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

I am grown up I will give away everything I have. Masha Not everything, I should think. Misha Why not? Masha But what would you have left for yourself? Misha I don’t care. We must always be kind. Then the whole world will be happy. Misha stopped playing with his sister, went to the nursery, tore a page out of a copybook, wrote a line on it, and put it in his pocket. On that page was written: We Must Be Kind. On Renumeration of Labour

The Father

Katia, a girl of nine

Fedia, a boy of eight

Katia Father, our sledge is broken. Couldn’t you mend it for us? Father No, darling, I can not. I don’t know how to do it. Give it to Prohor; he will put it right for you. Katia We have asked him to already. He says he is busy. He is making a gate. Father Well, then, you must just wait a little with your sledge. Fedia And you, father, can’t you mend it for us, really? Father Smiling. Really, my boy. Fedia Can’t you do any work at all? Father Laughing. Oh yes, there are some kinds of work I can do. But not the kind that Prohor does. Fedia Can you make samovars like Vania? Father No. Fedia Or harness horses? Father Not that either. Fedia I wonder why are we all unable to do any work, and they do it all for us. Ought it to be like that? Father Everybody has to do the work he is fit for. Learn, like a good boy, and you will know what work everybody has to do. Fedia Are we not to learn how to prepare food and to harness horses? Father There are things more necessary than that. Fedia I know: to be kind, not to get cross, not to abuse people. But isn’t it possible to do the cooking and harness horses, and be kind just the same? Isn’t that possible? Father Undoubtedly. Just wait till you are grown up. Then you will understand. Fedia And what if I don’t grow up? Father Don’t talk nonsense! Katia Then we may ask Prohor to mend the sledge? Father Yes, do. Go to Prohor and tell him I wish him to do it. On Drink

An evening in the autumn.

Makarka, a boy of twelve, and Marfutka, a girl of eight, are coming out of the house into the street. Marfutka is crying. Pavlushka, a boy of ten, stands before the house next door. Pavlushka Where the devil are you going to, both of you? Have you any night work? Makarka Crazy drunk again. Pavlushka Who? Uncle Prohor? Makarka Of course. Marfutka He is beating mother⁠— Makarka I won’t go inside tonight. He would hit me also. Sitting down on the doorstep. I will stay here the whole night. I will. Marfutka weeps. Pavlushka Stop crying. Never mind. It can’t be helped. Stop crying, I say. Marfutka If I was the Tsar, I would have the people who give him any drink just beaten to death. I would not allow anybody to sell brandy. Pavlushka Wouldn’t you? But it is the Tsar himself who sells it. He doesn’t let anybody else sell it, for fear it would lessen his own profits. Marfutka It is a lie! Pavlushka Humph! A lie! You just ask anybody you like. Why have they put Akulina in prison? Because they did not want her to sell brandy and lessen their profits. Makarka Is that really so! I heard she had done something against the law. Pavlushka What she did against the law was selling brandy. Marfutka I would not allow her to sell it either. It is just that brandy that does all the mischief. Sometimes he is very nice, and then at other times he hits everybody. Makarka To Pavlushka. You say very strange things. I will ask the schoolmaster tomorrow. He must know. Pavlushka Do ask him. The next morning Prohor, Makarka’s father, after a night’s sleep, goes to refresh himself with a drink; Makarka’s mother, with a swollen eye, is kneading bread. Makarka has gone to school. The Schoolmaster is sitting at the door of the village school, watching the children coming in. Makarka Coming up to the schoolmaster. Tell me, please, Eugene Semenovich, is it true, what a fellow was telling me, that the Tsar makes a business of selling brandy, and that is why Akulina has been sent to prison? Schoolmaster That is a very silly question, and whoever told you that is a fool. The Tsar sells nothing whatsoever. A tsar never does. As for Akulina, she was put in prison because she was selling brandy without a license, and was thereby lessening the revenues of the Crown. Makarka How lessening? Schoolmaster Because there is a duty on spirits. A barrel costs so much in the factory, and is sold to the public for so much more. This surplus constitutes the income of the state. The largest revenue comes from it, and amounts to many millions. Makarka Then the more brandy people drink the greater the income? Schoolmaster Certainly. If it were not for that income there would be nothing to keep the army with, or schools, or all the rest of the things you need. Makarka But if all those things are necessary, why not take the money directly for the necessary things? Why get it by means of brandy? Schoolmaster Why? Because that is the law. But the children are all in now. Take your seats. On Capital Punishment

Peter Petrovich, a professor

Maria Ivanovna, his wife Sewing.

Fedia, their son, a boy of nine Listening to his father’s conversation.

Ivan Vasilievich, counsel for the prosecution in the court martial

Ivan Vasilievich The experience of history cannot be gainsaid. We have not only seen in France after the revolution, and at other historical moments, but in our own country as well, that doing away with⁠—I mean the removal of perverted and dangerous members of society has in fact the desired result. Peter Petrovich No, we cannot know what the consequences of this are in reality. The proclamation of a