The First Distiller

A comedy by Tolstoy in six acts. An imp is assigned by the chief devil to draw Russian peasants from God and capture them for the devil. This imp is unsuccessful but other imps are victorious, such as those assigned to bedevil lawyers and married women, especially the latter. The chief devil is very angry at the imp who promises that he will find a way to ensnare the peasants. The imp disguises itself as a laborer and helps a peasant plant and harvest enormous amounts of grain. The peasant does not know what to do with the abundance and the imp shows him how to distill the grain into alcohol. As readers could foresee, the idea of distilled alcohol soon becomes rampant among the peasants from that day until the time Tolstoy wrote this comedy, and the drunken peasants are captured by the devil.

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