THE EDIBLE SAWDUST
You can incessantly philosophize about the meaning of life, teach others how to reason out because problems are more visible when they are not yours. A satisfied and successful man looks at a miserable wretch, who has nothing good in his life except alcohol and condemns him, comparing him with himself. But if someone took away from such a smart man his physical attractiveness, family, work, money, friends and throw him into beggarly conditions, what would happen to him? Will he continue to be proud of himself, looking into the mirror when he would be despised and ostracized by everyone? Or, maybe, he will be able to improve his financial situation in the village, where there is neither a decent job, nor an opportunity to earn enough money to buy something more than a little food and some clothes. Who should he talk to if he does not have family? He comes home in the evening and again - boredom, loneliness, sadness. Try as he might to mingle with his village fellows, he reaps only contempt in return. He can`t help having a drink or two of vodka time and again because life seems to be starting to get better for him when he is tipsy. He finds peace and amusement in alcohol. It is hopelessness that makes a person get drunk and to forget about his problems.
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It's easy to judge others. But what exactly such a righteous one has done himself to improve life of people in the Ukrainian village? I beg of you to stop preaching to others. If you cannot help them with anything, you`d better keep silence and mind of your own business.
"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
(Mat. 7.3)
When a village baby is born into a poor family, the mother and father do not have enough time to raise their child properly because they work from morning till night. There is a dilemma: either you stay at home and look after your child, causing your family to starve, or you go to earn money and your child runs wild. At school such a child learns badly: he must help his parents about the household and he does not simply have enough time to do his homework. When he leaves school, his parents have no money to send him to university. So what remains for him is to wander around the village, or to find a job in a big city. But nobody needs him there, unless as a manual worker. Such a migrant worker very often works at a construction site, pouring concrete floors and carrying bricks in his hands for the masonry. And again the same hopelessness, the same terrible conditions, the same binge drinking. He is a lucky one, who gets married: in the family he finds his haven. Such a person gradually settles down. Thus he finds his meaning of life, taking care of his wife and children. But if a village man did not get married, he would be lost. Such men often become drunkards; they waste themselves because of such terrible life. Many of them end their lives tragically. It is only for a while that alcohol gives peace to a desperate soul. It usually happens that it is not hard work that pushes people into the grave prematurely, but most often a lack of socially active life. Where are the previous mass festivities, sports competitions, when the whole village gathers for entertainment? .. Where is the former honor? Where is the opportunity to excel at the workplace and get respect in society? Let them give a person an opportunity to feel his importance and value, not only for himself but for others as well! Let them create conditions for individual manifestation in favor of society!
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Let them give a chance to a man to reveal his talent, show his physical abilities, patience, diligence, rewarding him with public respect! Let them finally give him an opportunity to earn for a piece of bread! Only then will such advisors have a moral right to preach to others how to live. According to the laws of nature most of us have similar strengths and weaknesses. Our behavior is the internal reaction of our brain to external circumstances - and nothing more.
"Judge not, that ye be not judged; for with what judgment ye judge, such shall ye be judged; and with what measure ye mete, so shall they also be measured to you." (Mt.7.1).
The life of Cardan goes on as usual. Is it possible that a Ukrainian will sit back at home in front of a TV set, even at the weekend? Never! He will always find a job - even if there is nothing to do. Ukrainian people are distinguished for their diligence: they love work for the sake of work and will not stay idle without a serious cause.
Cardan climbed the stairs to the attic of his house. In the morning, as usual, he had a hangover. It does not matter whether it is a weekend or a week day, you have to keep spinning and always be on the move. He found a pile of sacks covered with a thick layer of dust because of a long storage time. Then he picked up the upper one - enough. With a languid effort he overcame the way back. "Oh, again this frigging hangover" he squeezed a complaint out painfully. "It was too much booze yesterday". "Too much, too much, too much ..." a pulsing echo in his head continued complaining. He headed for a saw mill and stuffed the sack with sawdust. Then he went to the pig farm. Near the warehouse he collected several handfuls of grain fodder and filled the top of the sack with it, carefully covering the sawdust.
A lot of lonely old women live in the village because the men die early there from hard living conditions. They are often left alone in this cruel world with nobody at their side to taken care of them. Finishing their morning chores, they run to the local shop.
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One of such old women usually runs into someone on her way, who is as lonely as her, and starts chattering and discussing rural news. The tongue goes talking without restraint - never mind, a man cannot live without communication with others. They would talk, they would chatter on end, but, unfortunately, they are in a hurry: household chores are waiting for them. A vegetable patch, a potato plot, a cow, pigs, geese, chickens - and why so much of everything for an old woman? "It is essential to have a big supply of food! It is a good way of escaping starvation," such a hard-working woman usually answers.
The echo of the experienced famine of 1932-33 for many decades inculcated a panic fear of hunger in our minds. Sometimes you may ask a village woman in order to satisfy your curiosity, "Why do you store dry bread in sacks on the stove so long? It will perish before you know it; mice will surely destroy it?!”
"Uh, you don`t know, son, what famine is," she usually answers in a drawling voice. "If hard times come, I will have a sack of dry bread and not die of hunger," she will explain lugubriously.
