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

or sometimes two; and if many guests came he would even slaughter a mare for them.

Ilyás had three children: two sons and a daughter; and he married them all off. While he was poor, his sons worked with him, and looked after the flocks and herds themselves; but when he grew rich they got spoiled, and one of them took to drink. The eldest was killed in a brawl; and the younger, who had married a self-willed woman, ceased to obey his father, and they could not live together any more.

So they parted, and Ilyás gave his son a house and some of the cattle; and this diminished his wealth. Soon after that, a disease broke out among Ilyás’s sheep, and many died. Then followed a bad harvest, and the hay crop failed; and many cattle died that winter. Then the Kirghíz captured his best herd of horses; and Ilyás’s property dwindled away. It became smaller and smaller, while at the same time his strength grew less; till, by the time he was seventy years old, he had begun to sell his furs, carpets, saddles, and tents. At last he had to part with his remaining cattle, and found himself face to face with want. Before he knew how it had happened, he had lost everything, and in their old age he and his wife had to go into service. Ilyás had nothing left, except the clothes on his back, a fur cloak, a cup, his indoor shoes and overshoes, and his wife, Sham-Shemagi, who also was old by this time. The son who had parted from him had gone into a far country, and his daughter was dead, so that there was no one to help the old couple.

Their neighbour, Muhammad-Shah, took pity on them. Muhammad-Shah was neither rich nor poor, but lived comfortably, and was a good man. He remembered Ilyás’s hospitality, and pitying him, said:

“Come and live with me, Ilyás, you and your old woman. In summer you can work in my melon-garden as much as your strength allows, and in winter feed my cattle; and Sham-Shemagi shall milk my mares and make kumiss. I will feed and clothe you both. When you need anything, tell me, and you shall have it.”

Ilyás thanked his neighbour, and he and his wife took service with Muhammad-Shah as labourers. At first the position seemed hard to them, but they got used to it, and lived on, working as much as their strength allowed.

Muhammad-Shah found it was to his advantage to keep such people, because, having been masters themselves, they knew how to manage and were not lazy, but did all the work they could. Yet it grieved Muhammad-Shah to see people brought so low who had been of such high standing.

It happened once that some of Muhammad-Shah’s relatives came from a great distance to visit him, and a Mullah came too. Muhammad-Shah told Ilyás to catch a sheep and kill it. Ilyás skinned the sheep, and boiled it, and sent it in to the guests. The guests ate the mutton, had some tea, and then began drinking kumiss. As they were sitting with their host on down cushions on a carpet, conversing and sipping kumiss from their cups, Ilyás, having finished his work, passed by the open door. Muhammad-Shah, seeing him pass, said to one of the guests:

“Did you notice that old man who passed just now?”

“Yes,” said the visitor, “what is there remarkable about him?”

“Only this⁠—that he was once the richest man among us,” replied the host. “His name is Ilyás. You may have heard of him.”

“Of course I have heard of him,” the guest answered, “I never saw him before, but his fame has spread far and wide.”

“Yes, and now he has nothing left,” said Muhammad-Shah, “and he lives with me as my labourer, and his old woman is here too⁠—she milks the mares.”

The guest was astonished: he clicked with his tongue, shook his head, and said:

“Fortune turns like a wheel. One man it lifts, another it sets down! Does not the old man grieve over all he has lost?”

“Who can tell. He lives quietly and peacefully, and works well.”

“May I speak to him?” asked the guest. “I should like to ask him about his life.”

“Why not?” replied the master, and he called from the kibítka236 in which they were sitting:

“Babay;” (which in the Bashkir tongue means “Grandfather”) “come in and have a cup of kumiss with us, and call your wife here also.”

Ilyás entered with his wife; and after exchanging greetings with his master and the guests, he repeated a prayer, and seated himself near the door. His wife passed in behind the curtain and sat down with her mistress.

A cup of kumiss was handed to Ilyás; he wished the guests and his master good health, bowed, drank a little, and put down the cup.

“Well, Daddy,” said the guest who had wished to speak to him, “I suppose you feel rather sad at the sight of us. It must remind you of your former prosperity, and of your present sorrows.”

Ilyás smiled, and said:

“If I were to tell you what is happiness and what is misfortune, you would not believe me. You had better ask my wife. She is a woman, and what is in her heart is on her tongue. She will tell you the whole truth.”

The guest turned towards the curtain.

“Well, Granny,” he cried, “tell me how your former happiness compares with your present misfortune.”

And Sham-Shemagi answered from behind the curtain:

“This is what I think about it: My old man and I lived for fifty years seeking happiness and not finding it; and it is only now, these last two years, since we had nothing left and have lived as labourers, that we have found real happiness, and we wish for nothing better than our present lot.”

The guests were astonished, and so was the master; he even rose and drew the curtain back, so as to see the old