How Much Land Does a Man Need? - Leo Tolstoy
An elder sister came to visit her younger sister in the country. The elder was married to a tradesman in town, the younger to a peasant in the village. As the sisters sat over their tea talking, the elder began to boast of the advantages of town life: saying how comfortably they lived there, how well they dressed, what fine clothes her children wore, what good things they ate and drank, and how she went to the theatre, promenades, and entertainments.
The younger sister was piqued, and in turn disparaged the life of a tradesman, and stood up for that of a peasant.
“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.”
The elder sister said sneeringly:
“Enough? Yes, if you like to share with the pigs and calves! What do you know of elegance or manners! However much your goodman may slave, you will die as you are living - on a dung heap - and your children the same.”
“Well, what of that?” replied the younger. “Of course our work is rough and coarse. But, on the other hand, it is sure, and we need not bow to anyone. But you, in your towns, are surrounded by temptations; to-day all may be right, but to-morrow the Evil One may tempt your husband with card, wine, or women, and all will go to ruin. Don’t such things happen often enough?”
Pahom, the master of the house, was lying on the top of the stove and he listened to the women’s chatter.
“It is perfectly true,” thought he. “Busy as we are from childhood tilling mother earth, we peasants have no time to let any nonsense settle in our heads. Our only trouble is that we haven’t land enough. If I had plenty of land, I shouldn’t fear the Devil himself!”
The women finished their tea, chatted a while about dress, and then cleared away the tea-things and lay down to sleep.
But the Devil had been sitting behind the stove, and had heard all that was said. He was pleased that the peasant’s wife had led her husband into boasting, and that he had said that if he had plenty of land he would not fear the Devil himself.
“All right,” though the Devil. “We will have a tussle. I’ll give you land enough; and by means of that land I will get you into my power.”
Close to the village there lived a lady, a small landowner who had an estate of about three hundred acres. [1] She had always lived on good terms with the peasants until she engaged as her steward an old soldier, who took to burdening the people with fines. However careful Pahom tried to be, it happened again and again that now a horse of his got among the lady’s oats, or a cow strayed into her garden, or his calves found their way into her meadows - and he always had to pay a fine.
Pahom paid up, but grumbled and, going home in a temper, was rough with his family. All through that summer, Pahom had much trouble because of this steward, and he was even glad when winter came and the cattle had to be stabled. Though he grudged the fodder when they could no longer graze on the pasture-land, at least he was free from anxiety about them.
In the winter the news got about that the lady was going to sell her land and that the keeper of the inn on the high road was bargaining for it. When the peasants heard this they were very much alarmed.
“Well,” thought they, “if the innkeeper gets the land, he will worry us with fines worse that the lady’s steward. We all depend on that estate.”
So the peasants went on behalf of their Commune, and asked the lady not to sell the land to the innkeeper, offering her a better price for it themselves. The lady agreed to let them have it. Then the peasants tried to arrange for the Commune to buy the whole estate, so that it might be held by them all in common. They met twice to discuss it, but could not settle the matter; the Evil One sowed discord among them and they could not agree. So they decided to buy the land individually, each according to his means; and the lady agreed to this plan as she had to the other.
Presently Pahom heard that a neighbor of his was buying fifty acres, and that the lady had consented to accept one half in cash and to wait a year for the other half. Pahom felt envious.
“Look at that,” thought he, “the land is all being sold, and I shall get none of it.” So he spoke to his wife.
“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.”
So they put their heads together and considered how they could manage to buy it. They had one hundred rubles laid by. They sold a colt and one half of their bees, hired out one of their sons as a laborer and took his wages in advance; borrowed the rest from a brother-in-law, and so scraped together half the purchase money.
Having done this, Pahom chose out a farm of forty acres, some of it wooded, and went to the lady to bargain for it. They came to an agreement, and he shook hands with her upon it and paid her a deposit in advance. Then they went to town and signed the deeds; he paying half the price down, and undertaking to pay the remainder within two years.
So now Pahom had land of his own. He borrowed seed, and sowed it on the land he had bought. The harvest was a good one, and within a year he had managed to pay off his debts both to the lady and to his brother-in-law. So he became a landowner, ploughing and sowing his own land, making hay on his own land, cutting his own trees, and feeding his cattle on his own pasture. When he went out to plough his fields, or to look at his growing corn, or at his grass-meadows, his heart would fill with joy. The grass that grew and the glowers that bloomed there seemed to him unlike any that grew elsewhere. Formerly, when he had passed by that land, it had appeared the same as any other land, but now it seemed quite different.
So Pahom was well-contented, and everything would have been right if the neighboring peasants would only not have trespassed on his cornfields and meadows. He appealed to them most civilly, but they still went on: now the Communal herdsmen would let the village cows stray into his meadows, then horses from the night pasture would get among his corn. Pahom turned them out again and again, and forgave their owners, and for a long time he forbore to prosecute any one. But at last he lost patience and complained to the District Court. He knew it was the peasants’ want of land, and no evil intent on their part, that caused the trouble, but he thought:
“I cannot go on overlooking it or they will destroy all I have. They must be taught a lesson.”
So he had them up, gave them one lesson, and then another, and two or tree of the peasants were fined. After a time Pahom’s neighbors began to bear him a grudge for this, and would now and then let their cattle on to 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 trees had been. Pahom was furious.
“If he had only cut one here and there it would have been bad enough,” though Pahom, “but the rascal has actually cut down a whole clump. If I could only find out who did this, I would pay him out.”
He racked his brain as to who it could be. Finally he decided: “It must be Simon - no one else could have done it.” So he went to Simon’s homestead to have a look round, but he found nothing, and only had an angry scene. However, he now felt more certain than ever that Simon had done it, and he lodged a complaint. Simon was summoned. The case was tried, and retried, and at the end of it all Simon was acquitted, there being no evidence against him. Pahom felt still more aggrieved, and let his anger loose upon the Elder and the Judges.
“You let thieves grease your palms,” said he. “If you were honest folk yourselves you would not let a thief go free.”
So Pahom quarreled with the Judges and with his neighbors. Threats to burn his building began to be uttered. So though Pahom had more land, his place in the Commune was much worse than before.
About this time a rumor got about that many people were moving to new parts.
“There’s no need for me to leave my land,” though Pahom. “But some of the others might leave our village and then there would be more room for us. I would take over their land myself and make my estate a bit bigger. I could then live more at ease. As it is, I am still too cramped to be comfortable.”
One day Pahom was sitting at home when a peasant, passing through the village, happened to call in. He was allowed to stay the night, and supper was given him. Pahom had a talk with this peasant and asked him where he came from. The stranger answered that he came from beyond the Volga, where he had been working. One word led to another, and the man went on to say that many people were settling in those parts. He told how some people from his village had settle there. They had joined the Commune, and had twenty-five acres per man granted them. The land was so good, he said, that the rye sown on it grew as high as a horse, and so thick that five cuts of a sickle made a sheaf. One peasant, he said, had brought nothing with him but his bare hands, and now he had six horses and two cows of his own.
Pahom’s heart kindled with desire. He thought:
“Why should I suffer in this narrow hole, if one can live so well elsewhere? I will sell my land and my homestead here, and with the money I will start afresh over there and get everything new. In this crowded place one is always having trouble. But I must first go and find out all about it myself.”
Towards summer he got ready and started. He went down the Volga on a steamer to Samara, then walked another three hundred miles on foot, and at last reached the place. It was just as the stranger had said. The peasants had plenty of land: every man had twenty-five acres of Communal land given him for his use, and any one who had money could buy, besides, at a ruble an acre as much good freehold land as he wanted.
Having found out all he wished to know, Pahom returned home as autumn came on, and began selling off his belongings. He sold his land at a profit, sold his homestead and all his cattle, and withdrew from membership in the commune. He only waited till the spring, and then started with his family for the new settlement.
As soon as Pahom and his family reached 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. Pahom 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.
At first, in the bustle of building and settling down, Pahom was pleased with it all, but when he got used to it he began to think that even here he had not enough land. The first year, he sowed wheat on his share of the Communal land and had a good crop. He wanted to go on sowing wheat, but had not enough Communal land for the purpose, and what he had already used was not available; for in those parts wheat is only sown on virgin soil or on fallow land. It is sown for one or two years, and then the land lies fallow till it is again overgrown with prairie grass. There were many who wanted such land and there was not enough for all; so that people quarreled about it. Those who were better off wanted it for growing wheat, and those who were poor wanted it to let to dealers, so that they might raise money to pay their taxes. Pahom wanted to sow more wheat, so he rented land from a dealer for a year. He sowed much wheat and had a fine crop, but the land was too far from the village - the wheat had to be carted more than ten miles. After a time Pahom noticed that some peasant-dealers were living on separate farms and were growing wealthy; and he thought:
“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.”
The question of buying freehold land recurred to him again and again.
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. Where ever 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 labor was all lost.
“If it were my own land,” though Pahom, “I should be independent, and there would not be all this unpleasantness.”
So Pahom 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. Pahom bargained and haggled with him, and at last they settled the price at 1,500 rubles, part in cash and part to be paid later. They had all but clinched the matter when a passing dealer happened to stop at Pahom’s one day to get a feed for his horses. He drank tea with Pahom and they had a talk. The dealer said that he was just returning from the land of the Bashkirs, [2] far away, where he had bought thirteen thousand acres of land, all for 1,000 rubles. Pahom questioned him further, and the tradesman said:
“All one need do is to make friends with the chiefs. I gave away about one hundred rubles’ worth of silk robes and carpets, besides a case of tea, and I gave wine to those who would drink it; and I got the land for less than a penny an acre.” [3] And he showed Pahom the title-deeds, saying:
“The land lies near a river, and the whole prairie is virgin soil.”
Pahom plied him with questions, and the tradesman said:
“There is more land there than you could cover if you walked a year, and it all belongs to the Bashkirs. They are as simple as sheep, and land can be got almost for nothing.”
“There now,” thought Pahom, “with my one thousand rubles, why should I get only thirteen hundred acres, and saddle myself with a debt besides? If I take it out there, I can get more than ten times as much for the money.”
Pahom inquired how to get to the place, and as soon as the tradesman had left him, he prepared to go there himself. He left his wife to look after the homestead, and started on his journey taking his man with him. They stopped at a town on their way and bought a case of tea, some wine, and other presents, as the tradesman had advised. On and on they went until they had gone more than three hundred miles, and on the seventh day they came to a place where the Bashkirs had pitched their tents. It was all just as the tradesman had said. The people lived on the steppes, by a river, in felt-covered tents. [4] They neither tilled the ground, nor ate bread. Their cattle and horses grazed in herds on the steppe. The colts were tethered behind the tents, and the mares were driven to them twice a day. The mares were milked, and from the milk kumiss [5] was made. It was the women who prepared kumis, and they also made cheese. As far as the men were concerned, drinking kumiss and tea, eating mutton, and playing on their pipes, was all they cared about. They were all stout and merry, and the summer long they never thought of doing any work. They were quite ignorant, and knew no Russian, but were good-natured enough.