And it is impossible to convince her that there will not be any hard times now, that there will be no such famine any more. You will ask her to have a rest, have fun, watch TV, but no, you cannot change her mind. Stalin managed to bring the country, which used to be the breadbasket of Europe, to the point of starvation. It seems that for a very long time thereafter, the fear to die of hunger will torture our minds.
These days a starvation to death is not a hazard anymore. Over time our fear of it has abated to a certain extent. We no longer dry bread. But we buy bags of salt, sugar, flour, cereals to have it in store, just in case. We do not starve but we made a cult of food and our tables are laid with sumptuous dishes when we receive guests. The point is that, nowhere in the world you will find a country where an entire people were being destroyed by artificial famine. Fear of starvation in some cases forced people to eat "their own kind."
You cannot go on talking for too long: there is no possibility. You simply cannot afford to waste time on petty things.
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The old women trudge to their households. The work is not waiting: the potato plot must be weeded, the cow is mooing - she must be milked urgently, the pig is squealing - it must be fed. Noise, moos, grunts, quacks, barks - a usual home environment. So, she quickly milks the cow, feeds pigs, geese, and chickens - silence. The chickens are full and happy, grazing about the yard: cluck-cluck, cluck-cluck. All right, it's time to run to the garden. Life goes on with no change day by day, until death stops such a strong, willful, and energetic woman. There is no power in the world that can break her will for work except the grave.
Suddenly someone knocked at the gate.
"Excuse me lady, do you need grain fodder?" she heard Cardan`s enticing voice.
A few minutes later the gate opened and an old woman came out into the street. Years had beaten her face, littered it with wrinkles, taking away the former freshness. Hard work had bent her formerly slender posture.
“And how much do you want for it?" She asked incredulously.
“A liter of vodka and it will be yours. I`m almost giving it for free. If you take it, I'll bring you one more sack, first thing tomorrow morning.”
Now was not the time for second thoughts.
“OK. I will fetch an empty sack now and you will put the grain fodder into mine.”
“It`s unnecessary. Take it with the sack. If you have a scanty supply of them, I'll bring you a couple of sacks tomorrow for free.”
“I have to take it," the old woman decided. There is nothing to be done: the cattle and poultry must be fed.
The deal was struck. Cardan, satisfied with the outcome, set off with a bottle of vodka; the old woman went to make evening food for pigs. She took a handful of the grain fodder and hooked the sawdust with her fingers. She delved in deeper. No, it could not be real sawdust. She just couldn't believe her eyes. Deeper and deeper she kept rummaging, but she could find nothing but sawdust. Then she knocked over the sack to the ground, shook out its contents. Sadly, there was nothing but sawdust. "Oh, that scammer! Oh, that hustler! Oh, that thug!" the old woman`s curses started pouring at Cardan.
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Finally, after an extensive complaining, she stopped cursing, sat down on the threshold of her house and sighed for the last time, "Oh, bastard!"
Next morning she went to do some shopping. She told about Cardan's trick to all her friends. "How could you trust such a swindler? Don`t you know how many people he has cheated in the village? Drive him away if you see him again! Do not let him come near your home!" they advised her.
In the morning Cardan woke up with the usual state of pain in his head. "Can it be the other way around?" he thought. "It simply means that yesterday was a successful day. It would be nice to have a drink today as well. The more the merrier." He took another empty sack from the pile in the attic and walked to the sawmill again. Filling it with sawdust he returned home. Then he grabbed his last sack of grain fodder from his own stock under his arm, loaded both sacks onto the bicycle and went to execute his new plan.
He loudly knocked at the gate.
“Excuse me! Do you need grain fodder?!”
A few moments later the door opened and an old woman went out into the street. Horrible swear words fell at Cardan. It turned out that the old woman had heard about his yesterday's trick near the shop in the morning.
“Get away from here, so that even your spirit will forget the way to my house!" she waved him off with a hand.
“It was not my fault,” Cardan began playing dumb. “It was the other way around. It was I, who was cheated by my co-workers. They gave me a sack of grain fodder to trade for alcohol and handed me the sack with wooden shavings. I didn't see that coming. Had I but known, I would have never done that. I have just brought my own sack of fodder to her. The misunderstanding has already been settled.
“Do you think I will believe you so easily?"
The old woman fetched an empty sack from the yard with a bucket.
“Put bucket by bucket of the grain fodder into another sack while I'm watching.”
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The woman's face lit up with a huge beam.
“Wow! That's fantastic! There is nothing but grain fodder! No sawdust, no wooden shavings. Hold on for a minute, I'll bring you a jar of vodka.” she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
The old woman went into the house. Meanwhile, Cardan took out the hidden sack of sawdust and put the sack of grain fodder in its place.
The old woman came out with a liter of vodka. The deal was struck. After a while Cardan returned and retrieved the sack of grain fodder from the bush, loaded it on the bicycle and rode home.
In the evening all the neighbors heard the curses pouring at Cardan; they were with no end and no limit. Finally, the old woman got tired of interminable swearing, she kicked the sack with her foot and whispered, "Oh, bastard! You`ll get what`s coming to you some day!"
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