Hunting Worse Than Slavery

"Hunting Worse Than Slavery" is an essay by Leo Tolstoy that critiques the practice of hunting and its moral implications. In this work, Tolstoy reflects on the brutality of hunting animals for sport, arguing that it devalues life and promotes a culture of violence. He draws parallels between the suffering endured by hunted animals and the suffering experienced by enslaved people, emphasizing the need for compassion and ethical treatment of all living beings. Tolstoy's passionate advocacy for animal rights and his philosophical exploration of humanity's relationship with nature make this essay a thought-provoking read for those interested in ethics, morality, and social justice.

								
We were hunting bears. My companion had a chance to shoot at a bear: he
wounded him, but only in a soft spot. A little blood was left on the
snow, but the bear got away.

We met in the forest and began to discuss what to do: whether to go and
find that bear, or to wait two or three days until the bear should lie
down again.

We asked the peasant bear drivers whether we could now surround the
bear. An old bear driver said:

"No, we must give the bear a chance to calm himself. In about five days
it will be possible to surround him, but if we go after him now he will
only be frightened and will not lie down."

But a young bear driver disputed with the old man, and said that he
could surround him now.

"Over this snow," he said, "the bear cannot get away far,--he is fat. He
will lie down to-day again. And if he does not, I will overtake him on
snow-shoes."

My companion, too, did not want to surround the bear now, and advised
waiting.

But I said:

"What is the use of discussing the matter? Do as you please, but I will
go with Demyán along the track. If we overtake him, so much is gained;
if not,--I have nothing else to do to-day anyway, and it is not yet
late."

And so we did.

My companions went to the sleigh, and back to the village, but Demyán
and I took bread with us, and remained in the woods.

When all had left us, Demyán and I examined our guns, tucked our fur
coats over our belts, and followed the track.

It was fine weather, chilly and calm. But walking on snow-shoes was a
hard matter: the snow was deep and powdery.

The snow had not settled in the forest, and, besides, fresh snow had
fallen on the day before, so that the snow-shoes sunk half a foot in the
snow, and in places even deeper.

The bear track could be seen a distance away. We could see the way the
bear had walked, for in spots he had fallen in the snow to his belly and
had swept the snow aside. At first we walked in plain sight of the
track, through a forest of large trees; then, when the track went into a
small pine wood, Demyán stopped.

"We must now give up the track," he said. "He will, no doubt, lie down
here. He has been sitting on his haunches,--you can see it by the snow.
Let us go away from the track, and make a circle around him. But we must
walk softly and make no noise, not even cough, or we shall scare him."

We went away from the track, to the left. We walked about five hundred
steps and there we again saw the track before us. We again followed the
track, and this took us to the road. We stopped on the road and began to
look around, to see in what direction the bear had gone. Here and there
on the road we could see the bear's paws with all the toes printed on
the snow, while in others we could see the tracks of a peasant's bast
shoes. He had, evidently, gone to the village.

We walked along the road. Demyán said to me:

"We need not watch the road; somewhere he will turn off the road, to the
right or to the left,--we shall see in the snow. Somewhere he will turn
off,--he will not go to the village."

We walked thus about a mile along the road; suddenly we saw the track
turn off from the road. We looked at it, and see the wonder! It was a
bear's track, but leading not from the road to the woods, but from the
woods to the road: the toes were turned to the road. I said:

"That is another bear."

Demyán looked at it, and thought awhile.

"No," he said, "that is the same bear, only he has begun to cheat. He
left the road backwards."

We followed the track, and so it was. The bear had evidently walked
about ten steps backwards from the road, until he got beyond a fir-tree,
and then he had turned and gone on straight ahead. Demyán stopped, and
said:

"Now we shall certainly fall in with him. He has no place but this swamp
to lie down in. Let us surround him."

We started to surround him, going through the dense pine forest. I was
getting tired, and it was now much harder to travel. Now I would strike
against a juniper-bush, and get caught in it; or a small pine-tree would
get under my feet; or the snow-shoes would twist, as I was not used to
them; or I would strike a stump or a block under the snow. I was
beginning to be worn out. I took off my fur coat, and the sweat was just
pouring down from me. But Demyán sailed along as in a boat. It looked as
though the snow-shoes walked under him of their own accord. He neither
caught in anything, nor did his shoes turn on him.

And he even threw my fur coat over his shoulders, and kept urging me on.

We made about three versts in a circle, and walked past the swamp.
Demyán suddenly stopped in front of me, and waved his hand. I walked
over to him. Demyán bent down, and pointed with his hand, and whispered
to me:

"Do you see, a magpie is chattering on a windfall: the bird is scenting
the bear from a distance. It is he."

We walked to one side, made another verst, and again hit the old trail.
Thus we had made a circle around the bear, and he was inside of it. We
stopped. I took off my hat and loosened my wraps: I felt as hot as in a
bath, and was as wet as a mouse. Demyán, too, was all red, and he wiped
his face with his sleeve.

"Well," he said, "we have done our work, sir, so we may take a rest."

The evening glow could be seen through the forest. We sat down on the
snow-shoes to rest ourselves. We took the bread and salt out of the
bags; first I ate a little snow, and then the bread. The bread tasted to
me better than any I had eaten in all my life. We sat awhile; it began
to grow dark. I asked Demyán how far it was to the village.

"About twelve versts. We shall reach it in the night; but now we must
rest. Put on your fur coat, sir, or you will catch a cold."

Demyán broke off some pine branches, knocked down the snow, made a bed,
and we lay down beside each other, with our arms under our heads. I do
not remember how I fell asleep. I awoke about two hours later. Something
crashed.

I had been sleeping so soundly that I forgot where I was. I looked
around me: what marvel was that? Where was I? Above me were some white
chambers, and white posts, and on everything glistened white tinsel. I
looked up: there was a white, checkered cloth, and between the checks
was a black vault in which burned fires of all colours. I looked around,
and I recalled that we were in the forest, and that the snow-covered
trees had appeared to me as chambers, and that the fires were nothing
but the stars that flickered between the branches.

In the night a hoarfrost had fallen, and there was hoarfrost on the
branches, and on my fur coat, and Demyán was all covered with hoarfrost,
and hoarfrost fell from above. I awoke Demyán. We got up on our
snow-shoes and started. The forest was quiet. All that could be heard
was the sound we made as we slid on our snow-shoes over the soft snow,
or when a tree would crackle from the frost, and a hollow sound would

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