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

trying to jump.

“What, you nasty thing, are you here again?”

“I’m another,” said the imp. “The first was my brother. I’ve been with your brother Simon.”

“Well,” said Iván, “whoever you are, you’ve met the same fate!”

He was about to dash him against the cart, but the imp cried out: “Let me off, and I will not only let you alone, but I’ll do anything you tell me to do.”

“What can you do?”

“I can make soldiers out of anything you like.”

“But what use are they?”

“You can turn them to any use; they can do anything you please.”

“Can they sing?”

“Yes, if you want them to.”

“All right; you may make me some.”

And the imp said, “Here, take a sheaf of rye, then bump it upright on the ground, and simply say:

“O sheaf! my slave
This order gave:
Where a straw has been
Let a soldier be seen!”

Iván took the sheaf, struck it on the ground, and said what the imp had told him to. The sheaf fell asunder, and all the straws changed into soldiers, with a trumpeter and a drummer playing in front, so that there was a whole regiment.

Iván laughed.

“How clever!” said he. “This is fine! How pleased the girls will be!”

“Now let me go,” said the imp.

“No,” said Iván, “I must make my soldiers of thrashed straw, otherwise good grain will be wasted. Teach me how to change them back again into the sheaf. I want to thrash it.”

And the imp said, “Repeat:

‘Let each be a straw
Who was soldier before,
For my true slave
This order gave!’ ”

Iván said this, and the sheaf reappeared.

Again the imp began to beg, “Now let me go!”

“All right.” And Iván pressed him against the side of the cart, held him down with his hand, and pulled him off the fork.

“God be with you,” said he.

And as soon as he mentioned God, the imp plunged into the earth like a stone into water. Only a hole was left.

Iván returned home, and there was his other brother, Tarás with his wife, sitting at supper.

Tarás the Stout had failed to pay his debts, had run away from his creditors, and had come home to his father’s house. When he saw Iván, “Look here,” said he, “till I can start in business again, I want you to keep me and my wife.”

“All right,” said Iván, “you can live here, if you like.”

Iván took off his coat and sat down to table, but the merchant’s wife said: “I cannot sit at table with this clown, he smells of perspiration.”

Then Tarás the Stout said, “Iván, you smell too strong. Go and eat outside.”

“All right,” said Iván, taking some bread and going into the yard. “It is time, anyhow, for me to go and pasture the mare.”

V

Tarás’s imp, being also free that night, came, as agreed, to help his comrades subdue Iván the Fool. He came to the cornfield, looked and looked for his comrades⁠—no one was there. He only found a hole. He went to the meadow, and there he found an imp’s tail in the swamp, and another hole in the rye stubble.

“Evidently, some ill-luck has befallen my comrades,” thought he. “I must take their place and tackle the fool.”

So the imp went to look for Iván, who had already stacked the corn and was cutting trees in the wood. The two brothers had begun to feel crowded, living together, and had told Iván to cut down trees to build new houses for them.

The imp ran to the wood, climbed among the branches, and began to hinder Iván from felling the trees. Iván undercut one tree so that it should fall clear, but in falling it turned askew and caught among some branches. Iván cut a pole with which to lever it aside, and with difficulty contrived to bring it to the ground. He set to work to fell another tree⁠—again the same thing occurred; and with all his efforts he could hardly get the tree clear. He began on a third tree, and again the same thing happened.

Iván had hoped to cut down half a hundred small trees, but had not felled even half a score, and now the night was come and he was tired out. The steam from him spread like a mist through the wood, but still he stuck to his work. He undercut another tree, but his back began to ache so that he could not stand. He drove his axe into the tree and sat down to rest.

The imp, noticing that Iván had stopped work, grew cheerful.

“At last,” thought he, “he is tired out! He will give it up. Now I can take a rest myself.”

He seated himself astride a branch and chuckled. But soon Iván got up, pulled the axe out, swung it, and smote the tree from the opposite side with such force that the tree gave way at once and came crashing down. The imp had not expected this, and had no time to get his feet clear, and the tree in breaking, gripped his paw. Iván began to lop off the branches, when he noticed a live imp hanging in the tree! Iván was surprised.

“What, you nasty thing,” says he, “so you are here again!”

“I am another one,” says the imp. “I have been with your brother Tarás.”

“Whoever you are, you have met your fate,” said Iván, and swinging his axe he was about to strike him with the haft, but the imp begged for mercy: “Don’t strike me,” said he, “and I will do anything you tell me to.”

“What can you do?”

“I can make money for you, as much as you want.”

“All right, make some.” So the imp showed him how to do it.

“Take,” said he, “some leaves from this oak and rub them in your hands, and gold will fall out on the ground.”

Iván took some leaves and rubbed them, and gold ran down from his hands.

“This stuff will do fine,” said he, “for the fellows to play with on their holidays.”

“Now let me go.” said the imp.

“All