Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Leo Tolstoy – The Two Old Men – Contents
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II.
Eliséy persuaded his friend to go. Efím thought and thought about it, and on the following morning he came to Eliséy.
“Well, let us go,” he said, “you have spoken rightly. God controls life and death. We must go while we are alive and have strength.”
A week later the old men started.
Tarásych had money at home. He took one hundred roubles with him and left two hundred with his wife.
Eliséy, too, got ready. He sold his neighbour ten hives and the increase of ten other hives. For the whole he received seventy roubles. The remaining thirty roubles he swept up from everybody in the house. His wife gave him the last she had,—she had put it away for her funeral; his daughter-in-law gave him what she had.
Efím Tarásych left all his affairs in the hands of his eldest son: he told him where to mow, and how many fields to mow, and where to haul the manure, and how to finish the hut and thatch it. He considered everything, and gave his orders. But all the order that Eliséy gave was that his wife should set out the young brood separately from the hives sold and give the neighbour what belonged to him without cheating him, but about domestic affairs he did not even speak: “The needs themselves,” he thought, “will show you what to do and how to do it. You have been farming yourselves, so you will do as seems best to you.”
The old men got ready. The home folk baked a lot of flat cakes for them, and they made wallets for themselves, cut out new leg-rags, put on new short boots, took reserve bast shoes, and started. The home folk saw them off beyond the enclosure and bade them good-bye, and the old men were off for their pilgrimage.
Eliséy left in a happy mood, and as soon as he left his village he forgot all his affairs. All the care he had was how to please his companion, how to keep from saying an unseemly word to anybody, how to reach the goal in peace and love, and how to get home again. As Eliséy walked along the road he either muttered some prayer or repeated such of the lives of the saints as he knew. Whenever he met a person on the road, or when he came to a hostelry, he tried to be as kind to everybody as he could, and to say to them God-fearing words. He walked along and was happy. There was only one thing Eliséy could not do: he wanted to stop taking snuff and had left his snuff-box at home, but he hankered for it. On the road a man offered him some. He wrangled with himself and stepped away from his companion so as not to lead him into sin, and took a pinch.
Efím Tarásych walked firmly and well; he did no wrong and spoke no vain words, but there was no lightness in his heart. The cares about his home did not leave his mind. He was thinking all the time about what was going on at home,—whether he had not forgotten to give his son some order, and whether his son was doing things in the right way. When he saw along the road that they were setting out potatoes or hauling manure, he wondered whether his son was doing as he had been ordered. He just felt like returning, and showing him what to do, and doing it himself.
Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Leo Tolstoy – The Two Old Men – Contents
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