As soon as they saw Pahom, they came out of their tents and gathered round their visitor. An interpreter was found, and Pahom told them he had come about some land. The Bashkirs seemed very glad; they took Pahom and led him into one of the best tents, where they made him sit on some down cushions placed on a carpet, while they sat round him. They gave him some tea and kumiss, and had a sheep killed, and gave him mutton to eat. Pahom took presents out of his cart and distributed them among the Bashkirs, and divided the tea amongst them. The Bashkirs were delighted. They talked a great deal among themselves, and then told the interpreter to translate.
“They wish to tell you,” said the interpreter, “that they like you, and that it is our custom to do all we can to please a guest and to repay him for his gifts. You have given us presents, now tell us which of the things we possess please you best, that we may present them to you.”
“What pleases me best here,” answered Pahom, “is your land. Our land is crowded and the soil is exhausted; but you have plenty of land and it is good land. I never saw the like of it.”
The interpreter translated. The Bashkirs talked among themselves for a while. Pahom could not understand what they were saying, but saw that they were much amused and that they shouted and laughed. Then they were silent and looked at Pahom while the interpreter said:
“They wish me to tell you that in return for your presents they will gladly give you as much land as you want. You have only to point it out with your hand and it is yours.”
The Bashkirs talked again for a while and began to dispute. Pahom asked what they were disputing about, and the interpreter told him that some of them thought they ought to ask their Chief about the land and not act in his absence, while others thought there was no need to wait for his return.
While the Bashkirs were disputing, a man in a large fox-fur cap appeared on the scene. They all became silent and rose to their feet. The interpreter said, “This is our Chief himself.”
Pahom immediately fetched the best dressing-gown and five pounds of tea, and offered these to the Chief. The Chief accepted them, and seated himself in the place of honor. The Bashkirs at once began telling him something. The Chief listened for a while, then made a sign with his head for them to be silent, and addressing himself to Pahom, said in Russian:
“Well, let it be so. Choose whatever piece of land you like; we have plenty of it.”
“How can I take as much as I like?” thought Pahom. “I must get a deed to make it secure, or else they may say 'It is yours,' and afterwards may take it away again.”
“Thank you for your kind words,” he said aloud. “You have much land, and I only want a little. 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.”
“You are quite right,” said the Chief. “We will make it over to you.”
“I heard that a dealer had been here,” continued Pahom, “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.”
The Chief understood.
“Yes,” replied he, “that can be done quite easily. We have a scribe, and we will go to town with you and have the deed properly sealed.”
“And what will be the price?” asked Pahom.
“Our price is always the same: one thousand rubles a day.”
Pahom did not understand.
“A day? What measure is that? How many acres would that be?”
“We do not know how to reckon it out,” said the Chief. “We sell it by the day. As much as you can go round on your feet in a day is yours, and the price is one thousand rubles a day.
Pahom was surprised.
“But in a day you can get round a large tract of land,” he said.
The Chief laughed.
“It will all be yours!” said he. “But there is one condition: If you don’t return on the same day to the spot whence you started, your money is lost.”
“But how an I to mark the way that I have gone?”
“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.”
Pahom was delighted. It was decided to start early next morning. They talked a while, and after drinking some more kumiss and eating some more mutton, they had tea again, and then the night came on. They gave Pahom a feather-bed to sleep on, and the Bashkirs dispersed for the night, promising to assemble the next morning at daybreak and ride out before sunrise to the appointed spot.
Pahom lay on the feather-bed, but could not sleep. He kept thinking about the land.
“What a large tract I will mark off!” thought he. “ I can easily do thirty-five miles in a day. The days are long now, and within a circuit of thirty-five miles what a lot of land there will be! I will sell the poorer land, or let it to peasants, but I’ll pick out the best and farm it. I will buy two oxteams, and hire two more laborers. About a hundred and fifty acres shall be plough-land, and I will pasture cattle on the rest.”
Pahom lay awake all night, and dozed off only just before dawn. Hardly were his eyes closed when he had a dream. He thought he was lying in that same tent and heard somebody chuckling outside. He wondered who it could be, and rose and went out, and he saw the Bashkir Chief sitting in front of the tent holding his sides and rolling about with laughter. Going nearer to the Chief, Pahom asked: “What are you laughing at?” But he saw that it was no longer the Chief, but the dealer who had recently stopped at his house and had told him about the land. Just as Pahom was going to ask, “Have you been here long?” he saw that it was not the dealer, but the peasant who had come up from the Volga, long ago, to Pahom’s old home. Then he saw that it was not the peasant either, but the Devil himself with hoofs and horns, sitting there and chuckling, and before him lay a man barefoot, prostrate on the ground, with only trousers and a shirt on. And Pahom dreamt that he looked more attentively to see what sort of a man it was that was lying there, and he saw that the man was dead, and that it was himself! He awoke horror-struck.
“What things one does dream,” thought he.
Looking around he saw through the open door that the dawn was breaking.
“It’s time to wake them up,” thought he. “We ought to be starting.”
He got up, roused his man (who was sleeping in his cart), bade him harness; and went to call the Bashkirs.
“It’s time to go to the steppe to measure the land,” he said.
The Bashkirs rose and assembled, and the Chief came too. Then they began drinking kumiss again, and offered Pahom some tea, but he would not wait.
“If we are to go, let us go. It is high time,” said he.
The Bashkirs got ready and they all started: some mounted on horses, and some in carts. Pahom drove in his own small cart with his servant and took a spade with him. When they reached the steppe, the morning red was beginning kindle. They ascended a hillock (called by the Bashkirs a shikhan) and dismounting from their carts and their horses, gathered in one spot. The Chief came up to Pahom and stretching out his arm towards the plain:
“See,” said he, “all this, as far as your eye can reach, is ours. You may have any part of it you like.”
Pahom’s eyes glistened: it was all virgin soil, as flat as the palm of your hand, as black as the seed of a poppy, and in the hollows different kinds of grasses grew breast high.
The Chief took off his fox-fur cap, placed it on the ground and said:
“This will be the mark. Start from here, and return here again. All the land you go round shall be yours.”
Pahom took out his money and put it on the cap. Then he took off his outer coat, remaining in his sleeveless under-coat. He unfastened his girdle and tied it tight below his stomach, put a little bag of bread into the breast of his coat, and tying a flask of water to his girdle, he drew up the tops of his boots, took the spade from his man, and stood ready to start. He considered for some moments which way he had better go - it was tempting everywhere.
“No matter,” he concluded, “I will go towards the rising sun.”
He turned his face to the east, stretched himself, and waited for the sun to appear above the rim.
“I must lose no time,” he thought, “and it is easier walking while it is still cool.”
The sun’s rays had hardly flashed above the horizon, before Pahom, carrying the spade over his shoulder, went down into the steppe.
Pahom started walking neither slowly nor quickly. After having gone a thousand yards he stopped, dug a hole, and placed pieces of turf one on another to make it more visible. Then he went on; and now that he had walked off his stiffness he quickened his pace. After a while he dug another hole.
Pahom looked back. The hillock could be distinctly seen in the sunlight, with the people on it, and the glittering tires of the cart-wheels. At a rough guess Pahom concluded that he had walked three miles. It was growing warmer; he took off his under-coat, flung it across his shoulder, and went on again. It had grown quite warm now; he looked at the sun, it was time to think of breakfast.
“The first shift is done, but there are four in a day, and it is too soon yet to turn. But I will just take off my boots,” said he to himself.
He sat down, took off his boots, stuck them into his girdle, and went on. It was easy walking now.
“I will go on for another three miles,” though he, “and then turn to the left. This spot is so fine, that it would be a pity to lose it. The further ones goes, the better the land seems.”
He went straight on for a while, and when he looked round, the hillock was scarcely visible and the people on it looked like black ants, and he could just see something glistening there in the sun.
“Ah,” though Pahom, “I have gone far enough in this direction, it is time to turn. Besides I am in a regular sweat, and very thirsty.”
He stopped, dug a large hole, and heaped up pieces of turf. Next he untied his flask, had a drink, and then turned sharply to the left. He went on and on; the grass was high, and it was very hot.
Pahom began to grow tired: he looked at the sun and saw that it was noon.
“Well,” he thought, “I must have a rest.”
He sat down, and ate some bread and drank some water; but he did not lie down, thinking that if he did he might fall asleep. After sitting a little while, he went on again. At first he walked easily: the food had strengthened him; but it had become terribly hot and he felt sleepy, still he went on, thinking: “An hour to suffer, a life-time to live.”
He went a long way in this direction also, and was about to turn to the left again, when he perceived a damp hollow: “It would be a pity to leave that out,” he thought. “Flax would do well there.” So he went on past the hollow, and dug a hole on the other side of it before he turned the corner. Pahom looked towards the hillock. The heat made the air hazy: it seemed to be quivering, and through the haze the people on the hillock could scarcely be seen.
“Ah!” Thought Pahom, “I have made the sides too long; I must make this one shorter.” And he went along the third side, stepping faster. He looked at the sun: it was nearly half-way to the horizon, and he had not yet done two miles of the third side of the square. He was still ten miles from the goal.
“No,” he thought, “though it will make my land lop-sided, I must hurry back in a straight line now. I might go too far, and as it is I have a great deal of land.”
So Pahom hurriedly dug a hole, and turned straight towards the hillock.
Pahom went straight towards the hillock, but he now walked with difficulty. He was done up with the heat, his bare feet were cut and bruised, and his legs began to fail. He longed to rest, but it was impossible if he meant to get back before sunset. The sun waits for no man, and it was sinking lower and lower.
“Oh dear,” he thought, “if only I have not blundered trying for too much! What if I am too late?”
He looked towards the hillock and at the sun. He was still far from his goal, and the sun was already near the rim.
Pahom walked on and on; it was very hard walking but he went quicker and quicker. He pressed on, but was still far from the place. He began running, threw away his coat, his boots, his flask, and his cap, and kept only the spade which he used as a support.
“What shall I do,” he thought again, “I have grasped too much and ruined the whole affair. I can’t get there before the sun sets.”
And this fear made him still more breathless. Pahom went on running, his soaking shirt and trousers stuck to him and his mouth was parched. His breast was working like a blacksmith’s bellows, his heart was beating like a hammer, and his legs were giving way as if they did not belong to him. Pahom was seized with terror lest he should die of the strain.
Though afraid of death, he could not stop. “After having run all that way they will call me a fool if I stop now,” thought he. And he ran on and on, and drew near and hear the Bashkirs yelling and shouting to him, and their cries inflamed his heart still more. He gathered his last strength and ran on.
The sun was close to the rim, and cloaked in mist looked large, and red as blood. Now, yes now, it was about to set! The sun was quite low, but he was also quite near his aim. Pahom could already see the people on the hillock waving their arms to hurry him up. He could see the fox-fur cap on the ground and the money on it, and the Chief sitting on the ground holding his sides. And Pahom remembered his dream.
