# Tales from Tolstoi/Neglect a Fire, and 'twill Overmaster Thee

NEGLECT A FIRE, AND 'TWILL OVERMASTER THEE!
"Then Peter came to Him, and said, Lord, how often shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me ? Till seven times? . . . . Therefore your Heavenly Father will not forgive you if everyone of you do not also forgive his brother his trespasses."—Matt, xviii. 21–35.
There lived in the country a serf, Ivan Shcherbakov, and it was well with him. He himself was in the fulness of his strength, the first workman in the village, and he had three sons on their legs, one married, one engaged to be married, and the third who had begun to go out with the horses and plough. Ivan's old woman was wise, and a good manager, and her daughter-in-law turned out to be meek and a hard worker. There were no idle mouths about the house save a sick old father, who had lain on the stove for seven years from asthma. There was lots and to spare at Ivan's place—three horses with their foals, a cow with her one-year-old calf, and fifteen sheep. The women made shoes and clothes for the men, and wrought women's work at home; the muzhiks did peasants' work. There was bread in abundance. ​There was of oats enough to pay all the taxes and provide for all wants. Ivan and his children had only to live happily together and be content. But they had a neighbour—a next-door neighbour, Gabriel Khromoi, the son of Gordy Ivanov, and enmity arose between him and Ivan.
So long as old Gordy was alive, and Ivan's father managed affairs, the muzhiks lived friendly together. If the women wanted a sieve or a tub, if the, men wanted to borrow a sack or a wheel from time to time, they used to send these things from one house to the other; they were neighbours, always ready with a helping hand. If the calf ran into the threshing-floor they drove him off, and simply said: "Don't come to us, pray; the corn-heaps are not yet stacked." But as for locking up the barns or out-houses, or hiding anything away therein, or tale-bearing one against the other, all such things never once entered into their heads.
Thus they lived in the days of the old people. But the young people now began to keep house, and—things were otherwise.
The veriest trifle was the cause of it all. Ivan's daughter-in-law had a hen which was a good layer. The young women was collecting the eggs for Easter. Every day she went for the new-laid egg to the shed of the cart-house.
One day, however, scared perhaps by the cries of the children, the hen flew across the hurdle fence into the neighbour's grounds, and there settled down to ​lay. The young woman heard the hen cackling, and thought, "I have no time now, I have to get things ready against the feast; I'll come a little later, and fetch the egg away then."
She came in the evening to the shed in the cart-house, plunged in her hand—no egg was there. The young woman asked her mother-in-law and her brother-in-law,
"Have you taken it?"
"No," they said, "we have not taken it."
But Taraska, her younger brother-in-law, said:
"Your cackler has settled down in our neighbour's yard, there has been a great clucking there, and from thence she has flown back again."
The young woman looked and saw her clucker; it was sitting beside the cock on the harness of the horses, and had just closed its eyes, it was going to sleep. She would have liked to have asked it where it had been, but it would not have answered. Then the young woman went to the neighbour's. The old woman of the house came to meet her.
"What do you want, young woman?"
"Why, granny," said she, "my hen has flown over to you; hasn't she laid her egg somewhere there?"
"We have seen nothing at all. We have our own. God has given us what we have, and for a long time our hens have laid well. We gather our own; we want not other people's things. My girl, we don't go seeking eggs in other people's barns."
The young woman was much put out. She was saucy. Her neighbour paid her back in her own coin; and so the women fell a-wrangling. Ivan's ​wife went out to draw water, and she got mixed up in it. Gabriel's wife rushed out; she began to abuse her neighbour. She told her the plain truth, and she wove into her speech what was not truth at all. They fell a-screeching. They all shrieked together; they tried to speak two different things at the same time. And their words grew worse and worse.
"If I'm this, you're that."
"You're a thief! you're a slut! … you're no good at all."
"And you are a beggar; you borrowed my sieve and spoilt it. Even the pump-handle you've got is ours; give us back our pump-handle."
They seized hold of the pump-handle, spilt all the water, wet their clothes, and fell a-fighting. Gabriel came in from the field, and took the part of his old woman. Ivan rushed out with his son: there was now a whole heap of them. Ivan was a strong and vigorous muzhik—he scattered the lot of them. Gabriel had a bit of his beard torn out. A crowd came together and separated them by force.
