The Case of Comrade Tulayev (New York Review Books Classics)

by Victor Serge

The only piece of furniture in his office was a bare table, littered with papers which were turning yellow like dead leaves. The open windows gave onto the fields. At the other end of the room a portrait of the Chief contemplated a sooty samovar perched on the stove. Under it slumped sacks, piled one on another like exhausted animals and not one containing the prescribed amount of seed. It was contrary to the instructions of the regional Directorate for Kolkhozes, and Kostia, checking the weight of the sacks, emphasized the fact with a sneer. “It’s not worth putting a crick in my back to find out whether somebody’s been sending out short-weight sacks, Yefim Bogdanovich! If you think the muzhiks won’t know it just because they haven’t a pair of scales! You don’t know them, the devils, they can weigh a sack by looking at it — and you’ll see what a howl they’ll set up …”