“There is plenty of land,” though 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!”
Pahom looked at the sun, which had reached the earth: one side of it had already disappeared. With all his remaining strength he rushed on, bending his body forward so that his legs could hardly follow fast enough to keep him from falling. Just as he reached the hillock it suddenly grew dark. He looked up - the sun had already set! He gave a cry: “All my labor has been in vain,” though he, and was about to stop, but he heard the Bashkirs shouting, and remembered that though to him, from below, the sun seemed to have set, they on the hillock could still see it. He took a long breath and ran up the hillock. It was still light there. He reached the top and saw the cap. Before it sat the Chief laughing and holding his sides. Again Pahom remembered his dream, and he uttered a cry: his legs gave way beneath him, he fell forward and reached the cap with his hands.
“Ah, that’s a fine fellow!” exclaimed the Chief. “He has gained much land!”
Pahom’s servant came running up and tried to raise him, but he saw that blood was flowing from his mouth. Pahom was dead!
The Bashkirs clicked their tongues to show their pity.
His servant picked up the spade and dug a grave long enough for Pahom to lie in, and buried him in it. Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed.
True Story of Loyality: Hachiko
Hachikō ( November 10, 1923–March 8, 1935), known in Japanese as chūken Hachikō ("faithful dog Hachikō" ('hachi' meaning 'eight', a number referring to the position within the nest the dog came from, and 'kō' being a Japanese familiar or derogatory suffix)). Hachikō was an Akita dog born on a farm near the city of Odate, Akita Perfecture remembered for his loyalty to his owner, even many years after his owner's death.
In 1924, Hachikō was brought to Tokyo by his owner, Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at the University of Tokyo. During his owner's life Hachikō saw him out from the front door and greeted him at the end of the day at the nearby Shibuya Station. The pair continued their daily routine until May 1925, when Professor Ueno did not return on the usual train one evening. The professor had suffered a stroke at the university that day. He died and never returned to the train station where his friend was waiting.
Hachikō was given away after his master's death, but he routinely escaped, showing up again and again at his old home. Eventually, Hachikō apparently realized that Professor Ueno no longer lived at the house. So he went to look for his master at the train station where he had accompanied him so many times before. Each day, Hachikō waited for Professor Ueno to return. And each day he did not see his friend among the commuters at the station.
The permanent fixture at the train station that was Hachikō attracted the attention of other commuters. Many of the people who frequented the Shibuya train station had seen Hachikō and Professor Ueno together each day. They brought Hachikō treats and food to nourish him during his wait.
This continued for 10 years, with Hachikō appearing only in the evening time, precisely when the train was due at the station...
Jeannie Mae Millar (1974 - 2008)
On May 29, 2008, Jeannie Millar committed suicide in Los Angeles, California. During the last couple of years, Jeannie scaled back her acting career, married her third husband, and became a mother to Hannah - a cute baby with Downs Syndrome. Then two months later, Jeannie ended her life. Jeannie did not OD on drugs or prescription meds, but it wasn't accidental either. After autopsy, the Los Angeles Coroner classified her death as "Suicide by Hanging."
Jeannie grew up in a dysfunctional family, and she never knew her real mother, who died when Jeannie was an infant. She dropped out of Clark High School, and got caught up in the fast lane lifestyle of Las Vegas, Nevada, with all its vices. Throughout her life, there were times when Jeannie suffered from severe depression, suicidal thoughts, and substance abuse. In her youth, she had two broken marriages that lasted one month apiece. Yet, when Jeannie was happy, she radiated with friendliness to those around her.
Eventually, Jeannie headed to Los Angeles to pursue a career as an actress and model. Although Jeannie achieved some success and film credits, her career was stagnant in recent years. Occasionally, Jeannie booked Background roles, but she was flustered that producers offered her just sleazy parts in their films.
Initially, Jeannie used her physical beauty and sensuality to seek recognition, but she realized later that it typecast her, and limited future opportunities. Jeannie wasn't the first Hollywood actress to use her sexuality to promote herself, and then protest that she wanted to be considered a 'serious' actress! After her baby, post-partum psychosis may have combined with pre-existing personal issues to cause Jeannie to commit an irrational act. We speculate that Jeannie was stunned that her first child was born with a mental deficiency, too. Concurrently, Jeannie was troubled and upset by the recent death of Charles Millar, her father, with whom she maintained a tumultuous love-hate relationship during their lives. (Jeannie's dad was a Vietnam-era veteran, and Jeannie's mom was his Thailand girlfriend.)
On May 26th, 2008, she was admitted to Brotman Medical Center Psychiatric Ward in Culver City, California, on a three-day suicide watch. On May 29th, Jeannie was released, returned home, spent 3.5 hours there, kissed her baby, took the family car, and traveled to the Ramada Inn on Sepulveda Boulevard.
In Room 306, Jeannie wrote two suicide notes, and sent a text message to family and friends. "I'M DEAD!" were her blunt, final words. Then Jeannie hung herself from the bathroom door. When police were notified, they did a location fix on her cell phone, rushed to the hotel room, forced entry through a window, and cut her down. The Fire Department Paramedics declared her dead at the scene. Jonathan Pruett, her third husband of just ten months, chose to cremate her body, and he withdrew to Minnesota to live with his parents there.
Jeannie was a beautiful female with flawless Eurasian features. She dazzled men with her beauty, and sweet, friendly personality. Her friends are saddened, shocked, and puzzled by her behavior in the end.
Quoting Alan, a very close friend, "What was going through your precious heart and brain that was so awful that you had to commit suicide? AND, in such a horrible way?" We don't fully comprehend an answer to that question.
Massacre of the Russian Royals: Horrific last hours of a Dynasty
As the light faded, a train halted in the siding near the remote railway station of Lyubinskaya on the Trans-Siberian railway line. Gunned down: The Tsar and Tsaritsa with their five children who were executed by the Bolsheviks
Inside sat a family whose faces have been immortalised through history book pictures. Four pale girls, in white lace, their hair tied back with satin ribbons. A sickly little boy in a sailor suit.
This was the moment of truth for the Romanovs, the Russian Imperial Family deposed by the Soviet revolution. Now, they were making their final journey. The young and beautiful Grand Duchesses, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, sat beside their mother, the haughty Tsaritsa Alexandra, granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
The young Tsarevich Alexey lent on his father, the former Tsar Of All The Russias, Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov. The engine started, and the train took a decisive turn. The lingering hope inside Special Train No. 8 evaporated. The train was lumbering not towards a trial in Moscow or foreign exile, as they had believed, but to the bleak Urals. The Romanovs were being taken to Ekaterinburg, the historic hub of Russia's old penal system. There they would face a firing squad just 78 days later - and exactly 90 years ago this week.
To coincide with that anniversary, their last wretched days have been chronicled in an explosive new book. Using previously overlooked documents and witness accounts, it tells the story of the family's final moments in unprecedented detail.
So just how did these most aristocratic of aristocrats fall so decisively from glory?
A man of limited political vision and ability, Nicholas was an unlikely king. Even in stature, at 5ft 7in, he was lacking. Fatally, he turned a blind eye to social unrest. He left his deeply unpopular wife, Alexandra, in effective political control.
She was increasingly spellbound by Grigory Rasputin, the charismatic 'holy man' she believed could save her haemophiliac son Alexey from bleeding to death.Faced with escalating political turmoil, Nicholas believed he had no option but to abdicate 'for the good of Russia' in 1917.
He did so also because he believed it would guarantee the safety of his beloved family.
Again, in this he proved calamitously naive. The family were initially placed under house arrest and then transferred to a small rural town, Tobolsk, where they retained a substantial entourage of 39 courtiers and servants. They brought many of their Imperial Palace treasures with them, including leather-bound volumes of photographs and vintage wines from the court cellars. Eventually, the new revolutionary high command decreed that such privilege could not be allowed in the emerging communist state.
Instead, a house in Ekaterinburg was secretly prepared. It would be a far cry from the sumptuous winter and summer palaces, banqueting halls and glorious gardens the Imperial Family had previously enjoyed. Ominously, it would be referred to by a Bolshevik euphemism, dom osobogo znachenie - The House Of Special Purpose.
Stepping off the train in Ekaterinburg after a bone-rattling five-day journey, an exhausted Nicholas and his wife were received into the hands of local soviets, along with their doctor, maid, valet and footman. As their car drew up to The House Of Special Purpose, they looked their last on the outside world.
It was Passion Week, and the Easter bells of the Orthodox Church rang out across the city.
As the gates to his new prison slammed shut, the Tsar was curtly told: 'Citizen Nicholas Romanov, you may enter.'
From now on, there would be no more acknowledgement of Romanov status and titles, much to the Tsaritsa's disgust. Gradually, the Imperial Family settled in to their new lodgings, a private house which, though hardly a palace, was nonetheless regarded as one of the most modern in the city, as it possessed a flushing toilet. Hidden behind a high wooden fence, its windows blacked out, it was now a gloomy prison. The Romanovs were confined to a suite of five rooms.
Spirited and bored, the Romanov girls, aged between 17 and 22, ignored warnings not to peek out of an unsecured top-floor window, until a sentry fired a warning shot at Anastasia's head.
The young princesses' clothes were becoming increasingly threadbare - there were no more white dresses and pretty hats like they used to wear every summer at their palace in the Crimea, a seaside paradise where the air was thick with the scent of roses and honeysuckle.
Lively and vivacious, they still beguiled their guards, however, with one saying they could not have looked prettier 'even if they had been covered in gold and diamonds'. The family were allowed to keep their bed linen, bearing personalised monograms and the Imperial crest, as well as fine porcelain dinner plates bearing the name Nicholas II. Alexandra had also brought supplies of her favourite English eau de cologne by Brocard, as well as cold cream and lavender salts.
These were not the only potions on which the Tsaritsa was reliant. Plagued by migraines, heart palpitations, insomnia and sciatica, she was hopelessly addicted to a whole range of drugs.
She had long ago admitted to being 'saturated' with Veronal, a barbiturate. She also took morphine and cocaine for menstrual pain.
It has been speculated that the Tsar, too, was cushioned from reality by narcotics. It was said that his childlike indifference to losing the throne was the result of smoking a mixture of hashish and the psychoactive herb henbane, administered by a Tibetan doctor, recommended by Rasputin, to counter stress and insomnia. Life in The House Of Special Purpose was severely restrictive. They were not allowed visitors, nor to go outside except during a proscribed hour.
And they were to talk no language other than Russian 54 - the Tsaritsa liked to speak to her children in English. However, she refused point blank to obey an edict to ring a bell every time she went to use the bathroom. Daily life had become a matter of endurance. The family had one consuming obsession, however: Alexey's fragile health. Since April, the 13-year-old had been suffering from a recurring haemorrhage in his knee, causing him agonising pain.
