There's an old Tolstoy story called How Much Land Does a Man Need? Here it is, more or less the way I remember it.

A peasant named Pahom overhears his wife say that a peasant's life, hard as it is, has one advantage: it's safe. No land to lose, nothing to fear, not even the devil. Pahom disagrees. Give me enough land, he thinks, and I wouldn't fear the devil himself. Behind the stove, the devil is listening. He smiles. We'll see about that.

Pahom buys land, and it feels like paradise for a while, until neighbors start trespassing and the peace doesn't hold. He hears about better land elsewhere, cheaper too, sells everything, and moves. Good land. For a while. Then that isn't enough either. Word comes of land out in Bashkir territory, nearly free. He travels hundreds of miles to get there. The chief makes him an offer: walk as far as he wants in a single day, sunrise to sunset, and trace any shape he likes. Everything inside it is his for a thousand rubles, barely anything for what he'd gain. One condition: he has to be back at his starting point before the sun sets, or he loses it all.

That night he dreams of a man lying dead on the ground. He steps closer. It's him. The devil stands over the body, laughing. He wakes up unsettled, then shrugs it off as a strange dream.

At dawn he starts walking, and the land keeps pulling him further than he planned. Just past that hill. Just that valley too. One more meadow before he turns back. By the time he checks the sun, he's gone too far, and he starts running. Boots off. Coat on the ground. Lungs burning. He comes into sight of the starting point just as the sun touches the horizon, sprints the last stretch, and collapses across the line with his hand still reaching for the chief's cap. He dies right as he reaches it.

The chief laughs. What a fine fellow, he says. Look how much land he won. His servants dig him a grave, six feet, head to heel. That was all the land he ever needed.

I don't have a tidy lesson to wrap this in. I think it's better left exactly as it is.