The First Step
by Leo Tolstoy
A few days ago I visited the slaughter-house in our town of Toula. It is built on the
new and improved system practiced in large towns, with a view to causing the animals as
little suffering as possible. It was on a Friday, two days before Trinity Sunday. There
were many cattle there.
Long before this, when reading that excellent book. The Ethics of Diet, l had wished to
visit a slaughter-house, in order to see with my own eyes the reality of the question
raised when vegetarianism is discussed. But at first I felt ashamed to do so, as one is
always ashamed of going to look at suffering which one knows is about to take place, but
which one cannot avert, and so I kept putting off my visit.
But a little while ago I met on the road a butcher returning to Toula after a visit to
his home. He is not yet an experienced butcher, arid his duty is to stab with a knife. I
asked him whether he did not feel sorry for the animals that he killed. He gave me the
usual answer: "Why should I feel Sorry? It is necessary." but when I told him
that eating flesh is not necessary, but is only a luxury, he agreed; and then he admitted
that, he was sorry for the animals. "But what can I do? I must earn my bread" ,
he said - "At first I was afraid to kill. My father, he never even killed a chicken
in all his life." The majority of Russians cannot kill, they feel pity, and express
the feeling by the word "fear". This man had also been "afraid", but
he was so no longer. He told me that most of the work was done on Fridays, when it
continues until the evening.
Not long ago I also had a talk with a retired soldier, a butcher, and he too, was
surprised at my assertion that it was a pity to kill, and said the usual things about its
being ordained, but afterwards he agreed with me: "Especially when they are quiet ,
tame cattle. They come, poor things trusting! It is very pitiful."
This is dreadful: Not the suffering and death of the animals, but that man suppresses
in himself unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity - that of sympathy and pity
towards living creatures like himself - and by violating his own feelings becomes cruel.
And how deeply seated m the human heart is the injunction not to take life!
On Friday I decided to go to Toula, and, meeting a meek, kind acquaintance of mine, I
invited him to accompany me.
"Yes, I have heard that the arrangements are good, and have been wishing to go and
see it; but if they are slaughtering I will not go in."
"Why not? That's just what I want to see! If we eat flesh it must be killed."
"No, no, I cannot!"
It is worth remarking that this man is a sportsman and himself kills animals and birds.
So, we went to the slaughterhouse. Even at the entrance one noticed the heavy,
disgusting, fetid smell, as of carpenter's glue, or paint on glue. The nearer we
approached, the stronger became the smell-The building is of red brick, very large, with
vaults and high chimneys. We entered the gates. To the right was a spacious enclosed yard,
three-quarters of an acre in extent - twice a week cattle are driven in here for sale -
and adjoining this enclosure was the porter's lodge. To the left were the chambers, as
they are called - i.e., rooms with arched entrances, sloping asphalt floors, and
contrivances for moving and hanging up the carcasses. On a bench against the wall of the
porter 's lodge were seated half a dozen butchers, in aprons covered with blood, their
nicked up sleeves disclosing their muscular arms also besmeared with blood. They had
finished their work half an hour before, so, that day we could only see the empty
chambers. Though these chambers were open on both sides, there was an oppressive smell of
warm blood; the floor was brown and shining, with congealed black blood in the cavities.
One of the butchers described the process of slaughtering, and showed us the place
whole it was done. I did not quite understand him, and formed a wrong, but very horrible
idea of the way the animals arc slaughtered, and I fancied that, as is often the case, the
reality would very likely produce upon me a weaker impression than the imagination. But in
this I was mistaken.
The next time I visited the slaughter-house I went in good time. It was the Friday
before Trinity - a warm day in June. The smell of glue and blood was even stronger and
more penetrating than on my first visit. The work was at its height. The dusty yard was
tell of cattle, and animals had been driven into all the enclosures beside the chambers.
In the street, before the entrance, stood carts to which oxen, calves, and cows were
tied. Other carts drawn by good horses and filled with live calves, whose heads hung down
swayed about, drew lip and were unloaded; and similar carts containing the carcasses of
oxen, with trembling legs sticking out, with heads and bright red longs and brown livers,
drove away from the slaughter-house. By the fence stood the cattle dealers' horses. The
dealers themselves, in their long coats, with their whips and knouts in their hands, were
walking about the yard, either marking with cattle belonging to the same owner, or
bargaining or else guiding oxen and bulk from the great yard into enclosures which lead
into the chambers. These men were evidently all preoccupied with money matters and
calculations, and any thought as to whether it was right or wrong to kill these animals
was far from their minds as were questions about the chemical composition of the Mood that
covered the floor of the chambers.