Doctors had already cautioned that Alexey would not reach 16 because of his debilitating illness, but he seemed now at death's door. The family was exhausted by a relentless round of all-night sessions at his beside. Eventually, the splint was taken off his leg, and he could be carried out to the garden, but he would never walk again. By early July, the daily ritual of life at the House had taken on a numbing predictability. The family rose at eight in the morning, and breakfasted on tea and black bread.
The days were filled with endless games of cards, patience and the French game bezique, which was a family favourite, while Alexey played with his model ship and tin soldiers. The family dogs, Ortino, Joy and Jemmy, provided a much-needed diversion. During their hour in the small garden, the girls and their father would walk the 40 paces back and forth, eager to make the most of their exercise time. It was a sorry picture: the man who had once ruled 8.5 million square miles of empire, now master of a single room of his own and a small, scrappy garden.
The evenings were filled with a meagre supper, prayers and Bible readings, more games, and embroidery and sewing 55 - the women spent long, furtive hours concealing gemstones and pearls into the linings of their dresses, to fund the life in exile of which they dreamed.
On July 4, there was an abrupt change in the House. The authorities were concerned that a rescue attempt was being plotted by royalists, and the guards were changed.
There was another reason for this, and for the Tsar and Tsaritsa, it was a shocking one.
On June 27, Maria, the most flirtatious and attractive of the Grand Duchesses, had been discovered, during an inspection by commanders, in a compromising situation with guard Ivan Skorokhodov. He had smuggled in a cake for her 19th birthday, and their friendship had developed quickly in the boredom of the house.
Skorokhodov was sent to the city's prison, while Maria, an elegant young woman with light brown hair and mischievous blue eyes - was reprimanded by her family. Tragically, in their final weeks together, her eldest sister, Olga, and her mother froze her out, refusing to speak to her as punishment for disgracing them. Outside, civil war raged. The ranks of the White Army, which opposed the Bolsheviks, had been swelled by Czech deserters from the Austro-Hungarian army. They were rapidly gaining ground on Ekaterinburg. Food in the city was rationed, and typhus and cholera had taken grip. The mood grew increasingly ugly - 45 members of the local Orthodox diocese were murdered, their eyes gouged out, tongues and ears hacked off and their mangled bodies thrown in the river.
But inside the House Of Special Purpose, an air of unreality reigned. It was getting hotter and hotter, and the inhabitants of the building had now settled into a state of restless boredom.
The atmosphere was increasingly claustrophobic. The Tsar and Tsaritsa continued to write their diaries every evening, although there were no grand banquets, affairs of state, or court gossip to relate.
Only their joy when the frail Alexey had been well enough to take a bath. 'Very hot, went early to bed as awfully tired and heart ached more,' wrote Alexandra on Thursday, July 4, 1918.
A guard described the Tsar's 'melancholy' aspect, of outward calm and dignity, that crumpled when he though he was unobserved. He would watch his children play, his soft blue eyes full of tears. For her part, the Tsaritsa was a broken woman. Gone were her delicate features and lovely golden hair. The family had learnt to be stoical, but their awful fate loomed. In America, the Washington Post published rumours that they had already been executed.
In Britain, George V had withdrawn his earlier offer of asylum for the family, and three days' before the execution was blithely attending a cricket match at Lord's In fact, the Romanovs' fate at this point hung in the balance. Bolshevik leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was aware that their demise would anger the Kaiser, because of the Romanov's links with the German royal family.
But his advisers were telling him that Ekaterinburg could soon fall to the Czechs, and the Imperial Family could prove a rallying point against communism. The deeply religious Tsaritsa wrote to a friend that she and her family were: 'Readying ourselves in our thoughts for admission to the Kingdom of Heaven.'
At the House Of Special Purpose, the guard book recorded as it had for many days: 'Vse obychno' - ' Everything is the same'. But ominous preparations were in hand to ' liquidate' the Romanovs and to keep the matter a state secret.
A nearby mineshaft had been identified as a suitable burial place, and a doctor had been ordered to procure 400lb of sulphuric acid to destroy the bodies.
Tuesday, July 16 began uneventfully for the Romanovs, but their guards were putting into place the last plans for their execution, assembling an armoury of guns in order to carry out their task, and ordering 50 eggs from local nuns to help give them strength for the task ahead. On one occasion, a laundrywoman witnessed 17-year-old Ansastasia sticking out her tongue at the head of the hit squad, Yakov Yurovsky.
And while there is no indication that the children were aware of their impending fate, two of the guards got cold feet and said they would not shoot the girls. They were sent away. At 3pm, the family walked around the strip of unkempt garden for the last time.
After evening prayers, they went to bed. In the early hours of the following day, they were wakened and told that the White Army was approaching and might launch an artillery attack on the house. They were to go downstairs for their own safety. The Tsar got up immediately, the women put on their camisoles sewn full of jewels and pearls, as they had rehearsed for a rescue attempt or sudden flight.
Soon they emerged, 'all neat and tidy' as one guard observed. At 2.15am on July 17, they were led down to the basement. The Tsar was heard to turn and say to his daughters reassuringly: 'Well, we're going to get out of this place' - proof, some say, that he was a true martyr who was fully aware of the horror ahead.
Anastasia carried her sister Tatiana's little Pekinese, Jemmy, down the stairs. They were ushered into a storeroom, lit by a single naked bulb. The windows had been nailed shut. True to form, Alexandra complained that there were no chairs. Next, the family and their servants were lined up as for a last, sinister official photograph. Then they were left alone for half an hour, as their assassins downed shots of vodka.
Re-entering the room, a guard read out a statement sentencing the family to death. The faces before him registered blank incomprehension. The family crossed themselves, and a man walked towards the Tsar and shot him at point-blank range in the chest. Other guards fired, as his body crumpled to the floor. Half drunk, the guards shot clumsily, hitting the Tsaritsa in the left side of her skull.
Next to her, poor lame Alexey, too crippled to move, sat transfixed with terror, his ashen face splattered with his father's blood. The moans and whimpers from the floor testified to a botched job. But it was the children who suffered most.
None of the Romanov girls died a quick or painless death. Maria was felled by a bullet in the thigh, and lay bleeding until repeated stabbing in the torso snuffed out her life.
Her sisters were eventually finished off with an 8in bayonet, Olga having been shot in the jaw, and Tatiana in the back of the head as she tried to escape.
What should have been a quick, clean execution had turned into an orgy of killing, with only the thick clouds of gunpowder smoke obscuring the full horror of it.
Last of the women to die was Anastasia. A drunken guard lunged at her like an animal, attempting to pierce her chest with his bayonet.
Eventually, the head of the hit squad, Yakov Yurovsky, took his gun to her head.
Alexey alone was still alive, the young heir to the throne. He was wearing an undergarment sewn with jewels, which acted as a flak jacket. Yurovsky fired his Colt into the boy's head, and he slumped against his father.
It had taken a frenzied 20 minutes to kill the Romanovs and their servants. In the panicked moments that followed, Yurovsky's men staggered from the room, choking and coughing.
Shaking and disoriented, one of them vomited as he emerged into the cool night air.
Meanwhile, upstairs, in the House Of Special Purpose, Alexey's King Charles spaniel, Joy, barked, his ears pricked, waiting for his young master to return.
(Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1036404/Massacre-Russian-royals-Horrific-hours-dynasty.html#ixzz0iSBuvLdc )
Russian Royal Family Mystery 'Solved'
However, the theory was challenged recently when the remains of two people were discovered in a grave in Siberia.
They were found close to the remains of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Tsarina Alexandra and three of their four daughters, which were discovered in the 1990s.DNA tests by scientists from the US and Austria earlier this year suggested they were the missing family members, the fourth daughter Maria and the heir apparent Alexei.
Dr Peter Gill, from Strathclyde University's Centre for Forensic Science, said he had "close to definite proof" that the remains were those of the two children.
Dr Gill said his job had been to ensure correct protocol had been followed during the research, and that the findings from Austria and the US were "consistent with each other in every detail".
He said: "We now have close to definite proof that the entire family was executed by the Bolsheviks and no one escaped. "There is overwhelming evidence to support the contention that the remains found in the second grave are those of Alexei and one of the Romanov princesses."
The scientists were able to confirm the original remains to be found as those of the tsar and his family by using blood samples from living people.They include Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, who is a direct maternal descendant of the Tsarina.
Russian pathologists last year also investigated the remains and expressed confidence that they were those of the children. Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra were killed with several of their children and servants during the Bolshevik massacre.
In Moscow, ceremonies are being held to mark the 90th anniversary of the murder of the last tsar and his family. The family have been canonised as saints, and the remains identified as those of Nicholas II, his wife and three of their daughters were buried in 1998 in the former imperial capital of Saint Petersburg.
(source: http://itn.co.uk/67c38d856ad76811760b043d2b55d178.html)
Bhopal's Gas Tragedy
The Bhopal disaster was an industrial catastrophe that took place at a pesticide plant owned and operated by Union Carbide (UCIL) in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. Around midnight on December 3-4, 1984, the plant released methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas and other toxins, resulting in the exposure of over 500,000 people. Estimates vary on the death toll. The official immediate death toll was 2,259 and the government of Madhya Pradesh has confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release. Other government agencies estimate 15,000 deaths. Others estimate that 8,000 died within the first weeks and that another 8,000 have since died from gas-related diseases.
Some 25 years after the gas leak, 390 tonnes of toxic chemicals abandoned at the UCIL plant continue to leak and pollute the groundwater in the region and affect thousands of Bhopal residents who depend on it, though there is some dispute as to whether the chemicals still stored at the site pose any continuing health hazard.There are currently civil and criminal cases related to the disaster ongoing in the United States District Court, Manhattan and the District Court of Bhopal, India against Union Carbide, now owned by Dow Chemical Company, with an Indian arrest warrant pending against Warren Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide at the time of the disaster. No one has yet been prosecuted.
Summary of background and causes
The UCIL factory was established in 1969 near Bhopal. 50.9 % was owned by Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) and 49.1 % by various Indian investors, including public sector financial institutions. It produced the pesticide carbaryl (trademark Sevin). In 1979 a methyl isocyanate (MIC) production plant was added to the site. MIC, an intermediate in carbaryl manufacture, was used instead of less hazardous but more expensive materials. UCC understood the properties of MIC and its handling requirements.
During the night of December 2–3, 1984, large amounts of water entered tank 610, containing 42 tonnes of methyl isocyanate. The resulting exothermic reaction increased the temperature inside the tank to over 200 °C (392 °F), raising the pressure to a level the tank was not designed to withstand. This forced the emergency venting of pressure from the MIC holding tank, releasing a large volume of toxic gases into the atmosphere. The reaction sped up because of the presence of iron in corroding non-stainless steel pipelines. A mixture of poisonous gases flooded the city of Bhopal, causing great panic as people woke up with a burning sensation in their lungs. Thousands died immediately from the effects of the gas and many were trampled in the panic.
