Tolstoi for the young. Select tales from Tolstoi

“How can I alone have you all put to death? Had I not been a fool I would have explained it to you, but I don’t understand it myself.”

“Then we won’t go,” the fools said.

“Very well, don’t.”

The fools went to the general and refused to enlist as soldiers.

The old Devil saw that his plan would not work, so he went to the King of Tarakan and wormed himself into his favour.

“Come,” he said, “let us go and make war on King Ivan. He has no money, but grain and cattle and all manner of good things he has in abundance.”

The King of Tarakan prepared to make war. He gathered together a large army, repaired his guns and cannons and marched across the border on his way to Ivan’s kingdom.

People came to Ivan and said, “The King of Tarakan is marching on us with his army.”

“Very well; let him,” Ivan said.

When the King of Tarakan crossed the border he sent his vanguard to find Ivan’s troops. They searched and searched, but no troops were to be found anywhere. Should they wait and see if they showed themselves? But there was no sign of any troops and no one to fight with. The King of Tarakan sent men to seize the villages. The soldiers came to one village and the fools – men and women alike – rushed out and stood gaping at them in wonder. The soldiers began to take away their corn and cattle and the fools let them have what they wanted, making no resistance. The soldiers went to another village and the same thing was repeated. And they marched one day and another, and still the same thing happened. Everything was given up without any resistance and the fools even invited the soldiers to stay with them. “If you find it hard to live in your parts, good fellows, come and settle with us altogether.” And the soldiers marched from village to village and no troops were to be found anywhere; the people lived, fed themselves and others; no one offered any resistance and every one invited them to settle there.

And the soldiers grew weary of the job and they went back to their King of Tarakan.

“We can’t fight here,” they said; “take us to another place. This is not war; this is child’s-play. We can’t fight here.”

The King of Tarakan grew angry. He ordered his soldiers to go over the whole kingdom and lay waste the villages and burn the corn and kill the cattle.

“If you won’t do what I tell you,” he said, “I will punish you all.”

The soldiers were frightened and began to carry out the King’s commands. They burnt the houses and corn and killed the cattle. The fools made no resistance, they only wept. The old men wept and the old women and the little children.

“Why do you treat us like this?” they said. “Why do you waste the good things? If you want them, why not take them?”

And the soldiers grew to loathe their work. They refused to go further and the troops dispersed.

XII

And the old Devil went away, having failed to bring Ivan to reason by means of the soldiers.

The old Devil changed himself into a clean gentleman and came to live in Ivan’s kingdom, hoping to ruin Ivan by money, as he had done Taras.

“I want to do you good and teach you common sense,” he said. “I will build myself a house in your midst and open an establishment.”

“Very well,” the people said; “you can live here.”

The clean gentleman spent the night and in the morning he went out to the square with a bag of gold and a bundle of papers and said, “You all live like swine. I want to teach you how you ought to live. Build me a house according to this plan. You will work for me and I will teach you and pay you in golden money.” And he showed them the gold.

The fools marvelled. They had no money in circulation, but exchanged thing for thing, or paid by labour. And they began to exchange things with the gentleman and to work for his golden coins. And the old Devil, as in Taras’ kingdom, began to circulate gold, and people brought him things and worked for him.

The old Devil rejoiced.

“At last my plan is beginning to work!” he thought. “I will ruin him as I ruined Taras, and will get him completely in my power.”

The fools collected the golden coins and gave them to the women to make themselves necklaces and to the girls to plait into their hair; the children even played with the coins in the street. After a while every one had enough and refused to take more. And the clean gentleman’s house was not half finished, and the corn and cattle had not yet been stored up for the year. And the gentleman invited people to come and work for him to bring him corn and rear his cattle, offering to pay many golden coins for everything brought and every piece of work done.

But no one would come and work, and no one would bring him anything, unless a chance boy or girl brought him an egg in exchange for a golden coin; and no one else came and he was left without any food. And the clean gentleman was hungry and went through the village to buy himself something for dinner. He went into one house and offered a golden coin for a chicken, but the mistress would not take it.

“I have many such coins,” she said.

He went into another place to buy a salt herring, offering a golden piece. “I don’t want it, my good man,” the mistress said. “I have no children to play with them, and have three of these pieces already as curiosities.”

He went into a peasant’s for some bread. The peasant too would not take the money.

“I don’t want it,” he said. “But if you want the bread in Christ’s name, then wait, and I’ll tell my old woman to cut you some.”

The old Devil spat on the ground and fled from the peasant. To hear the word Christ was worse than a knife to him, let alone to take anything in His name.

And so he got no bread. All had gold; wherever the old Devil went no one would give him anything for money, and every one said, “Bring us something else instead, or come and work, or take it in Christ’s name.” And the Devil had nothing to offer but money and had no liking for work, and he could not take anything in Christ’s name. He lost his temper.

“What more do you want when I offer you money?” he said. “You can buy anything you like for gold and employ any kind of labour.”

But the fools did not heed him.

“We don’t need money,” they said. “We exchange everything in kind and have no taxes to pay; what good would it be to us?”

The old Devil went supperless to bed.

The story reached Ivan the Fool. People came to him and said, “What shall we do? A clean gentleman has appeared in our midst who likes to eat and drink well, and dress in fine clothes, but he won’t work and won’t take anything in Christ’s name; he only offers us golden coins. People gave him what he wanted until they had enough of these coins, and now no one gives him anything. What are we to do with him? He may die of hunger.”

Ivan listened to what they had to say.

“He must be fed, certainly. Let him act as a shepherd to you all in turn.”

Since there was no way out, the old Devil had to go about shepherding. He went from house to house until it came to Ivan’s turn. The old Devil came in to dinner and the deaf and dumb girl was getting it ready. She had often been deceived by lazy folk who came in early to dinner without having done their share of work and ate up all the porridge, so she invented a means of finding out the sluggards by their hands. Those who had horny hands were put at the table; the others were given the leavings. The old Devil sat down by the table, but the deaf and dumb girl seized him by the hands and looked at them to see if they had any blisters, but they were clean and smooth and the finger nails were long. The girl grunted and pulled the old Devil away from the table.

Ivan’s wife said to him, “Don’t be offended, fine gentleman. My sister-in-law never lets any one sit at the table who hasn’t horny hands. In good time, when the others have finished, you shall get what is left.”

And the old Devil was hurt that in the King’s house they should want to feed him with the pigs. And he said to Ivan, “What a stupid custom there is in your kingdom that all people must work with their hands! I suppose you were too stupid to think of anything else. Do you think it’s only with the hands people work? Do you know what wise men work with?”

And Ivan said, “How are we fools to know; we work only with our hands and backs.”

“That is because you are fools. I will teach you how to work with the head, then you will know that it is more profitable than to work with the hands.”

Ivan wondered.

“Really! No wonder people call us fools!”

And the old Devil said, “Only it’s not easy to work with the head. You won’t give me any dinner because my hands are smooth, but you don’t know that it’s a hundred times harder to work with the head. Sometimes one’s head nearly splits.”

Ivan grew thoughtful.