That was the beginning of it. Gabriel wrapped his bit of beard in a piece of paper, and went to bring an action in the local court.
"I do not let my beard grow in order that that freckled Van'ka may pull it out," said he.
And his wife boasted to the neighbours that he was going to bring his action against Ivan, who would be sent to Siberia. And so the quarrel went on.
From the very first day the old man exhorted them ​to peace from the top of the stove, but the young people did not listen to him. This was what he said:
"Children, ye do foolishly, and foolishness will come of it. Bethink you now; the whole matter about which ye make such a to-do turns upon—an egg! The children have taken the egg, much good may it do them! An egg—'tis a sorry prize! God has enough for all. She spoke vile words to thee! Correct her, then; teach her to speak better! But ye have squabbled—sinful folks! Let it go no further. Go and beg pardon; put a cover over it all. But an' ye go evil ways—'twill be worse for you."
The young people did not listen to the old man; they thought that all the old man said did not meet the case in point, and was only grandfatherly twaddle.
Ivan did not humble himself before his neighbour.
"I didn't pull out his beard," said he; "he tugged it out himself, and he tore off my shirt-button, and tore my shirt right down. That's how it is."
And so Ivan went to law. They went to law about it in the local court, and in the district court too. And while these suits were pending, Gabriel lost the pole-bolt of his wagon, and Gabriel's women-kind falsely accused Ivan's son of taking it.
"We saw him," said they, "going at night past the window to the wagon, and Gossip So-and-so says that he went to the pot-house, and gave the innkeeper the pole-bolt for drink."
So again they went to law; and at home there was wrangling and squabbling all day long.
And the children squabbled too—they had learnt it from their elders; and the women who met together ​at the brook were much busier with their tongues than with their bleaching-sticks; and so it got worse and worse.
The two muzhiks began to talk ill of one another, and then they went to law; and if they found anything lying about they filched it. And so the women and children were taught to do the same. And life amongst them grew worse and worse. Ivan Shcherbakov summoned Gabriel Khromoi before the general assembly of peasants, and in the district court, and in the land court of Mir: so that they worried all the courts. And now Ivan had Gabriel punished or put in prison: and now Gabriel, Ivan. And the more they blackguarded each other, the more evil-disposed did they grow. They were fighting like dogs: the more they worried each other the more furious they grew. Strike one such dog from behind, and he'll fancy the other is biting him, and will hang on more savagely than ever. So, too, these muzhiks. They went to law and got each other fined or locked up, and the end of it all was that their hearts were hotter against each other than before.
"You just wait a bit, that's all, and I'll pay you out for this."
And so it went on amongst them for six years. Only the old man on the stove kept on saying the selfsame thing, and began to entreat with them.
"What do ye, children? Away with all your charges and counter-charges. Neglect not your work, and don't take offence at people, and it will be better for you. But the more you are wrath with them the worse it will be!"
​They listened not to the old man. It fell in the seventh year after this, that Ivan's daughter-in-law at a marriage feast rounded upon Gabriel in the presence of many people, and said he had gone off with other people's horses. Gabriel was drunk, he did not control his feelings; he struck the woman, and injured her so that she was in bed for a week. … Ivan was glad. He went and laid a complaint with the magistrate. "Now," thought he, "I shall be quit of my neighbour. He cannot avoid Siberia now."
And again Ivan's affair did not go as far as he wished it. The magistrate would not listen to his complaint. They came to see the woman; the woman got up, and there were no marks upon her. Ivan went to the local mir-court, and the mir-court transferred the matter to the district court. Ivan laboured hard at the district court, and plied the bailiff and clerk with half a bucket of sweet drink, and managed at last to get Gabriel condemned to a flogging on the back. They read the sentence to Gabriel in court.
The clerk read: "It is the sentence of the court that Gorde's serf Gabriel be punished by twenty strokes with the birch in the presence of the district court."
Ivan also heard the judgment and looked at Gabriel—what will he do next? On hearing it Gabriel went as white as a sheet, turned round and went out into the forecourt. Ivan went out after him: he was going to his horses, when he heard something—Gabriel was speaking.
"Good!" he was saying, "he will get my back warmed for me! It will sting me no doubt; let him ​beware lest I make something warm him yet more!"