Theories of how the water entered the tank differ. At the time, workers were cleaning out pipes with water, and some claim that owing to bad maintenance and leaking valves, it was possible for the water to leak into tank 610. In December 1985 The New York Times reported that according to UCIL plant managers the hypothesis of this route of entry of water was tested in the presence of the Central Bureau Investigators and was found to be negative. UCC also maintains that this route was not possible, and that it was an act of sabotage by a "disgruntled worker" who introduced water directly into the tank. However, the company's investigation team found no evidence of the necessary connection.
The 1985 reports give a picture of what led to the disaster and how it developed, although they differ in details.
Factors leading to this huge gas leak include:
* The use of hazardous chemicals (MIC) instead of less dangerous ones
* Storing these chemicals in large tanks instead of over 200 steel drums.
* Possible corroding material in pipelines
* Poor maintenance after the plant ceased production in the early 1980s
* Failure of several safety systems (due to poor maintenance and regulations).
* Safety systems being switched off to save money - including the MIC tank refrigeration system which alone would have prevented the disaster.
Plant design modified by Indian engineers to abide by government regulations and economic pressures to reduce expenses contributed most to the actual leak[citation needed]. The problem was then made worse by the plant's location near a densely populated area, non-existent catastrophe plans and shortcomings in health care and socio-economic rehabilitation. Analysis shows that the parties responsible for the magnitude of the disaster are the two owners, Union Carbide Corporation and the Government of India, and to some extent, the Government of Madhya Pradesh.
Public information
Much speculation arose in the aftermath. The closing of the plant to outsiders (including UCC) by the Indian government, and the failure to make data public contributed to the confusion. The CSIR report[19] was formally released 15 years after the disaster. The authors of the ICMR studies[21] on health effects were forbidden to publish their data until after 1994. UCC has still not released their research about the disaster or the effects of the gas on human health. Soon after the disaster UCC was not allowed to take part in the investigation by the government. The initial investigation was conducted entirely by the government agencies - Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) under the directorship of Dr. Varadajan and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
UCC and the Government of India maintained until 1994, when the International Medical Commission on Bhopal met, that MIC had no longterm health effects.
Contributing factors
* The deficiencies in the Bhopal plant design can be summarised as: choosing a dangerous method of manufacturing pesticides; large-scale storage of MIC before processing; location close to a densely populated area; under-dimensioning of the safety features; dependence on manual operations.
* Deficiencies in the management of UCIL can be summarised: lack of skilled operators due to the staffing policy; reduction of safety management due to reducing the staff; insufficient maintenance of the plant; lack of emergency response plans.
Plant production process
Union Carbide produced the pesticide, Sevin (a trademarked brand name for carbaryl), using MIC as an intermediate. Until 1979, MIC was imported from the USA.[4] Other manufacturers, such as Bayer, made carbaryl without MIC, though at greater manufacturing costs.
The chemical process, or "route", used in the Bhopal plant reacted methylamine with phosgene to form MIC (methyl isocyanate), which was then reacted with 1-naphthol to form the final product, carbaryl. This route differed from MIC-free routes used elsewhere, in which the same raw materials are combined in a different manufacturing order, with phosgene first reacted with the naphthol to form a chloroformate ester, which is then reacted with methyl amine. In the early 1980s, the demand for pesticides had fallen though production continued, leading to buildup of stores of unused MIC.
Work conditions
Attempts to reduce expenses affected the factory's employees and their conditions.
* Kurzman argues that "cuts ... meant less stringent quality control and thus looser safety rules. A pipe leaked? Don't replace it, employees said they were told ... MIC workers needed more training? They could do with less. Promotions were halted, seriously affecting employee morale and driving some of the most skilled ... elsewhere".
* Workers were forced to use English manuals, even though only a few had a grasp of the language.
* By 1984, only six of the original twelve operators were still working with MIC and the number of supervisory personnel was also cut in half. No maintenance supervisor was placed on the night shift and instrument readings were taken every two hours, rather than the previous and required one-hour readings.
* Workers made complaints about the cuts through their union but were ignored. One employee was fired after going on a 15-day hunger strike. 70% of the plant's employees were fined before the disaster for refusing to deviate from the proper safety regulations under pressure from management.
* In addition, some observers, such as those writing in the Trade Environmental Database (TED) Case Studies as part of the Mandala Project from American University, have pointed to "serious communication problems and management gaps between Union Carbide and its Indian operation", characterised by "the parent companies [sic] hands-off approach to its overseas operation" and "cross-cultural barriers".
* The personnel management policy led to an exodus of skilled personnel to better and safer jobs.
Equipment and safety regulations
Union Carbide MIC plant
* It emerged in 1998, during civil action suits in India, that, unlike Union Carbide plants in the USA, its Indian subsidiary plants were not prepared for problems. No action plans had been established to cope with incidents of this magnitude. This included not informing local authorities of the quantities or dangers of chemicals used and manufactured at Bhopal.
* The MIC tank alarms had not worked for 4 years.
* There was only one manual back-up system, not the four-stage system used in the USA.
* The flare tower and the vent gas scrubber had been out of service for 5 months before the disaster. The gas scrubber therefore did not treat escaping gases with sodium hydroxide (caustic soda), which might have brought the concentration down to a safe level.Even if the scrubber had been working, according to Weir, investigations in the aftermath of the disaster discovered that the maximum pressure it could handle was only one-quarter of that which was present in the accident. Furthermore, the flare tower itself was improperly designed and could only hold one-quarter of the volume of gas that was leaked in 1984.
* To reduce energy costs, the refrigeration system, designed to inhibit the volatilization of MIC, had been left idle — the MIC was kept at 20 degrees Celsius (room temperature), not the 4.5 degrees advised by the manual, and some of the coolant was being used elsewhere.
* The steam boiler, intended to clean the pipes, was out of action for unknown reasons.
* Slip-blind plates that would have prevented water from pipes being cleaned from leaking into the MIC tanks through faulty valves were not installed. Their installation had been omitted from the cleaning checklist.
* Water sprays designed to “knock down” gas leaks were poorly designed — set to 13 metres and below, they could not spray high enough to reduce the concentration of escaping gas.
* The MIC tank had been malfunctioning for roughly a week. Other tanks had been used for that week, rather than repairing the broken one, which was left to “stew”. The build-up in temperature and pressure is believed to have affected the magnitude of the gas release.
* Carbon steel valves were used at the factory, even though they corrode when exposed to acid.On the night of the disaster, a leaking carbon steel valve was found, allowing water to enter the MIC tanks. The pipe was not repaired because it was believed it would take too much time and be too expensive.
* UCC admitted in their own investigation report that most of the safety systems were not functioning on the night of December 3, 1984.
* Themistocles D'Silva contends in the latest book - The Black Box of Bhopal - that the design of the MIC plant, following government guidelines, was "Indianized" by UCIL engineers to maximize the use of indigenous materials and products. It also dispensed with the use of sophisticated instrumentation as not appropriate for the Indian plant. Because of the unavailability of electronic parts in India, the Indian engineers preferred pneumatic instrumentation. It also discredits the unproven allegations in the CSIR Report.
Previous warnings and accidents
A series of prior warnings and MIC-related accidents had occurred:
* In 1976, the two trade unions reacted because of pollution within the plant.
* In 1981, a worker was splashed with phosgene. In panic he ripped off his mask, thus inhaling a large amount of phosgene gas; he died 72 hours later.
* In January 1982, there was a phosgene leak, when 24 workers were exposed and had to be admitted to hospital. None of the workers had been ordered to wear protective masks.
* In February 1982, an MIC leak affected 18 workers.
* In August 1982, a chemical engineer came into contact with liquid MIC, resulting in burns over 30 percent of his body.
* In October 1982, there was a leak of MIC, methylcarbaryl chloride, chloroform and hydrochloric acid. In attempting to stop the leak, the MIC supervisor suffered intensive chemical burns and two other workers were severely exposed to the gases.
* During 1983 and 1984, leaks of the following substances regularly took place in the MIC plant: MIC, chlorine, monomethylamine, phosgene, and carbon tetrachloride, sometimes in combination.
* Reports issued months before the incident by scientists within the Union Carbide corporation warned of the possibility of an accident almost identical to that which occurred in Bhopal. The reports were ignored and never reached senior staff.
* Union Carbide was warned by American experts who visited the plant after 1981 of the potential of a "runaway reaction" in the MIC storage tank; local Indian authorities warned the company of problems on several occasions from 1979 onwards. Again, these warnings were not heeded.
The leakage
* In November 1984, most of the safety systems were not functioning. Many valves and lines were in poor condition. Tank 610 contained 42 tonnes MIC, much more than safety rules allowed.
* During the nights of 2–3 December, a large amount of water entered tank 610. A runaway reaction started, which was accelerated by contaminants, high temperatures and other factors. The reaction generated a major increase in the temperature inside the tank to over 200°C (400°F). This forced the emergency venting of pressure from the MIC holding tank, releasing a large volume of toxic gases. The reaction was sped up by the presence of iron from corroding non-stainless steel pipelines.
* It is known that workers cleaned pipelines with water. They were not told by the supervisor to add a slip-blind water isolation plate. Because of this, and of the bad maintenance, the workers consider it possible for water to have accidentally entered the MIC tank.
* UCC maintains that a "disgruntled worker" deliberately connected a hose to a pressure gauge.
* UCC's investigation team found no evidence of the suggested connection.
Timeline, summary
At the plant
* 21.00 Water cleaning of pipes starts.
* 22.00 Water enters tank 610, reaction starts.
* 22.30 Gases are emitted from the vent gas scrubber tower.
* 00.30 The large siren sounds and is turned off.
* 00.50 The siren is heard within the plant area. The workers escape.
Outside
* 22.30 First sensations due to the gases are felt — suffocation, cough, burning eyes and vomiting.
* 1.00 Police are alerted. Residents of the area evacuate. Union Carbide director denies any leak.
* 2.00 The first people reached Hamidia hospital. Symptoms include visual impairment and blindness, respiratory difficulties, frothing at the mouth, and vomiting.
* 2.10 The alarm is heard outside the plant.
* 4.00 The gases are brought under control.
* 6.00 A police loudspeaker broadcasts: "Everything is normal".
The UCIL factory was established in 1969 near Bhopal. 50.9 % was owned by Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) and 49.1 % by various Indian investors, including public sector financial institutions. It produced the pesticide carbaryl (trademark Sevin). In 1979 a methyl isocyanate (MIC) production plant was added to the site. MIC, an intermediate in carbaryl manufacture, was used instead of less hazardous but more expensive materials. UCC understood the properties of MIC and its handling requirements.
During the night of December 2–3, 1984, large amounts of water entered tank 610, containing 42 tonnes of methyl isocyanate. The resulting exothermic reaction increased the temperature inside the tank to over 200 °C (392 °F), raising the pressure to a level the tank was not designed to withstand. This forced the emergency venting of pressure from the MIC holding tank, releasing a large volume of toxic gases into the atmosphere. The reaction sped up because of the presence of iron in corroding non-stainless steel pipelines. A mixture of poisonous gases flooded the city of Bhopal, causing great panic as people woke up with a burning sensation in their lungs. Thousands died immediately from the effects of the gas and many were trampled in the panic.
