Leo Tolstoy's short story "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" is a fable about the perils of greed. Pahom is a peasant farmer who tills common land owned collectively by his village. He has never given much thought to his lot in life, until he overhears his wife defending it to her wealthy, city-fied sister:
"'Of course our work is rough and coarse. But, on the other hand, it is sure; and we need not bow to any one.'"
Pahom silently agrees with his wife and muses that his only complaint is not having his own land to farm. The seed of discontent, thus planted, begins to blossom in his mind, and Pahom begins to believe that only having his own land will satisfy him.
"'Look at that,' thought he, 'the land is all being sold, and I shall get none of it.' So he spoke to his wife. 'Other people are buying,' said he, 'and we must also buy twenty acres or so. Life is becoming impossible.'"
The couple spend all their savings and take out some loans to buy a small plot of land. Their investment is successful, and they are able to pay down their debts and make a small profit from their acreage. For a time, Pahom is satisfied, but once he adjusts to the new normal, he begins to itch for yet more land. This cycle repeats itself a few times: each time, Pahom purchases more land than he had before, enjoys good harvests, and makes a tidy profit. He has transformed within a few years from a subsistence farmer into a relatively wealthy landowner, but he is only ever briefly satisfied with each new acquisition. As soon as he settles into his larger estate, he wants something better.
When a stranger comes to town and tells him that the Bashkir nomads are selling vast tracts of their land, Pahom thinks, as he has before, that this new land will finally be enough. He travels to the Bashkir camp and meets with their chieftain, who says that Pahom can have any portion of their land that he desires, on one condition: he is limited to the amount of land whose perimeter he can walk fully around between sunrise and sunset of one day.
"'As much as you can go round on your feet in a day is yours, and the price is one thousand roubles a day.'
Pahom was surprised. 'But in a day you can get round a large tract of land,' he said.
The Chief laughed. 'It will all be yours!' said he. 'But there is one condition: If you don't return on the same day to the spot whence you started, your money is lost [...] we shall go to any spot you like, and stay there. You must start from that spot and make your round, taking a spade with you. Wherever you think necessary, make a mark. At every turning, dig a hole and pile up the turf; then afterwards we will go round with a plough from hole to hole. You may make as large a circuit as you please, but before the sun sets you must return to the place you started from. All the land you cover will be yours.'"
Pahom accepts this condition, and the next day, sets out to mark the boundaries of the tract he wants. However the same dissatisfaction that has spurred him on through all his previous acquisitions comes into play as he walks. Each time he thinks about turning to finish one side of his square and begin the next, he sees another bit of land beyond where he is standing, and decides that he has to have it.
"'I will go on for another three miles,' thought he, 'and then turn to the left. The spot is so fine, that it would be a pity to lose it. The further one goes, the better the land seems.'"
Pahom ends up going too far in one direction before turning, and too far in the second direction before turning again back towards his starting point. By the time he is moving back towards the starting point, the sun is beginning to set, and Pahom is rushing to reach the goal before his deal with the Bashkirs expires.
"'What shall I do,' he thought again, 'I have grasped too much, and ruined the whole affair. I can't get there before the sun sets.'[...]'There is plenty of land,' thought he, 'but will God let me live on it? I have lost my life, I have lost my life! I shall never reach that spot!'"
With a final burst of speed, Pahom manages to reach his starting point just as the sun sets, thus securing the land for himself as agreed with the chief. The effort, however, has killed him. Interestingly, the Bashkirs don't seem very surprised by this, simply clicking their tongues sympathetically as if this has happened before. They bury Pahom at his starting point, and the story ends.
When the Bashkir chief agrees to let Pahom have whatever he can circumambulate in a day, he is gambling that Pahom will either walk a reasonable distance, and thus the Bashkirs will part with a small piece of land, or that he will be compelled by greed to go too far, and thus the Bashkirs will keep his thousand roubles' payment and part with nothing. Perhaps the joy the Bashkirs show when Pahom comes to them is a result of finding another easy mark. The Bashkirs cannot lose in this deal, after all—they will sell a thousand roubles' worth of land to the reasonable prospectors, and pocket a thousand roubles for nothing in cases like Pahom's.
Pahom, the greedy Russian peasant, has been buying up increasingly large parcels of land. He's become obsessed with the acquisition of land, which has already made him a well-off man. But he's not satisfied and wants more and more, as much as he can get his hands on. So when he encounters the Bashkirs, he thinks that all his prayers have been answered.
The Bashkirs come across to Pahom as somewhat naive in the ways of the world. They have all this land and yet they're prepared to sell as much of it to Pahom as he can walk around in a single day. To the grasping Pahom, this seems like an unbeatable bargain. Unfortunately, his greed has got the better of him, and he dies in the attempt to grab as much of the Bashkirs' land as he can. The only land he ever really needed was that in which his coffin is to be buried.
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