On hearing these words Ivan immediately returned to the court.
"Ye just judges! He has begun to threaten me! Listen, he has spoken before witnesses!"
Gabriel was sent for.
"Is it true that you said something?"
"I said nothing. Flay me, since you have the power! It is plain that I have to suffer, though in the right; and he may do anything he likes."
Gabriel would have said something more, but his lips began to tremble, and his cheeks. And he turned him round to the wall. Even the judges were shocked when they looked at Gabriel.
"How now," thought they, "if he were straightway to do some great mischief to his neighbour or to himself?"
And the oldest of the judges said: "Come now, my friends, 'twill be better than good if ye make it up. Now, friend Gabriel, canst thou say thou didst well in striking that woman? Good then! God will forgive thee whatsoever be thy sin! 'Tis good so, isn't it? Thou dost confess thy fault and beg his pardon, and he'll forgive thee. We will reverse our former judgment."
The clerk heard this and said: "That is impossible, because, according to article 117 of the Code, the preliminary reconciliation has not yet been shown to have taken place, so the sentence of the court alone remains valid, and that sentence ought to be enforced"
​But the judge did not listen to the clerk: "You have an itching tongue," said he. "The first and only code, brother, is, be mindful of God! and God bids us be peacemakers."
And again the judge tried to persuade the muzhiks, and he could not persuade them.
Gabriel would not listen to him.
"Here am I fifty years old," said he; "I've a son married, and from my youth up I've never been flogged; and now this botcher Van'ka brings me beneath the birch, and I am to salute him! Well, all I can say is, Van'ka shall have cause to remember this!"
Again Gabriel's voice trembled. He could say no more. He turned him round and went out.
From the court-house to the farm was ten versts, and Ivan returned home late. The women had already gone out to meet the cattle. He took out the horse, tidied things up, and went into the izba. There was no one in the izba, the children had not yet returned from the fields, and the women were with the cattle. Ivan went in, sat down on a bench, and fell a-thinking. He called to mind how Gabriel had received the sentence, and how he had grown pale and turned towards the wall. And his heart began to prick him. He imagined how it would have been with him if he had been sentenced to a whipping. He felt sorry for Gabriel. And he heard the old man on the stove begin to cough, turn him about, put out his feet, and come down from the stove. On getting ​down, the old man dragged himself towards the bench and sat down. The effort of getting to the bench had quite exhausted him. After coughing out his cough, the old man leaned on the table for support, and said:
"Well, have they given judgment?"
Ivan answered: "The sentence is twenty stripes with birches."
The old man shook his head. "'Tis a bad job thou hast done, Ivan," said he. "Oh, bad indeed! Not to him but to thine own self hast thou done badly. Come now! Does it ease thy shoulder at all to bend his back?"
"It will not happen again," said Ivan.
"It will not happen again, sayest thou? How has he ever done thee a worse turn?"
Ivan grew angry. "How? Do you mean to say he has never wronged me? He nearly beat my old woman to death! And now he threatens to burn me out. I suppose I am to bow low to him for that, eh?"
The old man sighed, and said: "Thou, Ivan, dost go and walk about the world quite freely, and I lie on the stove the whole year through—thou think'st that thou seest everything, and I see nothing. No, little one! Thou seest nothing, for an evil eye of vengeance blinds thee. Others' sins are right before thee, thine own behind thy back. Why say, He has done wrong? If he only had done wrong, no evil need have come of it. As if the ill-will between people arises from the fault of one side only! Evil arises from the fault of two. His wrong-doing is plain before thine eyes, but thine own thou seest not at all. If only he had been evil, and thou hadst been ​good, nothing of bad could have come of it Who pulled his beard? Who stole away his hayrick? Who dragged him before the courts? Thou livest amiss, hence the evil! I, my son, used not to live so, nor have I taught thee the like. Did we of the olden time live thus, my father and his father? How did we live! Like neighbours. Did he want meal—his old woman would come: 'Uncle Frol, we want some meal!' 'Dost thou, young woman? then go to the barn and take out as much as thou dost want.' Or there would be no one with him to take out the horses. 'Go thou, Vanyatka, and take out his horses.' And if anything was wanted with me I would go to him. 'Uncle Gordy, we want this or that' 'Take it Uncle Frol.' Thus fared it with us. And thou also wouldst find thy life light and easy if lived thus. But now? Dost thou mind the soldier who told us all about Plevna the other day? There's a worse war going on than this Plevna. Is not life a greater war? and sin? Thou art a muzhik, thou art the head of a household: ask thyself this thing. What dost thou teach thy women-kind and children? To lead a cat-and-dog life! The other day Taraska, and a loafer he is, reviled Aunt Arina, his mother being by, and she only laughed at him. Dost call that a good sign? Ask thyself that question. Turn it over in thy mind. Should these things be? Thou throwest a word at me, I throw thee back two; thou wrongest me, I requite it thee doubly. No, little friend, Christ did not go about the world to teach ​us fools such things as that! If it be thy turn to speak, keep silence, and his conscience will convict him—that is what He taught us, dear little brother. Thou gettest a clout on the ear, but thou dost turn round the other with. 'Well, strike if I be worth a blow!' But his conscience pricks him. He is reconciled to thee, and will listen to thy words. That is what He bade us to do, but not to have a high stomach. Why art thou silent? Shall I go on speaking?"