Theories of how the water entered the tank differ. At the time, workers were cleaning out pipes with water, and some claim that owing to bad maintenance and leaking valves, it was possible for the water to leak into tank 610. In December 1985 The New York Times reported that according to UCIL plant managers the hypothesis of this route of entry of water was tested in the presence of the Central Bureau Investigators and was found to be negative. UCC also maintains that this route was not possible, and that it was an act of sabotage by a "disgruntled worker" who introduced water directly into the tank. However, the company's investigation team found no evidence of the necessary connection.
The 1985 reports give a picture of what led to the disaster and how it developed, although they differ in details.
Factors leading to this huge gas leak include:
* The use of hazardous chemicals (MIC) instead of less dangerous ones
* Storing these chemicals in large tanks instead of over 200 steel drums.
* Possible corroding material in pipelines
* Poor maintenance after the plant ceased production in the early 1980s
* Failure of several safety systems (due to poor maintenance and regulations).
* Safety systems being switched off to save money - including the MIC tank refrigeration system which alone would have prevented the disaster.
Plant design modified by Indian engineers to abide by government regulations and economic pressures to reduce expenses contributed most to the actual leak[citation needed]. The problem was then made worse by the plant's location near a densely populated area, non-existent catastrophe plans and shortcomings in health care and socio-economic rehabilitation. Analysis shows that the parties responsible for the magnitude of the disaster are the two owners, Union Carbide Corporation and the Government of India, and to some extent, the Government of Madhya Pradesh.
Public information
Much speculation arose in the aftermath. The closing of the plant to outsiders (including UCC) by the Indian government, and the failure to make data public contributed to the confusion. The CSIR report[19] was formally released 15 years after the disaster. The authors of the ICMR studies[21] on health effects were forbidden to publish their data until after 1994. UCC has still not released their research about the disaster or the effects of the gas on human health. Soon after the disaster UCC was not allowed to take part in the investigation by the government. The initial investigation was conducted entirely by the government agencies - Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) under the directorship of Dr. Varadajan and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
UCC and the Government of India maintained until 1994, when the International Medical Commission on Bhopal met, that MIC had no longterm health effects.
Contributing factors
* The deficiencies in the Bhopal plant design can be summarised as: choosing a dangerous method of manufacturing pesticides; large-scale storage of MIC before processing; location close to a densely populated area; under-dimensioning of the safety features; dependence on manual operations.
* Deficiencies in the management of UCIL can be summarised: lack of skilled operators due to the staffing policy; reduction of safety management due to reducing the staff; insufficient maintenance of the plant; lack of emergency response plans.
Plant production process
Union Carbide produced the pesticide, Sevin (a trademarked brand name for carbaryl), using MIC as an intermediate. Until 1979, MIC was imported from the USA.[4] Other manufacturers, such as Bayer, made carbaryl without MIC, though at greater manufacturing costs.
The chemical process, or "route", used in the Bhopal plant reacted methylamine with phosgene to form MIC (methyl isocyanate), which was then reacted with 1-naphthol to form the final product, carbaryl. This route differed from MIC-free routes used elsewhere, in which the same raw materials are combined in a different manufacturing order, with phosgene first reacted with the naphthol to form a chloroformate ester, which is then reacted with methyl amine. In the early 1980s, the demand for pesticides had fallen though production continued, leading to buildup of stores of unused MIC.
Work conditions
Attempts to reduce expenses affected the factory's employees and their conditions.
* Kurzman argues that "cuts ... meant less stringent quality control and thus looser safety rules. A pipe leaked? Don't replace it, employees said they were told ... MIC workers needed more training? They could do with less. Promotions were halted, seriously affecting employee morale and driving some of the most skilled ... elsewhere".
* Workers were forced to use English manuals, even though only a few had a grasp of the language.
* By 1984, only six of the original twelve operators were still working with MIC and the number of supervisory personnel was also cut in half. No maintenance supervisor was placed on the night shift and instrument readings were taken every two hours, rather than the previous and required one-hour readings.
* Workers made complaints about the cuts through their union but were ignored. One employee was fired after going on a 15-day hunger strike. 70% of the plant's employees were fined before the disaster for refusing to deviate from the proper safety regulations under pressure from management.
* In addition, some observers, such as those writing in the Trade Environmental Database (TED) Case Studies as part of the Mandala Project from American University, have pointed to "serious communication problems and management gaps between Union Carbide and its Indian operation", characterised by "the parent companies [sic] hands-off approach to its overseas operation" and "cross-cultural barriers".
* The personnel management policy led to an exodus of skilled personnel to better and safer jobs.
Equipment and safety regulations
Union Carbide MIC plant
* It emerged in 1998, during civil action suits in India, that, unlike Union Carbide plants in the USA, its Indian subsidiary plants were not prepared for problems. No action plans had been established to cope with incidents of this magnitude. This included not informing local authorities of the quantities or dangers of chemicals used and manufactured at Bhopal.
* The MIC tank alarms had not worked for 4 years.
* There was only one manual back-up system, not the four-stage system used in the USA.
* The flare tower and the vent gas scrubber had been out of service for 5 months before the disaster. The gas scrubber therefore did not treat escaping gases with sodium hydroxide (caustic soda), which might have brought the concentration down to a safe level.Even if the scrubber had been working, according to Weir, investigations in the aftermath of the disaster discovered that the maximum pressure it could handle was only one-quarter of that which was present in the accident. Furthermore, the flare tower itself was improperly designed and could only hold one-quarter of the volume of gas that was leaked in 1984.
* To reduce energy costs, the refrigeration system, designed to inhibit the volatilization of MIC, had been left idle — the MIC was kept at 20 degrees Celsius (room temperature), not the 4.5 degrees advised by the manual, and some of the coolant was being used elsewhere.
* The steam boiler, intended to clean the pipes, was out of action for unknown reasons.
* Slip-blind plates that would have prevented water from pipes being cleaned from leaking into the MIC tanks through faulty valves were not installed. Their installation had been omitted from the cleaning checklist.
* Water sprays designed to “knock down” gas leaks were poorly designed — set to 13 metres and below, they could not spray high enough to reduce the concentration of escaping gas.
* The MIC tank had been malfunctioning for roughly a week. Other tanks had been used for that week, rather than repairing the broken one, which was left to “stew”. The build-up in temperature and pressure is believed to have affected the magnitude of the gas release.
* Carbon steel valves were used at the factory, even though they corrode when exposed to acid.On the night of the disaster, a leaking carbon steel valve was found, allowing water to enter the MIC tanks. The pipe was not repaired because it was believed it would take too much time and be too expensive.
* UCC admitted in their own investigation report that most of the safety systems were not functioning on the night of December 3, 1984.
* Themistocles D'Silva contends in the latest book - The Black Box of Bhopal - that the design of the MIC plant, following government guidelines, was "Indianized" by UCIL engineers to maximize the use of indigenous materials and products. It also dispensed with the use of sophisticated instrumentation as not appropriate for the Indian plant. Because of the unavailability of electronic parts in India, the Indian engineers preferred pneumatic instrumentation. It also discredits the unproven allegations in the CSIR Report.
Previous warnings and accidents
A series of prior warnings and MIC-related accidents had occurred:
* In 1976, the two trade unions reacted because of pollution within the plant.
* In 1981, a worker was splashed with phosgene. In panic he ripped off his mask, thus inhaling a large amount of phosgene gas; he died 72 hours later.
* In January 1982, there was a phosgene leak, when 24 workers were exposed and had to be admitted to hospital. None of the workers had been ordered to wear protective masks.
* In February 1982, an MIC leak affected 18 workers.
* In August 1982, a chemical engineer came into contact with liquid MIC, resulting in burns over 30 percent of his body.
* In October 1982, there was a leak of MIC, methylcarbaryl chloride, chloroform and hydrochloric acid. In attempting to stop the leak, the MIC supervisor suffered intensive chemical burns and two other workers were severely exposed to the gases.
* During 1983 and 1984, leaks of the following substances regularly took place in the MIC plant: MIC, chlorine, monomethylamine, phosgene, and carbon tetrachloride, sometimes in combination.
* Reports issued months before the incident by scientists within the Union Carbide corporation warned of the possibility of an accident almost identical to that which occurred in Bhopal. The reports were ignored and never reached senior staff.
* Union Carbide was warned by American experts who visited the plant after 1981 of the potential of a "runaway reaction" in the MIC storage tank; local Indian authorities warned the company of problems on several occasions from 1979 onwards. Again, these warnings were not heeded.
The leakage
* In November 1984, most of the safety systems were not functioning. Many valves and lines were in poor condition. Tank 610 contained 42 tonnes MIC, much more than safety rules allowed.
* During the nights of 2–3 December, a large amount of water entered tank 610. A runaway reaction started, which was accelerated by contaminants, high temperatures and other factors. The reaction generated a major increase in the temperature inside the tank to over 200°C (400°F). This forced the emergency venting of pressure from the MIC holding tank, releasing a large volume of toxic gases. The reaction was sped up by the presence of iron from corroding non-stainless steel pipelines.
* It is known that workers cleaned pipelines with water. They were not told by the supervisor to add a slip-blind water isolation plate. Because of this, and of the bad maintenance, the workers consider it possible for water to have accidentally entered the MIC tank.
* UCC maintains that a "disgruntled worker" deliberately connected a hose to a pressure gauge.
* UCC's investigation team found no evidence of the suggested connection.
Timeline, summary
At the plant
* 21.00 Water cleaning of pipes starts.
* 22.00 Water enters tank 610, reaction starts.
* 22.30 Gases are emitted from the vent gas scrubber tower.
* 00.30 The large siren sounds and is turned off.
* 00.50 The siren is heard within the plant area. The workers escape.
Outside
* 22.30 First sensations due to the gases are felt — suffocation, cough, burning eyes and vomiting.
* 1.00 Police are alerted. Residents of the area evacuate. Union Carbide director denies any leak.
* 2.00 The first people reached Hamidia hospital. Symptoms include visual impairment and blindness, respiratory difficulties, frothing at the mouth, and vomiting.
* 2.10 The alarm is heard outside the plant.
* 4.00 The gases are brought under control.
* 6.00 A police loudspeaker broadcasts: "Everything is normal".
Mass Human Sacrifice at Punta Lobos, Peru
Huarmey has been a place for fishing from ancient times to the present day, indeed, the name itself means fisherman in the ancient language Muchic (Guaxme). It was during an investigation into what was apparently a pre-Hispanic cemetery at Punta Lobos, near the installations operated by Compañía Minera Antamina at the port of Huarmey, that we were astonished to find that the cemetery for young fishermen was in fact the site of a large-scale human sacrifice. 
Towards the end of the 14th Century the armies of the Chimu emperor Minchaaman were engaged in an aggressive military campaign to increase the already extensive lands under their rule. In this campaign the Huarmey valley was encircled, conquered and finally annexed to the Chimu imperial state. Later, in an impressive religious ceremony, a fishing village was selected and offered in sacrifice to the god Ni, lord of the sea and the principal deity of the conquerors, to thank him for the military victory. The scene chosen for this ceremony was Punta Lobos.
