Russian Fable
Texts For Chapbook Illustrations 1885
Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Leo Tolstoy – Fables for Children By Leo Tolstoy – A Fairy-Tale – Contents
IV.
That night Semén’s devil got through with his work and by agreement went to find Iván’s devil, to help to make an end of the fool. He came to the field and looked for him everywhere, but found only the hole.
“Something has evidently gone wrong with my comrade,” he thought,—”I must take his place. The ploughing is done,—I shall have to catch him in the mowing time.”
The devil went to the meadows and sent a flood on the mowing so that it was all covered with mud. Iván returned in the morning from the night watch, whetted his scythe, and went out to mow the meadows. He came, and began to mow: he swung the scythe once, and a second time, and it grew dull and would not cut,—it was necessary to grind it. Iván worked hard and in vain.
“No,” he said, “I will go home, and will bring the grindstone with me, and a round loaf. If I have to stay here for a week, I will not give up until I mow it all.”
When the devil heard it he thought:
“This fool is stiff-necked,—I cannot get at him. I must try something else.”
Iván came back, ground his scythe, and began to mow. The devil crept into the grass and began to catch the scythe by the snath-end and to stick the point into the ground. It went hard with Iván, but he finished the mowing, and there was left only one scrubby place in the swamp. The devil crawled into the swamp and thought:
“If I get both my paws cut, I will not let him mow it.”
Iván went into the swamp; the grass was not dense, but he found it hard to move the scythe. Iván grew angry and began to swing the scythe with all his might. The devil gave in; he had hardly time to get away,—he saw that matters were in bad shape, so he hid in a bush. Iván swung the scythe with all his might and struck the bush, and cut off half of the devil’s tail. Iván finished the mowing, told the girl to rake it up, and himself went to cut the rye.
He went out with a round knife, but the bobtailed devil had been there before him and had so mixed up the rye that he could not cut it with the round knife. Iván went back, took the sickle, and began to cut it; he cut all the rye.
“Now I must go to the oats,” he said.
The bobtailed devil heard it, and thought:
“I could not cope with him on the rye, but I will get the better of him in the oats,—just let the morning come.”
The devil ran in the morning to the oats-field, but the oats were all cut down. Iván had cut them in the night, to keep them from dropping the seed.
The devil grew angry:
“The fool has cut me all up, and has worn me out. I have not seen such trouble even in war-time. The accursed one does not sleep,—I cannot keep up with him. I will go now to the ricks, and will rot them all.”
And the devil went to the rye-rick, climbed between the sheaves, and began to rot them: he warmed them up, and himself grew warm and fell asleep.
Iván hitched his mare, and went with the girl to haul away the ricks. He drove up to one and began to throw the sheaves into the cart. He had just put two sheaves in when he stuck his fork straight into the devil’s back; he raised it, and, behold, on the prongs was a live devil, and a bobtailed one at that, and he was writhing and twisting, and trying to get off.
“I declare,” he said, “it is a nasty thing! Are you here again?”
“I am a different devil,” he said. “My brother was here before. I was with your brother Semén.”
“I do not care who you are,” he replied, “you will catch it, too.”
He wanted to strike him against the ground, but the devil began to beg him:
“Let me go, and I will not do it again, and I will do for you anything you please.”
“What can you do?”
“I can make soldiers for you from anything.”
“What good are they?”
“You can turn them to any use you please: they will do anything.”
“Can they play music?”
“They can.”
“All right, make them for me!”
And the devil said:
“Take a sheaf of rye, strike the lower end against the ground, and say: ‘By my master’s command not a sheaf shall you stand, but as many straws as there are so many soldiers there be.’”
Iván took the sheaf, shook it against the ground, and spoke as the devil told him to. And the sheaf fell to pieces, and the straws were changed into soldiers, and in front a drummer was drumming, and a trumpeter blowing the trumpet. Iván laughed.
“I declare,” he said, “it is clever. This is nice to amuse the girls with.”
“Let me go now,” said the devil.
“No,” he said, “I will do that with threshed straw, and I will not let full ears waste for nothing. I will thresh them first.”
So the devil said:
“Say, ‘As many soldiers, so many straws there be! With my master’s command again a sheaf it shall stand.’”
Iván said this, and the sheaf was as before. And the devil begged him again:
“Let me go now!”
“All right!” Iván caught him on the cart-hurdle, held him down with his hand, and pulled him off the fork. “God be with you!” he said.
The moment he said, “God be with you,” the devil bolted through the earth, as a stone plumps into the water, and only a hole was left.
Iván went home, and there he found his second brother. Tarás and his wife were sitting and eating supper. Tarás the Paunch had not calculated right, and so he ran away from his debts and came to his father’s. When he saw Iván, he said:
“Iván, feed me and my wife until I go back to trading!”
“All right,” he said, “stay with us!”
Iván took off his caftan, and seated himself at the table.
But the merchant’s wife said:
“I cannot eat with a fool. He stinks of sweat.”
So Tarás the Paunch said:
“Iván, you do not smell right, so go and eat in the vestibule!”
“All right,” he said, and, taking bread, he went out. “It is just right,” he said, “for it is time for me to go and pasture the mare for the night.”
Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Leo Tolstoy – Fables for Children By Leo Tolstoy – A Fairy-Tale – Contents
Copyright holders – Public Domain Book
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