Ivan was silent, he was listening.
The old man coughed again, coughed till he could speak again.
"Thou dost think that Christ in teaching us this taught us badly. Nay, it is all for us and for our good. Thou dost only think of thy earthly life: thou dost think, will it be better or worse for us since that Plevna made such a to-do among us? Thou dost calculate how much of thy substance thou must spend on going to law, how much for travelling, how much for feeding thy family. Thou hast sons growing up like little birds of prey, thy sole desire is to live fatly and get on in the world, and thy savings grow less and less. And wherefore? I'll tell thee: from thy pride. Instead of going out into the fields with thy children to wonk, thou art out hunting down thy enemy. Thou dost not plough up in time, thou dost not sow in time, and she, our mother earth, therefore does not bring forth her fruit. That corn of thine, why does it not grow? When didst thou sow? Thou camest from the town. Thou hast been at law. And what did the courts decide? Thine own neck suffered. Alas, little one! Bethink thee of thine affairs; return ​with thy children to thy plough and thine house, and if anyone offend thee, forgive him, as God would have it, and thou wilt have thine hands free to do thy work, and thy heart within thee will always be light."
Ivan was silent.
"That's the thing for thee, Vanya! Listen to me, an old man! Go to, harness thy grey horse, be off straightway to the tribunal, cut short all thy business there, and go in the morning to Gabriel, be reconciled with him as God would have it, and invite him to thy house. To-morrow will be a festival, the Nativity of the Mother of God: put on the table thy little samovar, and a little good spirit, and tear thyself away from all these sins, and let them no more be heard of; and say the same thing to the women and children."
Ivan sighed. He thought to himself: "The old man is right," and his heart quite went out to him, only he did not know how to set about it, he did not know how to make his peace with his neighbour.
And the old man began again, he guessed what was on his mind.
"Go, Vanya, don't put it off. Put out the fire at first; thou wilt not be able to manage it when it burns up."
Then the old man wanted to talk of other things, but he had not said all his say when the women, chattering like starlings, entered the hut. They had heard all about the trial, and how Gabriel had been sentenced to be whipped with birches, and he had threatened to burn Ivan out of house and home. ​They knew everything, and added of their own to what they knew, and had already managed to quarrel again with Gabriel's women-folk as they drove the cattle home. They began to tell how Gabriel's daughter-in-law had threatened them with the magistrate. This magistrate, they said, held a protecting hand over Gabriel. He was now going to quash the proceedings, and the schoolmaster, they said, was going to write another petition to the Tsar himself against Ivan; in this petition everything which had happened was to be set down, and there was all about the tethering-peg, arid the kitchen garden, and half of Ivan's property was to be handed over to Gabriel. Ivan listened to all their chattering, and again his heart grew cold within him, and he began thinking of making it up with Gabriel.
