TOLSTOY IN A SLAUGHTER-HOUSE

The other day I visited the slaughter-house in our city

of Tula. The slaughter-house is built according to a new,

perfected method, as it is built in large cities, so that the

animals killed shall suffer as little as possible. This was

on a Friday, two days before Pentecost. There were there

a large number of cattle.

Before that, a long time before, when reading the beautiful

book, Ethics of Diet, I had made up my mind to

visit the slaughter-house, in order with my own eyes to

see the facts of the case, which are mentioned whenever

vegetarianism is mentioned. But I felt uneasy, as one

always feels uneasy when going to see sufferings which

are sure to be there, but which one cannot prevent, and

so I kept putting it off.

But lately I met on the road a butcher, who had been

home and now was going back to Tula. He is not yet an

experienced butcher, and his duty consists in stabbing

with a dagger. I asked him whether he did not feel sorry

that he had to kill the animals. And as the answer

always is, so he answered, " Why be sorry ? This has to

be done." But when I told him that eating meat was not

necessary, he agreed with me, and then he also agreed

with me that it was a pity to kill. " What is to be done ?

I have to make a hving," he said. " At first I was afraid

to kill. My father never killed a cliicken in all his life."

The majority of Russians cannot kill ; they feel pity,

which they express by the word " afraid." He, too, had

been afraid, but had stopped. He explained to me that

the busiest day is Friday, when the work lasts until

evening.

Lately, too, I had a talk with a soldier, a butcher, and

he, too, was surprised in the same way at my assertion

that it is a pity to kill ; and, as always, he said that this

was the law ; but later he agreed with me, " Especially

when it is a tame, kind animal. The dear animal comes

up to you, believing you. It is truly a pity !"

One day we returned from Moscow on foot, and some

drivers of drays, going from Serpukhov to a forest to get

a merchant's timber, gave us a lift. It was Maundy

Thursday. I was riding in the first telega with a strong,

red-faced, coarse driver, who was apparently very drunk.

As we entered a village, we saw that from the last yard

they were pulling a fattened, shorn, pink-coloured pig, to

get it killed. The pig squealed in a desperate voice,

which resembled that of a man. Just as we passed by,

they began to kill the pig. One of the men drew the

knife down its throat. It squealed louder and more penetratingly

than before, tore itself loose, and ran away,

shedding its blood. I am near-sighted and so did not see

all the details ; all I saw was the pink-coloured flesh of

the pig, which resembled that of a man, and I heard the

desperate squeal ; but the driver saw all the details, and

he looked in that direction without taking his eyes off.

The pig was caught and thrown down, and they began to

finish the lolling. When its squeal died down, the driver

drew a deep sigh.

" Is it possible men will not have to answer for this ?" he muttered.

So strong is people's disgust at any kind of a murder;

but by example, by encouraging men's greed, by the assertion

that this is permitted by God, and chiefly by habit,

people have been brought to a complete loss of this

natural feeling.

On Friday I went to Tula, and, upon meeting an acquaintance

of mine, a meek, kindly man, I invited him

to go with me.

" Yes, I have heard that it is well arranged, and I

should like to see it, but if they slaughter there, I sha'n't

go in."

 " Why not ? It is precisely what I want to see. If

meat is to be eaten, cattle have to be killed."

" No, no, I cannot."

What is remarkable in this case is, that this man is a

hunter and himself kills birds and animals.

We arrived. Even before entering we could smell the

oppressive, detestable, rotten odour of joiner's glue or of

glue paint. The farther we went, the stronger was this

odour. It is a very large, red brick building, with vaults

and high chimneys. We entered through the gate. On

the right was a large fenced yard, about a quarter of a

desyatina in size, —this is the cattle-yard, to which the

cattle for sale are driven two days in the week,— and at

the edge of this space is the janitor's little house ; on the

left were what they call the chambers, that is, rooms

with round gates, concave asphalt floors, and appliances

for hanging up and handhng the carcasses. By the wall

of the little house, and to the right of it, sat six butchers

in aprons, which were covered with blood, with bloodbespattered

sleeves rolled up over muscular arms. They

liad finished their work about half an hour ago, so that on

that day we could see only the empty chambers. In spite

of the gates being opened on two sides, there was in each

chamber an oppressive odour of warm blood ; the floor

was cinnamon-coloured and shining, and in the depressions

of the floor stood coagulated black gore.

One of the butchers told us how they slaughtered, and

showed us the place where this is done. I did not quite

understand him, and formed a false, but very terrible conception

of how they slaughtered, and I thought, as is

often the case, that the reality would produce a lesser effect

upon me than what I had imagined. But I was

mistaken in this.

