Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow by Irina Reyfman (top 10 novels of all time .txt) 📕

are amazed by the scale of Egyptian buildings. The incomparable pyramids will for a long time demonstrate the bold architectural design of the Egyptians. But for what were these piles of ludicrous stones prepared? For the burial of the arrogant pharaohs. These haughty potentates, avid of immortality, wished even after death to be set apart in appearance from their people. And, thus, the colossal mass of socially useless buildings gives clear proof of the servitude of the latter. In the debris of lost cities, where the general welfare formerly settled, we find the ruins of schools, hospitals, hotels, aqueducts, theaters, and similar buildings; in those cities where an “I” rather than “we” was more famous, we find the debris of magnificent royal palaces, vast stables, the homes of beasts. Compare one and the other: our choice will not be hard to make.

But what do we find in the very fame of conquests? Din, thunder, pomposity, and depletion. I compare this kind of fame to the balloons invented in the eighteenth century. Pieced together from silk, they rapidly fill with hot air and fly off at the speed of sound to the lofty heights of the ether. But the thing that comprises their force constantly seeps out from within through the finest chinks: the weight that was spinning upward takes the natural path of gravity downward; so that something whose fabrication took entire months of labor, effort, and expense affords the glances of spectators delight for barely a few hours.

Inquire, then, what the conqueror craves, what he seeks, when devastating populated lands or by subjugating the deserts to his power? An answer is given to us by the most ferocious among them, Alexander, called the Great—but he, in truth, was great not in his deeds but in the force of his spirit and in the havoc he caused. “O Athenians!” he proclaimed, “how dear has your praise cost me.” Thoughtless one, gaze upon your path. In rampaging through your territory, the impetuous whirlwind of your ascent pulls the inhabitants into its vortex and, dragging the power of the state in its precipitancy, leaves behind it desert and dead space. You do not understand, O raging wild boar, that by laying waste victoriously to the land you conquer you will acquire nothing to give you pleasure after the conquest. If you acquire a desert, it will serve as a grave in which your citizens will disappear; if you populate a new desert, you will render abundant land infertile. What gain is there in turning deserts into villages if you empty other settlements to do so? If the land you acquired is inhabited, count up your murders and be horrified. You need to eliminate all the hearts that have learned to hate you for your thunder bearing, since you could not possibly think that they could love someone they have been forced to fear. After the extermination of brave citizens, timid souls will remain and be subjected to you, ready to accept the yoke of slavery; however, in them, too, hatred of your crushing victory will take root. The fruit of your conquest will be—do not flatter yourself—murder and hatred. You will remain in the memory of descendants as a scourge; you will be punished knowing that your new slaves revile you and seek from you your own death.

Stooping to closer considerations about the condition of landworkers, how harmful we find it is to society. It is harmful to the increase of plants and people, it is harmful by way of example, and it is dangerous because of the insecurity it creates. Man, motivated in his initiatives by self-interest, undertakes what is of benefit to him, near or distant, and retreats from that in which he finds no immediate or future use. Following this natural instinct, everything we undertake for ourselves, everything that we do unforced, we do with dedication, care, well. Conversely, everything we do unwillingly, everything that we complete not for our good, we do shoddily, lazily, higgledy-piggledy. Landworkers in our state are this way. Their field is not their own, its produce does not belong to them. And this is why they cultivate it so lazily and are not concerned if it goes empty under their care. Compare this field with the one granted by an arrogant owner for the meagre subsistence of its cultivator. He does not stint on the effort he undertakes for it. Nothing distracts him from its cultivation. He overcomes shortage of time by not sleeping; hours set aside for rest he spends at work; on days designated for amusement, he shuns it. This is because he takes care of himself, works for himself, does everything for himself, and thus the field will give him an exceptional harvest; and this is how all the fruits of the labors of landworkers die or do not grow back; and yet they would have grown and survived to nourish citizens if the cultivation of the field were done carefully, if it were free.

But because compulsory work gives a smaller yield, the earth’s productivity falls short of its goal, hindering population growth by the same amount. Where there is nothing to eat there will be no one since even if there were someone they would die of starvation. By not yielding a full harvest, serf cultivation kills off the citizens to whom surplus was allocated by nature. Is this, however, the only way in which slavery stymies high productivity? To the inadequate supply of subsistence food and clothing has been added an exhausting workload. Compound this with offenses of arrogance and abuses of power, which affect even the tenderest sensibilities of man, and then you will see with horror the incipient destructiveness of slavery, differing from victories and conquests only in that it does not allow to come about what victory will cut down in the first place. But serfdom is more pernicious. Everyone can see easily that the one devastates randomly and instantaneously; the other destroys for the long