The bodies of the sacrificed men were watched to make sure carrion-eating animals did not go near them, while the sea and sand slowly covered them. While this was happening, at the other end of the beach the survivors of the sacrifice, the women, the children and the old, offered a number of ceramic vessels containing food and drink, as well as fishing tackle such as nets, cord and weights, so that the dead fishermen could continue with their work in the afterlife.
Five centuries later, bodies mutilated by grave robbers gave no indication that the small cemetery at Punta Lobos had such a fascinating and terrible history. The Chimu, inheritors of the ancient religious traditions of the Moche, also included massive human sacrifices in their ceremonies as their ancestors had done centuries before them. But, just as the Chimu surpassed their ancestors in jewelry, textiles and other arts, so they did in the magnitude of their religious ceremonies. Never before has a ritual of this size been discovered.
The bodies of 107 fishermen remained intact despite an unsuccessful search for artifacts by grave robbers or huaqueros; more than 20 were mutilated by the Chimu themselves and around 70 were destroyed by the huaqueros.
A detailed analysis of the bodies confirms the first impression that most of the victims show marks of the knives by which they were put to death. Bound and blindfolded, the fought against inevitable death until, choking on their own blood they fell face down onto the sand.Later research has shown that most of the sacrificed fishermen were all men, young or adult and healthy for that period, highly skilled in fishing and diving, like the fishermen of today who live by the beaches of Huarmey.
The End of the Universe
(Main Theories on How the Cosmos Will Cease to Exist )
The beginning of the Universe is still not completely understood, although as it is explained in Origins of the Universe there are many theories. The same holds true for the end of the Universe. No one knows how it will end but scientists have deduced a few theories that could shed some insight as to what the future will bring to the Cosmos.
There are many theories for the end of the Universe. Some of these theories actually don't foresee an end at all, but claim that everything is infinite, or even that it keeps repeating. Taking them from the best scientists and cosmologists the following are the main theories for the future of the Universe explained.
The Big Freeze Theory
This theory suggests that if the Universe is either flat or hyperbolic (as in the shape of a saddle) then it fits into the Big Freeze scenario. The shape of the Universe is determined by the density it contains.
As explained in NASA's Universe 101 website, depending on the ratio of the Universe's density to the critical density the geometry of the Universe can be spherical, flat or hyperbolic (shaped like a saddle). A flat or saddled shaped Universe would give way to the Big Freeze end of the Universe. This ending suggests that the Universe will expand forever ultimately making everything too cold to sustain life.
The Big Rip Theory
The Big Rip theory follows the rules of general relativity. It claims that the Universe will continually expand at an accelerated pace until it leads to everything getting ripped and torn apart. "The expansion becomes so fast that it literally rips apart all bound objects," explains Robert Caldwell from Dartmouth University, the lead author of the theory.
This theory puts 'phantom or dark energy', and unknown force, as the the culprit for the expansion and ultimately the 'big rip' of all galaxies, stars, planets, any matter that exists in the universe.
The Big Crunch Theory
This theory is also known as the Cyclic Universe Theory, which is an end of the Universe theory as well as an origins of the Universe theory. Developed by Princeton University's Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok of Cambridge, it describes how the Universe goes into a series of 'big bangs' and then 'big crunches' over and over again.
As explained in their May 24, 2002 paper "A Cyclic Model of the Universe" in the journal Science, Steinhardt and Turok say this results in the Universe creating and destroying itself indefinitely in a never-ending cycle. This theory model also lends itself well to the concept of the Universe's accelerating expansion due to dark energy.
Multiverse Theory
This theory does not predict an end, but suggests that there are many other universes out there that exist as bubbles along this Universe. Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku explains how this could be possible due to the notion that energy expands faster than the bubble that is the Universe can sustain, thus creating many other Universe bubbles.
There are many different directions that the Multiverse Theory also can go other than the bubble idea, such as Parallel Universes. In this model, linked to the String Theory, it is believed that parallel universes would exist simultaneously to the Universe as it is today, but invisibly residing in higher or lower dimensions that cannot be seen by the human eye.
Of course, this parallel universe is highly conceptualized and there are still many things to be learned by scientists to be able to validate it, but science has proven that they are quite possible. As for the end of the Universe theories, they are being debated and researched and cosmologists will someday be much closer to the realization of how the end will come, if at all.
(source: http://astrophysics.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_end_of_the_universe)
A Service of Love - O' Henry
A Service of Love - O' Henry
When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard.
That is our premise. This story shall draw a conclusion from it, and show at the same time that the premise is incorrect. That will be a new thing in logic, and a feat in story-telling somewhat older than the great wall of China.
Joe Larrabee came out of the post-oak flats of the Middle West pulsing with a genius for pictorial art. At six he drew a picture of the town pump with a prominent citizen passing it hastily. This effort was framed and hung in the drug store window by the side of the ear of corn with an uneven number of rows. At twenty he left for New York with a flowing necktie and a capital tied up somewhat closer.
Delia Caruthers did things in six octaves so promisingly in a pine- tree village in the South that her relatives chipped in enough in her chip hat for her to go "North" and "finish." They could not see her f--, but that is our story.
Joe and Delia met in an atelier where a number of art and music students had gathered to discuss chiaroscuro, Wagner, music, Rembrandt's works, pictures, Waldteufel, wall paper, Chopin and Oolong.
Joe and Delia became enamoured one of the other, or each of the other, as you please, and in a short time were married--for (see above), when one loves one's Art no service seems too hard.
Mr. and Mrs. Larrabee began housekeeping in a flat. It was a lonesome flat--something like the A sharp way down at the left-hand end of the keyboard. And they were happy; for they had their Art, and they had each other. And my advice to the rich young man would be--sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor--janitor for the privilege of living in a flat with your Art and your Delia.
Flat-dwellers shall indorse my dictum that theirs is the only true happiness. If a home is happy it cannot fit too close--let the dresser collapse and become a billiard table; let the mantel turn to a rowing machine, the escritoire to a spare bedchamber, the washstand to an upright piano; let the four walls come together, if they will, so you and your Delia are between. But if home be the other kind, let it be wide and long--enter you at the Golden Gate, hang your hat on Hatteras, your cape on Cape Horn and go out by the Labrador.
Joe was painting in the class of the great Magister--you know his fame. His fees are high; his lessons are light--his high-lights have brought him renown. Delia was studying under Rosenstock--you know his repute as a disturber of the piano keys.
They were mighty happy as long as their money lasted. So is every-- but I will not be cynical. Their aims were very clear and defined. Joe was to become capable very soon of turning out pictures that old gentlemen with thin side-whiskers and thick pocketbooks would sandbag one another in his studio for the privilege of buying. Delia was to become familiar and then contemptuous with Music, so that when she saw the orchestra seats and boxes unsold she could have sore throat and lobster in a private dining-room and refuse to go on the stage.
But the best, in my opinion, was the home life in the little flat-- the ardent, voluble chats after the day's study; the cozy dinners and fresh, light breakfasts; the interchange of ambitions--ambitions interwoven each with the other's or else inconsiderable--the mutual help and inspiration; and--overlook my artlessness--stuffed olives and cheese sandwiches at 11 p.m.
But after a while Art flagged. It sometimes does, even if some switchman doesn't flag it. Everything going out and nothing coming in, as the vulgarians say. Money was lacking to pay Mr. Magister and Herr Rosenstock their prices. When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard. So, Delia said she must give music lessons to keep the chafing dish bubbling.
For two or three days she went out canvassing for pupils. One evening she came home elated.
"Joe, dear," she said, gleefully, "I've a pupil. And, oh, the loveliest people! General--General A. B. Pinkney's daughter--on Seventy-first street. Such a splendid house, Joe--you ought to see the front door! Byzantine I think you would call it. And inside! Oh, Joe, I never saw anything like it before.
"My pupil is his daughter Clementina. I dearly love her already. She's a delicate thing-dresses always in white; and the sweetest, simplest manners! Only eighteen years old. I'm to give three lessons a week; and, just think, Joe! $5 a lesson. I don't mind it a bit; for when I get two or three more pupils I can resume my lessons with Herr Rosenstock. Now, smooth out that wrinkle between your brows, dear, and let's have a nice supper."
"That's all right for you, Dele," said Joe, attacking a can of peas with a carving knife and a hatchet, "but how about me? Do you think I'm going to let you hustle for wages while I philander in the regions of high art? Not by the bones of Benvenuto Cellini! I guess I can sell papers or lay cobblestones, and bring in a dollar or two."
Delia came and hung about his neck.
"Joe, dear, you are silly. You must keep on at your studies. It is not as if I had quit my music and gone to work at something else. While I teach I learn. I am always with my music. And we can live as happily as millionaires on $15 a week. You mustn't think of leaving Mr. Magister."
"All right," said Joe, reaching for the blue scalloped vegetable dish. "But I hate for you to be giving lessons. It isn't Art. But you're a trump and a dear to do it."
"When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard," said Delia.
"Magister praised the sky in that sketch I made in the park," said Joe. "And Tinkle gave me permission to hang two of them in his window. I may sell one if the right kind of a moneyed idiot sees them."
"I'm sure you will," said Delia, sweetly. "And now let's be thankful for Gen. Pinkney and this veal roast."
During all of the next week the Larrabees had an early breakfast. Joe was enthusiastic about some morning-effect sketches he was doing in Central Park, and Delia packed him off breakfasted, coddled, praised and kissed at 7 o'clock. Art is an engaging mistress. It was most times 7 o'clock when he returned in the evening.
At the end of the week Delia, sweetly proud but languid, triumphantly tossed three five-dollar bills on the 8x10 (inches) centre table of the 8x10 (feet) flat parlour.
Sometimes," she said, a little wearily, "Clementina tries me. I'm afraid she doesn't practise enough, and I have to tell her the same things so often. And then she always dresses entirely in white, and that does get monotonous. But Gen. Pinkney is the dearest old man! I wish you could know him, Joe. He comes in sometimes when I am with Clementina at the piano--he is a widower, you know--and stands there pulling his white goatee. 'And how are the semiquavers and the demisemiquavers progressing?' he always asks.
"I wish you could see the wainscoting in that drawing-room, Joe! And those Astrakhan rug portieres. And Clementina has such a funny little cough. I hope she is stronger than she looks. Oh, I really am getting attached to her, she is so gentle and high bred. Gen. Pinkney's brother was once Minister to Bolivia."
And then Joe, with the air of a Monte Cristo, drew forth a ten, a five, a two and a one--all legal tender notes--and laid them besideDelia's earnings.
That is our premise. This story shall draw a conclusion from it, and show at the same time that the premise is incorrect. That will be a new thing in logic, and a feat in story-telling somewhat older than the great wall of China.