The next time I came to the slaughter-house in time

It was on Friday before Pentecost. It was a hot June

day. The odour of glue and of blood was even more oppressive

and more noticeable in the morning, than during

my first visit. The work was at white heat. The dusty square

was all full of cattle, and the cattle were driven

into all the stalls near the chambers.

In the street in front of the building stood carts with

steers, heifers, and cows tied to the cart stakes and shafts.

Butchers' carts, drawn by good horses, loaded with live

calves with dangling heads, drove up and unloaded ; and

similar carts with upturned and shaking legs of the carcasses

of steers, with their heads, bright red lungs and

dark red livers drove away from the slaughter-house.

Near the fence stood the mounts of the cattle-dealers.

The cattle-dealers themselves, in their long coats, with

whips and knouts in their hands, walked up and down in

the yard, either marking one man's cattle with tar paint,

or haggling, or attending to the transfer of bulls and

steers from the square to the stalls, from which the cattle

entered the chambers. These men were obviously all

absorbed in money operations and calculations, and the

thought that it is good or bad to kill these animals was

as far from them as the thought as to what was the chemical

composition of the blood with which the floor of the

chambers was covered.

No butchers could be seen in the yards : they were all

working in the chambers. During this day about one

hundred steers were killed. I entered a chamber and

stopped at the door. I stopped, both because the chamber

was crowded with the carcasses which were being

shifted, and because the blood ran underfoot and dripped

from above, and all the butchers who were there were

smeared in it, and, upon entering inside, I should certainly

have been smeared with blood. They were taking

down one carcass, which was suspended ; another was being

moved to the door ; a third, a dead ox, was lying with

his white legs turned up, and a butcher with his strong

fist was ripping the stretched-out hide.

 

Through the door opposite to the one where I was

standing they were at that time taking in a large, red,

fattened ox. Two men were pulling him. And they

had barely brought him in, when I saw a butcher raise

a dagger ov'er his head and strike him. The ox dropped

down on his belly, as though he had been knocked off all

his four legs at once, immediately rolled over on one side,

and began to kick with his legs and with his whole back.

One of the butchers immediately threw himself on the

fore part of the ox, from the end opposite his kicking

legs, took hold of his horns, bent his head to the ground,

and from beneath the head there spirted the dark red

blood, under the current of which a boy besmeared in

blood placed a tin basin. All the time while they were

doing this, the ox kept jerking his head, as though trying

to get up, and kicked with all his four legs in the air.

The basin filled rapidly, but the ox was still alive and,

painfully contracting and expanding his belly, kicked

with his fore legs and hind legs, so that the butchers had

to get out of his way. When one basin was filled, the

boy carried it on his head to the albumen plant, while

another boy set down another basin, which also began to

fill up. But the ox kept contracting and expanding his

belly and jerked with his hind legs. When the blood

stopped flowing, the butcher raised the head of the ox

and began to flay him. The ox continued kicking. The

head was bared and began to look red with white veins,

and assumed the position given to it by the butchers ; on

both sides of it hung the hide. The ox continued to kick.

Then another butcher caught the ox by a leg, which he

broke and cut off. Convulsions ran up and down the

belly and the other legs. The other legs, too, were cut

off, and they were thrown where all the legs belonging to

one owner were thrown. Then the carcass was pulled up

to a block and tackle and was stretched out, and there

all motion stopped.

Thus I stood at the door and looked at a second, a

third, a fourth ox. With all of them the same happened:

the same flayed head with pinched tongue and the same

kicking back. The only difference was that the butcher

did not always strike in the right place to make the ox

fall. It happened that the butcher made a mistake, and

the ox jumped up, bellowed, and, shedding blood, tried to

get away. But then he was pulled under a beam and

struck a second time, after which he fell.

I later walked up from the side of the door, through

which they brought in the oxen. Here I saw the same,

only at closer range, and, therefore, more clearly. I saw

here, above all else, what I had not seen through the

other door,—how they compelled the oxen to walk

through this door. Every time when they took an ox

out of the stall and pulled him by a rope, which was

attached to his horns, the ox, scenting the blood, became

stubborn and bellowed, and sometimes jerked back. It

was impossible for two men to pull him in by force, and

so a butcher every time went behind and took the ox by

the tail, which he twisted until the gristle cracked and

the tail broke, and the ox moved on.

The oxen of one owner were all finished, and they

brought up the cattle of another. The first from this lot

of the other owner was a bull. He was a fine-looking,

thoroughbred black bull, with white spots on his body

and white legs,—a young, muscular, energetic animal.

