Leo Tolstoy

“ Each hat costs more than the horse with which the peasant plows his field. An officer, the galloon and buttons of his uniform resplendent in the sunshine, sits in the front seat. A rotund coachman, with blue silk sleeves and a velvet jacket, perches on the box. He very nearly runs down the pilgrim women, and almost upsets in the ditch an empty cart jogging along, driven by a peasant in an ore-covered shirt. ”

“ The workmen in the foundry, the stone breakers, and the farm hands keep on with their wearisome, monotonous tasks, which they perform, not for themselves but for others, and which will end only with their death. ”

“ The man rides an English stallion, the woman a palfrey. The woman's black hat and lilac veil, not to mention her horse and saddle, cost more than a stonebreaker earns in two months. And upon that up-to-date crop as much was spent as that young man walking up the path with so contended a look because he has succeeded in getting a position, receives for a week's work in an underground mine. ”

“ Bells ijngle, and a carriage rolls by the iron foundry, the plowing peasants, and the stone breakers. As it bowls along it encounters ragged men and women carrying sacks on their backs, men and women who wander from place to place living by alms. The carriage is drawn by four bay horses. The poorest of the horses is worth more than the entire homestead of any one of the peasants. The peasants look at the equipage with satisfaction. ”

“ As the young man turns out of their way he gazes admiringly at the sleek horses and sleek riders, and at the fat, strange-looking, powerful dog with a valuable collar about his neck running after the equestrians with his tongue lolling out. ”

“ Close by peasants driving tired, starved horses plow other people's fields. The peasants rise with the sun, if they have not spent the night on the pasture near the swamp, the one place where the horses can graze. ”

“ That is the way
the people of this party live the whole summer round. They go on excursions almost every day. Sometimes they take tea with them, drinks, and dainty eatables, for the sake of a change from the place in which they usually eat and drink. ”

“ On Sunday the men receive their wages. They wash themselves, or else without washing themselves they get drunk in the saloons scattered all about the factory to entice them. Early Monday morning they get into harness again. ”

“ Then bending their backs they haul the cars through the dark to the hoisting bucket, and haul them back again empty, to be filled again. That is the way they work twelve or fourteen hours a day the week round. ”

“ That is the way they work from the gray of dawn until late at night, fifteen or sixteen hours a day, resting two hours after their noon meal. And all they take to strengthen themselves is some bread and water at breakfast, and all the rest they get are a few short bits of repose. ”