No butchers were to be seen in the yard; they were all in the chambers at work. That
day about a hundred head of cattle were slaughtered. I was on the point of entering one of
the chambers, but stopped short at the door. I stopped both because the chamber was
crowded with carcasses which were being moved about, and also because blood was flowing on
the floor and dripping from above. All the butchers present were besmeared with blood, and
had I entered, I too, should certainly have been covered with it. One suspended carcass
was being moved towards the door, a third, a slaughtered ox, was lying with its white legs
raised, while a butcher with strong hands was ripping up its tight stretched hide.
Through the door opposite the one at which I was standing, a big, red, well-fed ox was
led in. Two men were dragging it, and hardly had it entered when I saw a butcher raise a
knife above its neck and stab it. The ox, as if all four legs had suddenly given way, fell
heavily upon its belly, immediately turned over on one side, and began to work its legs
and all its hind quarters. Another butcher at once threw himself upon the ox from the side
opposite to the twitching legs, caught its horns and twisted its head down to the ground,
while another butcher cut its throat with a knife. From beneath the head there flowed a
stream of blackish-red blood, which a besmeared boy caught in a tin basin. All the time
this was going the ox kept incessantly twitching it s head as if trying to get up and
waved its four legs in the air. The basin was quickly filling, but the ox still lived,
and, its stomach heaving heavily, both hind and forelegs worked so violently that the
butchers held aloof When one basin was fall, the boy carried it away on his head to the
albumen factory, while another boy placed a fresh basin, which also soon began to fill up.
But still the ox heaved its body and worked its hind legs.
When the blood ceased to flow the butcher raised the animal's head and began to skin
it. The ox continued to writhe. The head, stripped of its skin, showed red with white
veins, and kept the position given it by the butcher, on both sides hung the skin. Still
the animal did not cease to writhe. Then another butcher caught hold of one of the legs,
broke it, and cut it off. In the remaining legs and the stomach the convulsions still
continued. The other legs were cut off and thrown aside, together with those of other oxen
belonging to the same owner. Then the carcass was dragged to the hoist and hung up, and
the convulsions were over.
Thus I looked on from the door at the second, third, fourth ox. It was the same with
each: the same cutting off of the head with bitten tongue, and the same convulsed members.
The only difference was that the butcher did not always strike at once so as t o cause the
animal's fall. Sometimes he missed his aim, whereupon the ox leaped up, bellowed, and,
covered with blood, tried to escape. But then his head was pulled under a bar, struck a
second time, and he fell.
I afterwards entered by the door at which the oxen were led in. Here I saw the same
thing, only nearer, and therefore more plainly. But chiefly I saw here, what I had not
seen before, how the oxen were forced to enter this door. Each time an ox was seize d in
the enclosure and pulled forward by rope tied to its horns, the animal, smelling blood,
refused to advance, and sometimes bellowed and drew back. It would have been beyond the
strength of two men to drag it in by force, so one of the butchers went round each time,
grasped the animal's tail and twisted it so violently that the gristle crackled, and the
ox advanced.
When they had finished with the cattle of one owner, they brought in those of another.
The first animal of this next lot was not an on, but a bull - a fine, well-bred creature,
black, with white spots on its legs, young, muscular, full of energy. He was dragged
forward, but he lowered his head and resisted sturdily. Then the butcher who followed
behind seized the tail, like an engine-driver grasping the handle of a whistle, twisted
it, the gristle crackled, and the bull rushed forward, upsetting the men who held the
rope. Then it stopped, looking sideways with its black eyes, the whites of which had
filled with blood. But again the tail crackled, and the bull sprang forward and reached
the required spot. The striker approached, took aim, and struck. But the blow missed the
mark. The bull leaped up, shook his head, bellowed, and, covered with blood, broke free
and rushed back. The men at the doorway all sprang aside; but the experienced butchers
with the dash of men inured to danger, quickly caught the rope; again the tail operation
was repeated, and again the bull was in the chamber, where he was dragged under the bar,
from which he did not again escape. The striker quickly took aim at the spot where the
hair divides like a star, and, not withstanding the blood, found it, struck, and the fine
animal, full of life, collapsed, its head and legs writing while it was bled and the head
skinned.