Joe Larrabee came out of the post-oak flats of the Middle West pulsing with a genius for pictorial art. At six he drew a picture of the town pump with a prominent citizen passing it hastily. This effort was framed and hung in the drug store window by the side of the ear of corn with an uneven number of rows. At twenty he left for New York with a flowing necktie and a capital tied up somewhat closer.
Delia Caruthers did things in six octaves so promisingly in a pine- tree village in the South that her relatives chipped in enough in her chip hat for her to go "North" and "finish." They could not see her f--, but that is our story.
Joe and Delia met in an atelier where a number of art and music students had gathered to discuss chiaroscuro, Wagner, music, Rembrandt's works, pictures, Waldteufel, wall paper, Chopin and Oolong.
Joe and Delia became enamoured one of the other, or each of the other, as you please, and in a short time were married--for (see above), when one loves one's Art no service seems too hard.
Mr. and Mrs. Larrabee began housekeeping in a flat. It was a lonesome flat--something like the A sharp way down at the left-hand end of the keyboard. And they were happy; for they had their Art, and they had each other. And my advice to the rich young man would be--sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor--janitor for the privilege of living in a flat with your Art and your Delia.
Flat-dwellers shall indorse my dictum that theirs is the only true happiness. If a home is happy it cannot fit too close--let the dresser collapse and become a billiard table; let the mantel turn to a rowing machine, the escritoire to a spare bedchamber, the washstand to an upright piano; let the four walls come together, if they will, so you and your Delia are between. But if home be the other kind, let it be wide and long--enter you at the Golden Gate, hang your hat on Hatteras, your cape on Cape Horn and go out by the Labrador.
Joe was painting in the class of the great Magister--you know his fame. His fees are high; his lessons are light--his high-lights have brought him renown. Delia was studying under Rosenstock--you know his repute as a disturber of the piano keys.
They were mighty happy as long as their money lasted. So is every-- but I will not be cynical. Their aims were very clear and defined. Joe was to become capable very soon of turning out pictures that old gentlemen with thin side-whiskers and thick pocketbooks would sandbag one another in his studio for the privilege of buying. Delia was to become familiar and then contemptuous with Music, so that when she saw the orchestra seats and boxes unsold she could have sore throat and lobster in a private dining-room and refuse to go on the stage.
But the best, in my opinion, was the home life in the little flat-- the ardent, voluble chats after the day's study; the cozy dinners and fresh, light breakfasts; the interchange of ambitions--ambitions interwoven each with the other's or else inconsiderable--the mutual help and inspiration; and--overlook my artlessness--stuffed olives and cheese sandwiches at 11 p.m.
But after a while Art flagged. It sometimes does, even if some switchman doesn't flag it. Everything going out and nothing coming in, as the vulgarians say. Money was lacking to pay Mr. Magister and Herr Rosenstock their prices. When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard. So, Delia said she must give music lessons to keep the chafing dish bubbling.
For two or three days she went out canvassing for pupils. One evening she came home elated.
"Joe, dear," she said, gleefully, "I've a pupil. And, oh, the loveliest people! General--General A. B. Pinkney's daughter--on Seventy-first street. Such a splendid house, Joe--you ought to see the front door! Byzantine I think you would call it. And inside! Oh, Joe, I never saw anything like it before.
"My pupil is his daughter Clementina. I dearly love her already. She's a delicate thing-dresses always in white; and the sweetest, simplest manners! Only eighteen years old. I'm to give three lessons a week; and, just think, Joe! $5 a lesson. I don't mind it a bit; for when I get two or three more pupils I can resume my lessons with Herr Rosenstock. Now, smooth out that wrinkle between your brows, dear, and let's have a nice supper."
"That's all right for you, Dele," said Joe, attacking a can of peas with a carving knife and a hatchet, "but how about me? Do you think I'm going to let you hustle for wages while I philander in the regions of high art? Not by the bones of Benvenuto Cellini! I guess I can sell papers or lay cobblestones, and bring in a dollar or two."
Delia came and hung about his neck.
"Joe, dear, you are silly. You must keep on at your studies. It is not as if I had quit my music and gone to work at something else. While I teach I learn. I am always with my music. And we can live as happily as millionaires on $15 a week. You mustn't think of leaving Mr. Magister."
"All right," said Joe, reaching for the blue scalloped vegetable dish. "But I hate for you to be giving lessons. It isn't Art. But you're a trump and a dear to do it."
"When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard," said Delia.
"Magister praised the sky in that sketch I made in the park," said Joe. "And Tinkle gave me permission to hang two of them in his window. I may sell one if the right kind of a moneyed idiot sees them."
"I'm sure you will," said Delia, sweetly. "And now let's be thankful for Gen. Pinkney and this veal roast."
During all of the next week the Larrabees had an early breakfast. Joe was enthusiastic about some morning-effect sketches he was doing in Central Park, and Delia packed him off breakfasted, coddled, praised and kissed at 7 o'clock. Art is an engaging mistress. It was most times 7 o'clock when he returned in the evening.
At the end of the week Delia, sweetly proud but languid, triumphantly tossed three five-dollar bills on the 8x10 (inches) centre table of the 8x10 (feet) flat parlour.
Sometimes," she said, a little wearily, "Clementina tries me. I'm afraid she doesn't practise enough, and I have to tell her the same things so often. And then she always dresses entirely in white, and that does get monotonous. But Gen. Pinkney is the dearest old man! I wish you could know him, Joe. He comes in sometimes when I am with Clementina at the piano--he is a widower, you know--and stands there pulling his white goatee. 'And how are the semiquavers and the demisemiquavers progressing?' he always asks.
"I wish you could see the wainscoting in that drawing-room, Joe! And those Astrakhan rug portieres. And Clementina has such a funny little cough. I hope she is stronger than she looks. Oh, I really am getting attached to her, she is so gentle and high bred. Gen. Pinkney's brother was once Minister to Bolivia."
And then Joe, with the air of a Monte Cristo, drew forth a ten, a five, a two and a one--all legal tender notes--and laid them besideDelia's earnings.
"Sold that watercolour of the obelisk to a man from Peoria," he announced overwhelmingly.
"Don't joke with me," said Delia, "not from Peoria!"
"All the way. I wish you could see him, Dele. Fat man with a woollen muffler and a quill toothpick. He saw the sketch in Tinkle's window and thought it was a windmill at first, he was game, though, and bought it anyhow. He ordered another--an oil sketch of the Lackawanna freight depot--to take back with him. Music lessons! Oh, I guess Art is still in it."
"I'm so glad you've kept on," said Delia, heartily. "You're bound to win, dear. Thirty-three dollars! We never had so much to spend before. We'll have oysters to-night."
"And filet mignon with champignons," said Joe. "Were is the olive fork?"
On the next Saturday evening Joe reached home first. He spread his $18 on the parlour table and washed what seemed to be a great deal of dark paint from his hands. Half an hour later Delia arrived, her right hand tied up in a shapeless bundle of wraps and bandages.
"How is this?" asked Joe after the usual greetings. Delia laughed, but not very joyously.
Clementina," she explained, "insisted upon a Welsh rabbit after her lesson. She is such a queer girl. Welsh rabbits at 5 in the afternoon. The General was there. You should have seen him run for the chafing dish, Joe, just as if there wasn't a servant in thehouse. I know Clementina isn't in good health; she is so nervous. In serving the rabbit she spilled a great lot of it, boiling hot, over my hand and wrist. It hurt awfully, Joe. And the dear girl was so sorry! But Gen. Pinkney!--Joe, that old man nearly went distracted. He rushed downstairs and sent somebody--they said the furnace man or somebody in the basement--out to a drug store for some oil and things to bind it up with. It doesn't hurt so much now."
"What's this?" asked Joe, taking the hand tenderly and pulling at some white strands beneath the bandages.
"It's something soft," said Delia, "that had oil on it. Oh, Joe, did you sell another sketch?" She had seen the money on the table. "Did I?" said Joe; "just ask the man from Peoria. He got his depot to-day, and he isn't sure but he thinks he wants another parkscape and a view on the Hudson. What time this afternoon did you burn your hand, Dele?"
"Five o'clock, I think," said Dele, plaintively. "The iron--I mean the rabbit came off the fire about that time. You ought to have seen Gen. Pinkney, Joe, when--"
"Sit down here a moment, Dele," said Joe. He drew her to the couch, sat beside her and put his arm across her shoulders.
"What have you been doing for the last two weeks, Dele?" he asked.
She braved it for a moment or two with an eye full of love and stubbornness, and murmured a phrase or two vaguely of Gen. Pinkney; but at length down went her head and out came the truth and tears.
"I couldn't get any pupils," she confessed. "And I couldn't bear to have you give up your lessons; and I got a place ironing shirts in that big Twentyfourth street laundry. And I think I did very well to make up both General Pinkney and Clementina, don't you, Joe? And when a girl in the laundry set down a hot iron on my hand this afternoon I was all the way home making up that story about the Welsh rabbit. You're not angry, are you, Joe? And if I hadn't got the work you mightn't have sold your sketches to that man from Peoria.
"He wasn't from Peoria," said Joe, slowly.
"Well, it doesn't matter where he was from. How clever you are, Joe --and--kiss me, Joe--and what made you ever suspect that I wasn't giving music lessons to Clementina?"
"I didn't," said Joe, "until to-night. And I wouldn't have then, only I sent up this cotton waste and oil from the engine-room this afternoon for a girl upstairs who had her hand burned with a smoothing-iron. I've been firing the engine in that laundry for the last two weeks."
"And then you didn't--"
"My purchaser from Peoria," said Joe, "and Gen. Pinkney are both creations of the same art--but you wouldn't call it either painting or music.
And then they both laughed, and Joe began:
"When one loves one's Art no service seems--"
But Delia stopped him with her hand on his lips. "No," she said-- "just 'When one loves.'"
"I couldn't get any pupils," she confessed. "And I couldn't bear to have you give up your lessons; and I got a place ironing shirts in that big Twentyfourth street laundry. And I think I did very well to make up both General Pinkney and Clementina, don't you, Joe? And when a girl in the laundry set down a hot iron on my hand this afternoon I was all the way home making up that story about the Welsh rabbit. You're not angry, are you, Joe? And if I hadn't got the work you mightn't have sold your sketches to that man from Peoria.
"He wasn't from Peoria," said Joe, slowly.
"Well, it doesn't matter where he was from. How clever you are, Joe --and--kiss me, Joe--and what made you ever suspect that I wasn't giving music lessons to Clementina?"
"I didn't," said Joe, "until to-night. And I wouldn't have then, only I sent up this cotton waste and oil from the engine-room this afternoon for a girl upstairs who had her hand burned with a smoothing-iron. I've been firing the engine in that laundry for the last two weeks."
"And then you didn't--"
"My purchaser from Peoria," said Joe, "and Gen. Pinkney are both creations of the same art--but you wouldn't call it either painting or music.
And then they both laughed, and Joe began:
"When one loves one's Art no service seems--"
But Delia stopped him with her hand on his lips. "No," she said-- "just 'When one loves.'"
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