Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Leo Tolstoy – The Two Old Men – Contents
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VII.
Eliséy had walked about five versts, when day began to break. He sat down under a tree, untied his wallet, and began to count his money. He found that he had seventeen roubles twenty kopeks left.
“Well,” he thought, “with this sum I cannot travel beyond the sea, but if I beg in Christ’s name, I shall only increase my sin. Friend Efím will reach the place by himself, and will put up a candle for me. But I shall evidently never fulfil my vow. The master is merciful, and he will forgive me.”
Eliséy got up, slung his wallet over his shoulders, and turned back. He made a circle around the village so that people might not see him. And soon he reached home. On his way out he had found it hard: it was hard keeping up with Efím; but on his way home God made it easy for him, for he did not know what weariness was. Walking was just play to him, and he swayed his staff, and made as much as seventy versts a day.
Eliséy came back home. The harvest was all in. The home folk were glad to see the old man. They asked all about him, why he had left his companion and why he had not gone to Jerusalem, but had returned home. Eliséy did not tell them anything.
“God did not grant me that I should,” he said. “I spent my money on the way, and got separated from my companion. And so I did not go. Forgive me for Christ’s sake.”
He gave the old woman what money he had left. He asked all about the home matters: everything was right; everything had been attended to and nothing missed, and all were living in peace and agreement.
Efím’s people heard that very day that Eliséy had come back, and so they came to inquire about their old man. And Eliséy told them the same story.
“You see,” he said, “the old man started to walk briskly, and three days before St. Peter’s day we lost each other. I wanted to catch up with him, but it happened that I spent all my money and could not go on, so I returned home.”
The people marvelled how it was that such a clever man had acted so foolishly as to start and not reach the place and merely spend his money. They wondered awhile, and forgot about it. Eliséy, too, forgot about it. He began to work about the house: he got the wood ready for the winter with his son, threshed the grain with the women, thatched the sheds, gathered in the bees, and gave ten hives with the young brood to his neighbour. When he got all the work done, he sent his son out to earn money, and himself sat down in the winter to plait bast shoes and hollow out blocks for the hives.
Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Leo Tolstoy – The Two Old Men – Contents
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