""There, the cursed devil hasn't even fallen the right way!" grumbled
the butcher as he cut the skin from the head.
Five minutes later the head was stuck up, red instead of black, without skin; the eyes,
that had shone with such splendid colour five minutes before, fixed and glassy.
Afterwards, I went into the compartment where small animals are slaughtered - a very
large chamber with asphalt floor, and tables with backs, on which sheep and calves are
killed. Here the work was already finished, in the long room, impregnated with the smell
of blood, were only two butchers. One was blowing into the leg of a dead lamb and patting
the swollen stomach with his hand; the other, a young fellow in an apron besmeared with
blood, was smoking a bent cigarette. There was no one else in the long, dark chamber,
filled with a heavy smell. After me there entered a man, apparently an ex-soldier,
bringing in a young yearling rain, black with a white mark on its neck, and its legs tied.
This animal he placed upon one of the tables, as if upon a bed. The old soldier greeted
the butchers, with whom he was evidently acquainted, and began to ask when their master
allowed them leave. The fellow with the cigarette approached with a knife, sharpened it
oil the edge of the table, and answered that they were free on holidays. The live ram was
lying as quietly as the dead inflated one, except that it was briskly wagging its short
little tail and its sides were heaving more quickly then usual. The soldier pressed down
its uplifted head gently, without effort ; the butcher, still continuing the conversation,
grasped with his left hand the head of the ram and cut its throat. The rain quivered, and
the little tail stiffened and ceased to wave. The fellow, while waiting for the blood to
flow, began to relight his cigarette, which had gone out. The blood flowed and the ram
began to writhe. The conversation continued without the slightest interruption. It was
horribly revolting.
I only wish to say that for a good life a certain order of good actions is
indispensable; that if a man's aspirations towards right living be serious they will
inevitably follow one definite sequence; and that in this sequence the first virtue a man
will strive after will be self-control, self-restraint. And in seeking for self-control a
man will inevitably follow one definite sequence, and in this sequence the first thing
will be self-control in food - fasting. And in fasting. If he be really and seriously
seeking to live a good life, the first thing from which he will abstain will always be the
use of animal food, because, to say nothing of the excitation of the passions caused by
such food, its use is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is
contrary to the moral feeling - killing; and is called forth only by greediness and the
desire for tasty food.
The precise reason why abstinence from animal food will be the first act of fasting and
of a moral life is admirably explained in the book, The Ethics of Diet; and not by one man
only, but by all mankind in the persons of its best representatives during all the
conscious life of humanity.
But why, if the wrongfulness - i.e. the immorality - of animal food was known to
humanity so long ago, have people not yet come to acknowledge this law? will be asked by
those who are accustomed to be led by public opinion rather than by reason.
The answer to this question is, that the moral progress of humanity - which is the
foundation of every other kind of progress - is always slow; but that the sign of true,
not casual. progress is its uninterruptedness and its continual acceleration.
And the progress of vegetarianism is of this kind. That progress, is expressed both in
the words of the writers and in the actual life of mankind, which from many causes is
involuntarily passing more and more from carnivorous habits to vegetable food, and is also
deliberately following the same path in a movement which shows evident strength, and which
is growing larger and larger - viz., vegetarianism. That movement has during the last few
years advanced more and more rapidly. More and more books and periodicals on this subject
appear every year, one meets more and more people who have given up meat, and abroad,
especially in Germany, England, and America, the number of vegetarian hotels and
restaurants increases year by year.
This movement should cause special joy to those whose life lies in the effort to bring
about the kingdom of God on earth, not because vegetarianism
is in itself an important step towards that kingdom (all true steps are both important
and unimportant), but because it is a sign that the aspiration of mankind toward moral
perfection is serious and sincere, for it has taken the one unalterable order of
succession natural to it, beginning with the first step.
One cannot fall to rejoice at this, as people could not fail to rejoice who, after
striving to reach the upper story of a house by trying vainly and at random to climb the
walls from different points, should at last assemble at the first step of the staircase
and crowd towards it, convinced that there can be no way up except by mounting this first
step of the stairs.
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