Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

to run out of flour, one of the women would come across: ‘Uncle Trol, we want some flour.’ ‘Go to the barn, dear,’ I’d say: ‘take what you need.’ If he’d no one to take his horses to pasture, ‘Go, Iván,’ I’d say, ‘and look after his horses.’ And if I was short of anything, I’d go to him. ‘Uncle Gordéy,’ I’d say, ‘I want so-and-so!’ ‘Take it Uncle Trol!’ That’s how it was between us, and we had an easy time of it. But now?⁠ ⁠… That soldier the other day was telling us about the fight at Plevna.227 Why, there’s war between you worse than at Plevna! Is that living?⁠ ⁠… What a sin it is! You are a man and master of the house; it’s you who will have to answer. What are you teaching the women and the children? To snarl and snap? Why, the other day your Taráska⁠—that greenhorn⁠—was swearing at neighbour Irena, calling her names; and his mother listened and laughed. Is that right? It is you will have to answer. Think of your soul. Is this all as it should be? You throw a word at me, and I give you two in return; you give me a blow, and I give you two. No, lad! Christ, when He walked on earth, taught us fools something very different.⁠ ⁠… If you get a hard word from anyone, keep silent, and his own conscience will accuse him. That is what our Lord taught. If you get a slap, turn the other cheek. ‘Here, beat me, if that’s what I deserve!’ And his own conscience will rebuke him. He will soften, and will listen to you. That’s the way He taught us, not to be proud!⁠ ⁠… Why don’t you speak? Isn’t it as I say?”

Iván sat silent and listened.

The old man coughed, and having with difficulty cleared his throat, began again: “You think Christ taught us wrong? Why, it’s all for our own good. Just think of your earthly life; are you better off, or worse, since this Plevna began among you? Just reckon up what you’ve spent on all this law business⁠—what the driving backwards and forwards and your food on the way have cost you! What fine fellows your sons have grown; you might live and get on well; but now your means are lessening. And why? All because of this folly; because of your pride. You ought to be ploughing with your lads, and do the sowing yourself; but the fiend carries you off to the judge, or to some pettifogger or other. The ploughing is not done in time, nor the sowing, and mother earth can’t bear properly. Why did the oats fail this year? When did you sow them? When you came back from town! And what did you gain? A burden for your own shoulders.⁠ ⁠… Eh, lad, think of your own business! Work with your boys in the field and at home, and if someone offends you, forgive him, as God wished you to. Then life will be easy, and your heart will always be light.”

Iván remained silent.

“Iván, my boy, hear your old father! Go and harness the roan, and go at once to the Government office; put an end to all this affair there; and in the morning go and make it up with Gabriel in God’s name, and invite him to your house for tomorrow’s holiday” (it was the eve of the Virgin’s Nativity). “Have tea ready, and get a bottle of vodka and put an end to this wicked business, so that there should not be any more of it in future, and tell the women and children to do the same.”

Iván sighed, and thought, “What he says is true,” and his heart grew lighter. Only he did not know how, now, to begin to put matters right.

But again the old man began, as if he had guessed what was in Iván’s mind.

“Go, Iván, don’t put it off! Put out the fire before it spreads, or it will be too late.”

The old man was going to say more, but before he could do so the women came in, chattering like magpies. The news that Gabriel was sentenced to be flogged, and of his threat to set fire to the house, had already reached them. They had heard all about it and added to it something of their own, and had again had a row, in the pasture, with the women of Gabriel’s household. They began telling how Gabriel’s daughter-in-law threatened a fresh action: Gabriel had got the right side of the examining magistrate, who would now turn the whole affair upside down; and the schoolmaster was writing out another petition, to the Tsar himself this time, about Iván; and everything was in the petition⁠—all about the coupling-pin and the kitchen-garden⁠—so that half of Iván’s homestead would be theirs soon. Iván heard what they were saying, and his heart grew cold again, and he gave up the thought of making peace with Gabriel.

In a farmstead there is always plenty for the master to do. Iván did not stop to talk to the women, but went out to the threshing-floor and to the barn. By the time he had tidied up there, the sun had set and the young fellows had returned from the field. They had been ploughing the field for the winter crops with two horses. Iván met them, questioned them about their work, helped to put everything in its place, set a torn horse-collar aside to be mended, and was going to put away some stakes under the barn, but it had grown quite dusk, so he decided to leave them where they were till next day. Then he gave the cattle their food, opened the gate, let out the horses Tarás was to take to pasture for the night, and again closed the gate and barred it. “Now,” thought he, “I’ll have my supper, and then to bed.” He took the horse-collar and entered