They began to pull him ; he dropped his head and absolutely

refused to move. But the butcher who was walking

behind took hold of his tail, as a machinist puts his

hand on the throttle, and twisted it ; the cartilage cracked,

and the bull rushed ahead, knocking the men who were

pulling at the rope off their feet, and again stood stubbornly

still, looking askance with his white, bloodshot

eyes. But again the tail cracked, and the bull rushed

forward and was where he was wanted. The butcher

walked up, took his aim, and struck him. But the stroke

did not fall in the right place. The bull jumped up,

tossed his head, bellowed, and, all covered with blood, tore

himself loose and rushed back. All the people at the

doors started back ; but the accustomed butchers, with

a daring which was the result of the , briskly took

hold of the rope and again of the tail, and again the bull

found himself in the chamber, where his head was pulled

under the beam, from which he no longer tore himself

away. The butcher briskly looked for the spot where

the hair scatters in the form of a star, and, having found

it, in spite of the blood, struck him, and the beautiful

animal, which was full of life, came down with a crash

and kicked with its head and legs, while they let off the

blood and flayed the head.

" Accursed devil, he did not even fall the right way,"

growled the butcher as he cut the hide from his head.

Five minutes later the red, instead of black, head, without

the hide, with glassy, fixed eyes, which but five minutes

before had glistened with such a beautiful colour, was suspended

on the beam.

Then I entered the division where they butcher the

smaller animals. It is a very large and long chamber,

with an asphalt floor and with tables with backs, on

which they butcher sheep and calves. Here the work

was all finished ; in the long chamber, which was saturated

with the odour of blood, there were only two

butchers. One was blowing into the leg of a dead

wether and patting the blown-up belly ; the other, a

young lad, with a blood-bespattered apron, was smoking

a bent cigarette. There was no one else in the gloomy,

long chamber, which was saturated with the oppressive

odour. Immediately after me there came in one who

looked like an ex-soldier, who brought a black yearling

lamb, with spots on his neck, which he put down on one

of the tables, as though on a bed. The soldier, apparently an acquaintance of theirs, greeted them and asked them

when their master gave them days off. The young lad

with the cigarette walked up with a knife, which he

sharpened at the edge of the table, and answered that

they had their holidays free. The Hve plump lamb was

lying quietly as though dead, only briskly wagging his

short tail and breathing more frequently than usual.

The soldier lightly, without effort, held down his head,

which was rising up ; the young lad, continuing the conversation,

took the lamb's head with his left hand and

quickly drew the knife down his throat. The lamb

shivered, and the little tail became arched and stopped

wagging. While waiting for the blood to run off, the

young lad puffed at the cigarette, which had nearly gone

out. The blood began to flow, and the lamb began to be

convulsed. The conversation was continued without the

least interruption.

And those hens and chickens, which every day in a

thousand kitchens, with heads cut off, shedding blood,

jump about comically and terribly, flapping their wings ?

And behold, a tender, refined lady wiU devour the

corpses of these animals with the full conviction of her

righteousness, asserting two propositions, which mutually

exclude one another:

The first, that she is so delicate—and of this she is

assured by her doctor—that she is unable to live on

vegetable food alone, but that her weak organism demands

animal food ; and the second, that she is so sensitive

that she not only cannot cause any sufferings to any

animal, but cannot even bear the sight of them.

And yet, this poor lady is weak for the very reason, and

for no other, that she has been taught to subsist on food

which is improper for man ; and she cannot help but

cause the animals suffering, because she devours them.We cannot pretend that we do not know this. We are

not ostriches, and we cannot believe that, if we do not look,

there will not be what we do not wish to see. This is

the more impossible, when we do not wish to see what

we wish to eat. And, above all else, if it were only indispensable

! But let us assume that it is not indispensable,

but necessary for some purpose. It is not.^ It is good

only for bringing out animal sensations, breeding lust,

fornication, drunkenness. This is constantly confirmed

by the fact that good, uncorrupted young men, especially

women and girls, feel, without knowing how one thing

follows from the other, that virtue is not compatible with

beefsteak, and as soon as they wish to be good, they give

up animal food.

What, then, do I wish to say ? Is it this, that men, to

be moral, must stop eating meat ? Not at all.

What I wanted to say is, that for a good life a certain

order of good acts is indispensable ; that if the striving

after the good hfe is serious in a man, it wiU inevitably

assume one certain order, and that in this order the first

virtue for a man to work on is abstinence, self-possession.

And in striving after abstinence, a man will inevitablyfollow one certain order, and in this order the first subject

will be abstinence in food, fasting. But in fasting, if he

seriously and sincerely seeks a good life, the first from

which a man will abstain will always be the use of

animal food, because, to say nothing of the excitation

of the passions, which this food produces, its use is

directly immoral, since it demands an act which is contrary

to our moral sense,— murder,—and is provoked

only by the desire and craving for good eating.

 

 

LEO TOLSTOY