How Much Land Does a Man Need?

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What Men Live By and Other Tales at Project Gutenberg - a collection including How Much Land Does a Man Need? If I were to buy some freehold land, and have a homestead on it, it would be a different thing, altogether. Then it would all be nice and compact." I would not change my way of life for yours," said she. "We may live roughly, but at least we are free from anxiety. You live in better style than we do, but though you often earn more than you need, you are very likely to lose all you have. You know the proverb, 'Loss and gain are brothers twain.' It often happens that people who are wealthy one day are begging their bread the next. Our way is safer. Though a peasant's life is not a fat one, it is a long one. We shall never grow rich, but we shall always have enough to eat." So he had them up, gave them one lesson, and then another, and two or three of the peasants were fined. After a time Pahom's neighbours began to bear him a grudge for this, and would now and then let their cattle on his land on purpose. One peasant even got into Pahom's wood at night and cut down five young lime trees for their bark. Pahom passing through the wood one day noticed something white. He came nearer, and saw the stripped trunks lying on the ground, and close by stood the stumps, where the tree had been. Pahom was furious. Pakhom has grown resentful of his “cramped life” when a traveling peasant tells him of a village south of the Volga river, where families are allotted twenty-five acres of farmland per person upon settling. Pakhom and his family travel to the commune, where they are welcomed and allotted land totaling three times the amount they left behind. Nevertheless, Pakhom wants more, convinced that freehold land—in contrast to leased—is the way to truly become wealthy.

There is more land there than you could cover if you walked a year, and it all belongs to the Bashkírs. They are as simple as sheep, and land can be got almost for nothing.' Here, the narrator describes the Bashkirs’ lifestyle and values to sharply magnify Pahom’s moral degradation throughout the story. Pahom has abandoned his family and previous communes out of sheer self-interest and greed. He no longer latches on to ideas of family and community—intangible markers of a rewarding, fulfilling life—and instead prioritizes the ownership of immensely sized estates and higher socioeconomic standing in turn. The sun's rays had hardly flashed above the horizon, before Pahóm, carrying the spade over his shoulder, went down into the steppe. Other people are buying," said he, "and we must also buy twenty acres or so. Life is becoming impossible. That steward is simply crushing us with his fines."

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So we have a story in which Tolstoy teaches a lesson about humility and the need to fear and respect the Devil, or at least recognize the power he can exert over us. For those who don’t believe in the Devil, the mythical character can be seen as personifying those aspects of our nature which are destructive and can eventually lead to our complete demise. This is probably how Tolstoy would have us read the story. So Pahóm began looking out for land which he could buy; and he came across a peasant who had bought thirteen hundred acres, but having got into difficulties was willing to sell again cheap. Pahóm bargained and haggled with him, and at last they settled the price at 1,500 roubles, part in cash and part to be paid later. They had all but clinched the matter, when a passing dealer happened to stop at Pahóm's one day to get a feed for his horse. He drank tea with Pahóm, and they had a talk. The dealer said that he was just returning from the land of the Bashkírs, far away, where he had bought thirteen thousand ​acres of land all for 1,000 roubles. Pahóm questioned him further, and the tradesman said: As soon as Pahóm and his family arrived at their new abode, he applied for admission into the Commune of a large village. He stood treat to the Elders, and obtained the necessary documents. Five shares of Communal land were given him for his own and his sons' use: that is to say—125 acres (not all together, but in different fields) besides the use of the Communal pasture. Pahóm put up the buildings he needed, and bought cattle. Of the Communal land alone he had three times as much as at his former home, and the land was good corn-land. He was ten times better off than he had been. He had plenty of arable land and pasturage, and could keep as many head of cattle as he liked.

Why, we shall go to any spot you like, and stay there. You must start from that spot and make your round, taking a spade with you. Wherever you think necessary, make a mark. At every turning, dig a hole and pile up the turf; then afterwards we will go round with a plough from hole to hole. You may make as large a circuit as you please, but before the sun sets you must return to the place you started from. All the land you cover will be yours.' I heard that a dealer had been here,' continued Pahóm, 'and that you gave him a little land, too, and ​signed title-deeds to that effect. I should like to have it done in the same way.' There is plenty of land,' thought he, 'but will God let me live on it? I have lost my life, I have lost my life! I shall never reach that spot!' The women finished their tea, chatted a while about dress, and then cleared away the tea-things and lay down to sleep.Pahóm, the master of the house, was lying on the top of the oven, and he listened to the women's chatter. The protagonist of the story is a peasant named Pahom, who overhears his wife and sister-in-law argue over the merits of town and peasant farm life. He thinks to himself "if I had plenty of land, I shouldn't fear the Devil himself!". Unbeknown to him, Satan is listening. But I should like to be sure which bit is mine. Could it not be measured and made over to me? Life and death are in God’s hands. You good people give it to me, but your children might wish to take it away again. Pahom, p. 15 He went on in the same way for three years; renting land and sowing wheat. The seasons turned out well and the crops were good, so that he began to lay money by. He might have gone on living contentedly, but he grew tired of having to rent other people's land every year, and having to scramble for it. Wherever there was good land to be had, the peasants would rush for it and it was taken up at once, so that unless you were sharp about it you got none. It happened in the third year that he and a dealer together rented a piece of pasture land from some peasants; and they had already ploughed it up, when there was some dispute, and the peasants went to law about it, and things fell out so that the labour was all lost.