, you will certainly be pun- 
 ished. In denying the law of labor, you offend 
 millions of men, with their children and all their 
 descendants. Do you believe that your sin 
 will be pardoned because of the blind fortune 
 that protects you ? None but atheists could 
 have such a delusion. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 We have with us the custom of carrying the 
 dead to the cemeter}' in our arms. But 1 will 
 order my son to carry my corpse on a carriage 
 to the tomb, 
 
 Man is too much of a hypocrite to be per- 
 mitted to touch ray remains. When one of us 
 seeks in life the esteem of his neighbors, he re- 
 ceives but hatred ; they wish him the greatest 
 misfortunes, and they disdain him ; but when he 
 is dead and he has no longer need of man's 
 esteem, his enemies carry him to his last rest- 
 ing-place with feigned sorrow. Ah ! if a man 
 could see what passes at his obsequies, he would 
 be but little satisfied ! Man is a hypocrite, i 
 now hate all men, and that is why I will not 
 have them touch my coffin after my death. 
 
Labor and Love. 1 59 
 
 My often too eager critics do not consider 
 private individuals for whom they care not, 
 but they regard only the representatives of the 
 supreme government. These arc they who 
 are our most bitter enemies. These are as pas- 
 tors who nourish themselves, and let the flock 
 that God has confided to their care die of 
 hunger. 
 
 If a man passes from death to life, his neigh- 
 bor will not even carry him on a cart ; but 
 if he passes from life to death, he will carry him 
 in his arms ! And if one had occasion to help 
 a man pass from death to life, he would not do 
 it from love for his neighbor, but only in the 
 hope of an actual recompense, consisting of 
 gifts of money or of public praise. 
 
 LI. 
 
 I will order my son not to bury me in the 
 cemetery, but in the ground which, cultivated 
 by my arms, has furnished our daily bread.* I 
 will pray him not to fill my grave with clay 
 or sand, but with fertile earth, and to leave no 
 mound or anything to indicate the place of my 
 burial. I will direct him to continue every year 
 
 * One of the best known Russian sectaries, the moujik Sou- 
 talef, who was Tolstoi's inspiration, also undertook to dis- 
 pense with the priest's office, and to be interred in unconse- 
 crated ground, but for other reasons than Bondareff's. "A 
 child was born," relates M. A. Leroy-Beaulieu, "and he re- 
 fused to have it baptized ; another died, and he wished to bury 
 it in his garden, under the pretext that all the earth was holy ; 
 when that was forbidden, he hid the body under his floor." 
 
1 60 Labor and Love. 
 
 lo sow the place with good wheat. Lat6r, this 
 land may belong to some other cultivator, and 
 in this manner they will gather the bread of life 
 from my grave, to the end of the world. Thus 
 will be accomplished the prophecy of Job 
 (v. 26} : " Thou shalt come to thy grave in a 
 full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in his 
 season."* 
 
 This is the monument that I prefer to all 
 others. 
 
 Already I have chosen the place of my burial. 
 I consign myself to the grave. I live yet to- 
 day : the future does not belong to us. 
 
 I here terminate my book. 
 
 And now, readei's, we will meet again ; if not 
 in this world, at least in the next. We shall find 
 that world different from this. But I hope 
 with your skill and eloquence, you will be able 
 to justify yourselves before God better than 1 
 have known how to do it. 
 
 Timothy Michailovitch Bondareff. 
 
 * Men will speak of my obsequies from century to century, 
 and many laborers will follo^v my example. Perhaps some 
 amongst you, O ye nobles and rich men, will also be interred 
 in the earth where men sow their grain ! 
 
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