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

cried Iván, lifting his arms and striking his thighs. “Why, all I had to do was just to snatch it out from under the eaves and trample on it! What is this, friends?⁠ ⁠…” he kept repeating. He wished to shout, but his breath failed him; his voice was gone. He wanted to run, but his legs would not obey him, and got in each other’s way. He moved slowly, but again staggered and again his breath failed. He stood still till he had regained breath, and then went on. Before he had got round the back shed to reach the fire, the side shed was also all ablaze; and the corner of the hut and the covered gateway had caught fire as well. The flames were leaping out of the hut, and it was impossible to get into the yard. A large crowd had collected, but nothing could be done. The neighbours were carrying their belongings out of their own houses, and driving the cattle out of their own sheds. After Iván’s house, Gabriel’s also caught fire, then, the wind rising, the flames spread to the other side of the street and half the village was burnt down.

At Iván’s house they barely managed to save his old father; and the family escaped in what they had on; everything else, except the horses that had been driven out to pasture for the night, was lost; all the cattle, the fowls on their perches, the carts, ploughs, and harrows, the women’s trunks with their clothes, and the grain in the granaries⁠—all were burnt up!

At Gabriel’s, the cattle were driven out, and a few things saved from his house.

The fire lasted all night. Iván stood in front of his homestead and kept repeating, “What is this?⁠ ⁠… Friends!⁠ ⁠… One need only have pulled it out and trampled on it!” But when the roof fell in, Iván rushed into the burning place, and seizing a charred beam, tried to drag it out. The women saw him, and called him back; but he pulled out the beam, and was going in again for another when he lost his footing and fell among the flames. Then his son made his way in after him and dragged him out. Iván had singed his hair and beard and burnt his clothes and scorched his hands, but he felt nothing. “His grief has stupefied him,” said the people. The fire was burning itself out, but Iván still stood repeating: “Friends!⁠ ⁠… What is this?⁠ ⁠… One need only have pulled it out!”

In the morning the village Elder’s son came to fetch Iván.

“Daddy Iván, your father is dying! He has sent for you to say goodbye.”

Iván had forgotten about his father, and did not understand what was being said to him.

“What father?” he said. “Whom has he sent for?”

“He sent for you, to say goodbye; he is dying in our cottage! Come along, daddy Iván,” said the Elder’s son, pulling him by the arm; and Iván followed the lad.

When he was being carried out of the hut, some burning straw had fallen onto the old man and burnt him, and he had been taken to the village Elder’s in the farther part of the village, which the fire did not reach.

When Iván came to his father, there was only the Elder’s wife in the hut, besides some little children on the top of the oven. All the rest were still at the fire. The old man, who was lying on a bench holding a wax candle228 in his hand, kept turning his eyes towards the door. When his son entered, he moved a little. The old woman went up to him and told him that his son had come. He asked to have him brought nearer. Iván came closer.

“What did I tell you, Iván?” began the old man. “Who has burnt down the village?”

“It was he, father!” Iván answered. “I caught him in the act. I saw him shove the firebrand into the thatch. I might have pulled away the burning straw and stamped it out, and then nothing would have happened.”

“Iván,” said the old man, “I am dying, and you in your turn will have to face death. Whose is the sin?”

Iván gazed at his father in silence, unable to utter a word.

“Now, before God, say whose is the sin? What did I tell you?”

Only then Iván came to his senses and understood it all. He sniffed and said, “Mine, father!” And he fell on his knees before his father, saying, “Forgive me, father; I am guilty before you and before God.”

The old man moved his hands, changed the candle from his right hand to his left, and tried to lift his right hand to his forehead to cross himself, but could not do it, and stopped.

“Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!” said he, and again he turned his eyes towards his son.

“Iván! I say, Iván!”

“What, father?”

“What must you do now?”

Iván was weeping.

“I don’t know how we are to live now, father!” he said.

The old man closed his eyes, moved his lips as if to gather strength, and opening his eyes again, said: “You’ll manage. If you obey God’s will, you’ll manage!” He paused, then smiled, and said: “Mind, Iván! Don’t tell who started the fire! Hide another man’s sin, and God will forgive two of yours!” And the old man took the candle in both hands and, folding them on his breast, sighed, stretched out, and died.

Iván did not say anything against Gabriel, and no one knew what had caused the fire.

And Iván’s anger against Gabriel passed away, and Gabriel wondered that Iván did not tell anybody. At first Gabriel felt afraid, but after awhile he got used to it. The men left off quarrelling, and then their families left off also. While rebuilding their huts, both families lived in one house; and when the village was rebuilt and they might have moved farther apart, Iván and Gabriel built next to each other, and remained neighbours as before.

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