What Men Live By and Other Tales

Synopsis

What Men Live By and Other Tales is a collection of most popular short stories written by the Russian novelist Graf Leo Tolstoy, who is remembered for his novels War and peace, A Confession, and Anna Karenina. This collection contains three short stories titled as What do men live by?, How Much Land Does a Man Need?, and Twenty-three Tales/The Coffee-House of Surat.

What do men live by? : An Angel has been punished by God for disobedience to take life of a woman, given an option to regain the wings by finding answers to three questions; What dwells in man?, What is not given to man?, and What do men live by?. The angel becomes a human named Michel and joins as assistant to Simon, a shoemaker. Through the customers of Simon, Angel finds answers and gets the wings back.

How Much Land Does a Man Need? : Pahom, a peasant is given an option to buy a land, which is too good to be true. Against a sum of 1000 rubles, he can walk as long as he can and return back to the starting point before sun set. On the night he dreams of witnessing his dead body in the land. Next day he starts walking on the land for a long distance and returns to the starting point before sunset. While people congratulate him for his quick fortunes, the exhausted Pahom drops dead in the starting point. He was buried in his grave yard which was just 6 feet long.

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