Hunting Worse Than Slavery Page #3

"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.

								

"that is good, he will not touch me." I was just getting up, when I
felt something pressing against me and holding me down. In his onrush he
ran past me, but he turned around and rushed against me with his whole
breast. I felt something heavy upon me, something warm over my face, and
I felt him taking my face into his jaws. My nose was already in his
mouth, and I felt hot, and smelled his blood. He pressed my shoulders
with his paws, and I could not stir. All I could do was to pull my head
out of his jaws and press it against my breast, and I turned my nose and
eyes away. But he was trying to get at my eyes and nose. I felt him
strike the teeth of his upper jaw into my forehead, right below the
hair, and the lower jaw into the cheek-bones below the eyes, and he
began to crush me. It was as though my head were cut with knives. I
jerked and pulled out my head, but he chawed and chawed and snapped at
me like a dog. I would turn my head away, and he would catch it again.
"Well," I thought, "my end has come." Suddenly I felt lighter. I looked
up, and he was gone: he had jumped away from me, and was running now.

When my companion and Demyán saw that the bear had knocked me into the
snow, they dashed for me. My companion wanted to get there as fast as
possible, but lost his way; instead of running on the trodden path, he
ran straight ahead, and fell down. While he was trying to get out of the
snow, the bear was gnawing at me. Demyán ran up to me along the path,
without a gun, just with the stick which he had in his hands, and he
shouted, "He is eating up the gentleman! He is eating up the gentleman!"
And he kept running and shouting, "Oh, you wretched beast! What are you
doing? Stop! Stop!"

The bear listened to him, stopped, and ran away. When I got up, there
was much blood on the snow, just as though a sheep had been killed, and
over my eyes the flesh hung in rags. While the wound was fresh I felt no
pain.

My companion ran up to me, and the peasants gathered around me. They
looked at my wounds, and washed them with snow. I had entirely forgotten
about the wounds, and only asked, "Where is the bear? Where has he
gone?"

Suddenly we heard, "Here he is! Here he is!" We saw the bear running
once more against us. We grasped our guns, but before we fired he ran
past us. The bear was mad: he wanted to bite me again, but when he saw
so many people he became frightened. We saw by the track that the bear
was bleeding from the head. We wanted to follow him up, but my head hurt
me, and so we drove to town to see a doctor.

The doctor sewed up my wounds with silk, and they began to heal.

A month later we went out again to hunt that bear; but I did not get the
chance to kill him. The bear would not leave the cover, and kept walking
around and around and roaring terribly. Demyán killed him. My shot had
crushed his lower jaw and knocked out a tooth.

This bear was very large, and he had beautiful black fur. I had the skin
stuffed, and it is lying now in my room. The wounds on my head have
healed, so that one can scarcely see where they were.
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