Conversations with Leo Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy & Simon Parke

Author:Leo Tolstoy & Simon Parke [Tolstoy, Leo & Parke, Simon]
Format: epub
Tags: Communism, Peta, God, Kingdom of God, Arthur Schopenhauer, The Kingdom of God is within you, Letter to a Hindu, Genius Alive, A Confession, Yasnaya Polyana, War and Peace, Vegan, Sermon on the mount, Vegetarianism, Chertkov, Bible, Count Leo Tolstoy, Vegetarian, Pacifism, My Religion, Free Age Press, Gandhi, Pacifist, Anna Karenina, Russia, The Gospel in brief, Non violence, What I believe, non resistance, On Life, Martin Luther King, Anti War, Jesus Christ, White Poppy, Christianity. A Confession, Peace movement, Russian Orthodox Church, Russian Revolution, The last station
Publisher: White Crow Productions Ltd
Published: 2010-01-21T15:12:26+00:00

Eight

Vegetarianism

Tolstoy is supposed to have been converted to the vegetarian cause by a single conversation with William Frey, one afternoon in 1885. Frey had spoken of the inevitability of vegetarianism and the naturalness of such a diet. Tolstoy had thought for a moment, and then declared: ‘Yes, my friend, you are quite right. Thanks, thanks for your wise and honest words! I will certainly follow your example and abandon flesh-meat.’

And concerning this matter, a rather embarrassing incident occurred on the second evening of my stay; cruel comedy to make a point.

It was dinner time at Yasnaya Polyana. Tolstoy’s aunt came to the table to find a carving knife and a live chicken on her chair. Those of us there, watched uncomfortably. Unsurprisingly, the woman was much disturbed at this discovery and started to complain loudly. Sofya was also angry. And then I remember Tolstoy saying to his aunt something like: ‘We knew you wanted chicken, but none of us would kill it!’

Two of his children had followed him into vegetarianism, but not his wife or his aunt, and he did not sit comfortably with this. He liked people to agree with him. It was me, however, whom he cornered after the meal, as I loitered in the hall. He asked if I had ever been to an abattoir. Before I could answer, he was telling me of his visit.

LT: Through the door opposite the one at which I was standing, a big, red, well-fed ox was led in. Two men were dragging it, and hardly had it entered when I saw a butcher raise a knife above its neck and stab it. The ox, as if all four legs had suddenly given way, fell heavily upon its belly, immediately turned over on one side, and began to work its legs and all its hindquarters. Another butcher at once threw himself upon the ox from the side opposite to the twitching legs, caught its horns and twisted its head down to the ground, while another butcher cut its throat with a knife. From beneath the head there flowed a stream of blackish-red blood, which a besmeared boy caught in a tin basin. All the time this was going on, the ox kept incessantly twitching its head as if trying to get up, and waved its four legs in the air. The basin was quickly filling, but the ox still lived, and, its stomach heaving heavily, both hind and fore legs worked so violently that the butchers held aloof. When one basin was full, the boy carried it away on his head to the albumen factory, while another boy placed a fresh basin, which also soon began to fill up. But still the ox heaved its body and worked its hind legs.

SP: You speak as though you’re still there watching.

LT: When the blood ceased to flow the butcher raised the animal’s head and began to skin it. The ox continued to writhe. The head, stripped of its skin, showed red with white veins, and kept the position given it by the butcher; on both sides hung the skin.

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