Tolstoi for the young. Select tales from Tolstoi

“Ask Granny to forgive you and don’t do it again in future; I saw you take the apple.”

The boy burst into tears and begged the old woman to forgive him.

“There now, here’s an apple for you,” and Martin took an apple from the basket and gave it to the boy. “I’ll pay for it, Granny,” he said.

“You shouldn’t spoil the rascal,” the old woman said. “You ought to give him something he wouldn’t forget in a week.”

“Ah, Granny, Granny!” Martin said; “that is how we judge, but God does not judge like that. If the boy is to be whipped for an apple what do you suppose we deserve for our sins?”

The old woman was silent.

And Martin told her the parable of the Lord who forgave his servant a large debt and how the servant then seized his own debtor by the throat. The old woman listened; the boy, too, stood and listened.

“God bade us forgive,” Martin said, “that we may be forgiven. Forgive every one, even a thoughtless boy.”

The old woman shook her head with a sigh.

“It’s true enough,” she said, “but boys get very spoilt nowadays.”

“Then we old folk must teach them better,” Martin said.

“That’s just what I said,” the old woman replied. “I had seven of my own, but now I’ve only a daughter left.” And the old woman began to tell him where and how she lived with her daughter and how many grandchildren she had. “You see,” she said, “I’m old now, yet still I work, for the sake of the grandchildren. And nice children they are, too. No one is so kind to me as they. The youngest won’t leave me for any one. It’s nothing but Granny dear, Granny darling all the time.”

The old woman had quite softened by now.

“Children will be children,” she said to Martin in reference to the boy. “The Lord bless them.”

She was about to raise her bag on to her shoulder when the boy rushed up and said, “Let me carry it, Granny; I’m going your way.”

The old woman shook her head and put the bag on the boy’s shoulder. And they walked down the street side by side. The old woman had forgotten to ask Martin to pay for the apple. Martin stood and watched them, listening to their voices as they talked together.

When they were out of sight he turned in, found his spectacles on the stairs quite whole, took up his awl and sat down to his work once more. After a while he could not see to pass the thread through the holes and he noticed the lamplighter lighting the street lamps. “I must light up,” he thought. And he trimmed the lamp, hung it up and went on with his work. He finished the boot he was doing and turned it over to examine it. He then put away his tools, cleared up the bits of leather and thread and awls, took down the lamp, put it on the table and took the Bible down from the shelf. He wanted to open it at the place he had marked with a piece of morocco, but it opened at another place. And as he opened the Gospels Martin recalled his dream of last night. And no sooner had he thought of it than he seemed to hear some one move behind him, as though some one were coming towards him. He turned, and it seemed to him that people were standing in the dark corner, but he could not make out who they were. And a voice whispered into his ear, “Martin, Martin, don’t you know me?”

“Who is it?” Martin asked.

“It is I,” the voice said.

And Stepan stepped out of the dark corner, smiling, and vanished like a cloud, and he was no more.

“It is I,” the voice said again, and from out the dark corner stepped the woman with the baby, and she smiled and the child smiled, and they too vanished.

“It is I,” said the voice once more, and out stepped the old woman and boy with an apple in his hand, and both smiled and also vanished.

And a feeling of gladness entered Martin’s soul. He crossed himself, put on his spectacles and began to read the Gospel just where it had opened. At the top of the page were the words, “For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger and ye took me in…”

And at the bottom of the page he read, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

And Martin understood that his dream had come true and that his Saviour had really come to him that day, and that he had welcomed Him.

A PRISONER

An officer by the name of Jilin served in the army in the Caucasus.

One day he received a letter from home. It was from his mother, who wrote, “I am getting old now, and I want to see my beloved son before I die. Come and say good-bye to me, and when you have buried me, with God’s grace, you can return to the Army. I have found a nice girl for you to marry; she is clever and pretty, and has some property of her own. If you like her perhaps you will marry and settle down for good.”

Jilin pondered over the letter. It was true; his mother was really failing fast, and it might be his only chance of seeing her alive. He would go home, and if the girl was nice, he might even marry.

He went to his colonel and asked for leave, and bidding good-bye to his fellow-officers, gave his men four bucketfuls of vodka as a farewell treat, and got ready to go.

There was a war in the Caucasus at the time. The roads were not safe by day or by night. If a Russian ventured away from his fort, the Tartars either killed him or took him off to the hills. So it had been arranged that a body of soldiers should march from fortress to fortress to convoy any person who wanted to travel. The soldiers marched in front and behind; the travellers in between them.

