# The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy/Childhood/Chapter 5

V.
The Saintly Fool
Into the room entered a man of about fifty years of age, with a pale, pock-marked, oval face, long gray hair, and a scanty reddish beard. He was so tall that, in order to enter, he had to bend not only his head, but his whole body. He was dressed in something torn that resembled a caftan and a cassock; in his hand he held a huge staff. As he entered the room, he with all his might struck the floor with it, and, furrowing his brow and opening his mouth beyond measure, laughed out in a most terrible and unnatural manner. One of his eyes was maimed, and the white pupil of that eye kept on leaping about and giving to his otherwise ugly face a more disgusting expression.
"Aha, caught!" he cried out, running up to Volódya with mincing steps, getting hold of his head, and beginning carefully to examine his crown. Then he walked away from him with an entirely solemn expression on his face, stepped to the table, and began to blow under the oilcloth and to make the sign of the cross over it.
"Oh, a pity! Oh, painful! Dear ones — will fly away," said he then, in a voice quivering with tears, feelingly looking at Volódya, and beginning with his sleeves to wipe off the tears which had really started to fall.
His voice was rough and hoarse, his motions hasty and uneven, his speech senseless and incoherent (he never used any pronouns), but the accents were so touching, and his yellow, maimed face at times assumed such an expres​sion of sincere sorrow, that, hearing him, it was not possible to abstain from a certain mingled feeling of pity, fear, and sadness.
That was the saintly fool and pilgrim, Grísha.
Whence did he come? Who were his parents? What had incited him to choose the pilgrim's life which he was leading? Nobody knew that. I only know that he had been known as a saintly fool ever since his fifteenth year, that he walked barefoot in summer and winter, that he visited monasteries, presented images to those he took a fancy to, and spoke mysterious words which some regarded as prophecies, that no one had ever known him otherwise, that he at times called on grandmother, and that some said that he was the unfortunate son of rich parents, but a pure soul, while others maintained that he was simply a peasant and a lazy man.
At last long-wished-for and punctual Fóka appeared, and we went down-stairs. Grísha, sobbing and continuing to utter incoherent words, went down after us, and struck the steps with his staff. Papa and mamma were walking hand in hand in the living-room, and discussing something. Márya Ivánovna sat stiffly in an armchair, which symmetrically adjoined the sofa at right angles, and in a stern, though reserved voice, gave instructions to the girls, who were sitting near her.
The moment Karl Ivánovich entered the room, she glanced at him, immediately turned away, and her face assumed an expression which may be rendered by, "I do not notice you, Karl Ivánovich." We could read in the eyes of the girls that they were anxious to transmit to us some very important information, but it would have been a transgression of Mimi's rules to jump up from their seats and come to us. We had first to walk up to her, to say "Bonjour, Mimi!" to scuff, and then only we were permitted to enter into a conversation.
What an intolerable person that Mimi was! In her ​presence it was not possible to speak about anything; she found everything improper. Besides, she continually nagged us, "Parlez donc français," every time we, as if to spite her, wanted to chat in Russian; or, at dinner, we would just get the taste of some dish and would not want to be interrupted by any one, when she would burst in with "Mangez donc avec du pain," or "Comment-ce que vous tenez voire fourchette?" "What business has she with us?" we would think. "Let her teach the girls; we have Karl Ivánovich for that." I absolutely shared his hatred of other people.
"Ask mamma to take us out to the hunt," said Kátenka, in a whisper, stopping me by my blouse, when the grown people had entered the dining-room.
"All right, we shall try."
Grísha dined in the dining-room, but at a separate table. He did not raise his eyes from his plate, but now and then sobbed, made terrible grimaces, and kept on saying, as if to himself, "A pity! flown away — the dove has flown to heaven — Oh, there is a stone on the grave!" and so on.
Mamma had been out of humour since morning: the presence, words and acts of Grísha perceptibly intensified that feeling in her.
"Oh, yes, I almost forgot to ask you for one thing," said she, as she passed a plate of soup to father.
"What is it?"
"Please have your awful dogs locked up; they almost bit poor Grísha to death as he crossed the yard. They might attack the children some day."
When Grísha heard them speaking about him, he turned toward the table, began to show the torn corners of his garment, and munching, said:
"Wanted to kill. God did not let. A sin to hunt with dogs, a great sin! Strike no big ones, why strike? God will forgive, different days."
"What is he talking about?" asked papa, sharply ​and severely surveying him. "I do not understand a word."
"But I understand," answered mamma. "He is telling me that a certain hunter had on purpose urged the dogs against him, and so he says, 'Wanted to kill but God did not let,' and he is asking you not to punish the hunter."
"Oh, that's it?" said papa. "But how does he know that I had intended to punish the hunter? You know, I am not at all fond of these gentlemen," he continued in French, "but this one is especially objectionable to me, and, no doubt — "
"Oh, do not say that, my dear," mamma interrupted him, as if frightened at something, "how do you know?"
"It seems to me I have had occasion to become acquainted with his tribe, — there are a lot of them coming to see you, they are all of the same pattern. Always one and the same story."
It was evident mamma was of an entirely different opinion in regard to that matter, and did not wish to discuss it.
"Hand me that pasty, if you please," said she. "Are they good to-day?"
"No, I am angry," continued papa, taking the pasty in his hand, but holding it at such a distance that mamma could not reach it, "no, I am angry whenever I see intelligent and cultivated people given to such deception."
And he struck the table with his fork.
"I have asked you to hand me the pasty," repeated she, extending her hand.
"They are doing just right," continued papa, moving his hand away, "when they put them in jail. The only good they do is to destroy the otherwise weak nerves of certain persons," added he, with a smile, as he noticed that this conversation did not please mamma. Then he handed her the pasty.
"I shall reply only this much to you: it is hard to be​lieve that a man who, in spite of his sixty years, in summer and winter walks barefoot, and uninterruptedly wears under his garments chains of two puds in weight, and who more than once has declined the proposition to live in peace and contentment, — it is hard to believe that such a man should be doing it all out of laziness. As to the prophecies," she added, with a sigh and after a short silence, "je suis payée pour у croire, it seems to me, I have told you how Kiryúsha foretold papa's death to him to the very hour and day."
"Oh, what have you done with me?" said papa, smiling and placing his hand to his mouth on the side where Mimi was sitting. (Whenever he did so, I listened with redoubled attention, expecting something funny.) "Why did you remind me of his feet? I have looked at them, and now I sha'n't eat anything."
The dinner was coming to an end. Lyúbochka and Kátenka kept on winking to us, moving restlessly in their chairs, and, in general, showing great anxiety. This winking meant, "Why do you not ask to take us to the hunt?" I nudged Volódya with my elbow. Volódya nudged me, and finally took courage; at first speaking in a timid voice, then more firmly and loudly, he declared that, as we were to depart to-day, we should like to have the girls go with us to the hunt, in the carriage. After a short consultation between the grown people, the question was decided in our favour, and, what was even more agreeable, mamma said she would herself go with us.