Too Dear! by Leo Tolstoy. Short summary

5 seconds

Monaco doesn’t know what to do with the killer. It was expensive to execute him and expensive to keep him imprisoned forever. They decided to pay him a boarding house to live outside the Principality. He lived at his own pleasure.

1 minute

In the small principality of Monaco, a murder happened. It had never happened before in the state. The murderer was tried, sentenced to death. The prince signed the sentence.

But it turned out that in the whole principality there was no instrument of execution and no executioner. The Prince of Monaco turned to France with a request to send an executioner and a guillotine. They agreed for 16,000 francs. The prince felt that it was expensive.

They asked them to send an executioner and a machine from Italy. The bill came in for 12,000. The Prince thought the execution was too expensive. They decided to replace it with eternal imprisonment. They could barely find a room and a watchman. Food was brought to him from the palace.

A year later they counted the expenses and found it too expensive. They fired the watchman and decided that if the prisoner went away, so be it. But the criminal himself would go to the palace for food and then lock himself in his prison.

The government of Monaco, in order to get rid of him, offered him a boarding house once a year. He agreed and settled not far from the prince’s possessions.

It was lucky for him that he did not commit a crime where they do not spare money on executions and prisons.