It was summer. At daybreak the baggage-train was loaded behind the fort; the convoy came out and started along the road. Jilin was on horseback; his things were on a cart with the baggage-train.

They had about twenty miles to go. The baggage-train moved along slowly; now the soldiers would stop, now a wheel came off a cart, now a horse would refuse to go on, and then everybody had to wait.

It was already past noon and they had not covered half the distance. It was hot, dusty, the sun scorching and no shade at all – bare steppe, with not a tree or a bush the whole way.

Jilin rode on ahead and stopped to wait until the baggage-train should catch him up. He heard the signal-horn sounded; the company had stopped again. Jilin thought, “Why shouldn’t I go on alone without the soldiers? I have a good horse, and if I come across any Tartars I can easily gallop away. I wonder if it would be safe?”

As he stood there thinking it over, another officer, by the name of Kostilin, rode up with a rifle and said, “Let us go on alone, Jilin. I’m dreadfully hungry, and the heat’s unbearable. My shirt is wringing wet.”

Kostilin was a big man and stout; his face was burning red, and the perspiration poured from his brow.

Jilin deliberated for a moment and said, “Is your rifle loaded?”

“It is.”

“Very well; come along. Only the condition is to be that we don’t part.”

And they set off down the road alone. They were riding along the steppe talking together and keeping a sharp look-out from side to side. They could see a long way round them. When they left the steppe they came to a road running down a valley between two hills. And Jilin said, “Let’s go up on that hill and look about; some Tartars might easily spring out from the hills and we shouldn’t see them.”

“What’s the use?” Kostilin said. “We’d better go on.”

Jilin paid no heed to him.

“You wait down here,” he said, “and I’ll just go up and have a look.” And he turned his horse to the left up the hill. Jilin’s horse was a hunter and carried him up the hill as though it had wings. He had bought it for a hundred roubles as a colt, and broken it in himself. When he reached the top of the hill he saw some thirty Tartars a few paces ahead of him. He turned hastily, but the Tartars had seen him and gave chase down the hill, getting their rifles out as they went. Jilin bounded down as fast as the horse’s legs would carry him, crying out to Kostilin, “Get your rifle ready!” And in thought he said to his horse, “Get me out of this, my beauty; don’t stumble, or I’m lost. Once I reach the rifle, they shan’t take me alive!”

But Kostilin, instead of waiting when he saw the Tartars, set off full gallop in the direction of the fortress, lashing his horse now on one side, now on the other, and the horse’s switching tail was all that could be seen of him in the clouds of dust.

Jilin saw that it was all up with him. The rifle was gone; with a sword alone he could do nothing. He turned his horse in the direction of the convoy, hoping to escape, but six Tartars rushed ahead to cut him off. His horse was a good one, but theirs were better, and they were trying to cross his path. He wanted to turn in another direction, but his horse could not pull up and dashed on straight towards the Tartars. A red-bearded Tartar on a grey horse caught Jilin’s eyes. He was yelling and showing his teeth and pointing his rifle at him.

“I know what devils you are!” Jilin thought. “If you take me alive, you’ll put me in a pit and have me flogged. I’ll not be taken alive!”

Though Jilin was a little man, he was brave. He drew his sword and dashed at the red-bearded Tartar, thinking, “I’ll either ride him down or kill him with my sword.”

But he had no time to reach the Tartar; he was fired at from behind and his horse was hit. It fell to the ground full weight, pinning Jilin’s leg. He attempted to rise, but two evil-smelling Tartars were already sitting on him, twisting his arms behind him. He struggled, flung the Tartars off, but three others leapt from their horses and fell on him, beating him on the head with the butt ends of their rifles. A mist rose before his eyes and he staggered. The Tartars seized him, and taking spare girths from their saddles twisted his hands behind him and tied them with a Tartar knot and dragged him to the saddle. They knocked off his cap, pulled off his boots, searched him all over, took his money and watch and tore his clothes. Jilin looked round at his horse. The poor creature lay on its side just as it had fallen, struggling with its legs in the air and unable to get them to the ground. There was a hole in its head from which the dark blood was oozing, laying the dust for a yard around.

One of the Tartars approached it and took off the saddle. As it was still struggling, he drew a dagger and cut its windpipe. A whistling sound came from its throat; the horse gave a shudder and died.