The master of a farm has always a lot to do. Ivan did not talk with the women, but got up, went out of the hut, and went to the barn and stables. By the time he had finished what he had to do there, the bright little sun had disappeared behind the farm, and the children had come home from the fields. They ploughed up the soil twice during the winter for the summer crops. Ivan met them, and began to question them about their work. He lent a hand, helped them to put away things, laid aside a ragged harness for mending, and would even have put the stable-poles to rights, but meanwhile it had grown quite dark. So Ivan left the poles for the morrow, and threw fodder to the cattle, opened the gate and let out Taraska with the horses that they might go along the lane to their night-quarters, and again ​locked up, and put down the podvorotnya. "And now I'll eat a little supper and go to bed," thought Ivan, and taking up the tattered harness, he carried it into the hut. And all this time he had forgotten all about Gabriel, and about what his father had said. Only when he was turning the handle of the door and going into the house, he heard behind the fence his neighbour "rowing" someone with a harsh squeaky voice.
"Devil take him," Gabriel was shrieking, "I'll kill him!"
Ivan stopped, stood still, and listened while Gabriel was scolding, then he shook his head and went into the hut.
He went into the hut, in the hut a fire was burning, his young wife was sitting by the fire at her spinning, the old woman was getting supper ready, his eldest son was knitting socks, the second was at the table reading from a little book, Taraska was getting ready to go away for the night.
In the hut everything was bright and good, but for that chilblain of a fellow, the bad neighbour.
Ivan came in grieved, pitched the cat off the bench, and scolded the old woman because the kettle was not in its right place. And Ivan began to feel wretched. He sat down and frowned, and began to work away at the harness, and he could not get out of his head Gabriel's words when he threatened in the court, or the words he had just heard: "I will kill him!"
​The old woman gave Taraska his supper, he ate a bit of it, put on his shubenka and his kaftan, girded himself, took the bread, and went out into the street to the horses. His elder brother wanted to go with him, and Ivan himself got up and stood on the steps before the house. In the courtyard it was now quite dark, it was cloudy, and the wind was rising. Ivan went away from the steps, helped his little son up on horseback, scared away the foals, and stood looking and listening, while Taraska went down along the village and joined the other children, till they were all out of hearing. Ivan still stood at the door, and Gabriel's words would not go out of his head: "Take care I don't warm you with something worse!"
"And he'd do it, too," thought Ivan. "It is very dry, and there's still some wind. He can creep up from behind somewhere and light a fire, and then make himself scarce. He can set a fire going, and I ould not get myself righted. If only I could come upon him while he's at it, he should not get away in a hurry."
And this impish little thought grew so in Ivan's head that he did not go back to the steps, but went right out into the street, behind the gate, behind the corner. "I'll just go round the courtyard. Who knows what he may be up to." And Ivan went very softly along the enclosure. He only went round the corner, and looked along the fence, and it seemed to him as if something was moving in that corner, ​as if it peeped out, and then withdrew itself again into the corner. Ivan stood still, as still as a mouse, he listened and he looked—all was still, only the wind made the little leaves shiver on the branches of the willows, and skimmed along the straw. It was dark enough to put one's eyes out, but Ivan strained his eyes through the darkness till he saw the whole corner, and the plough and the projecting eaves. There he stood and looked, and there was nothing.
"'Tis plain I must have dreamt it," thought Ivan, "but I'll go my rounds all the same," and he stole softly round along the outhouses.
Ivan stepped very quietly on the tips of his toes, so as not even to hear his own steps. He went right to the very corner and looked, at the end of it something was sparkling by the plough, and disappeared again. Ivan felt as if something had struck him to the very heart. He stood stock-still. No sooner had he stood still than the light burst forth more brightly than ever, and he saw quite plainly a man with his back towards him crouching down. He had a cap on, and little wisps of straw in his hands which he was lighting. Ivan's heart beat in his breast like a captive bird. He swelled with rage, and advanced with rapid strides. He no longer heeded the sound of his own footsteps.
"Now," thought he, "there's no escaping, I'll catch him on the very spot."
Ivan had not advanced two steps, when suddenly the light grew brighter and brighter, there was no longer a little patch of fire there, but the straw leaped up in flame beneath the eaves and caught the roof; ​and there stood Gabriel, every part of him was visible. Ivan threw himself on Gabriel like a hawk upon a lark.
"I'll wring his neck, he shall not escape me now," thought he.
And the lame man himself now plainly heard steps, turned round, and seeing no way of escape, crouched up against the barn like a hare.
"Thou shalt not escape," screeched Ivan, and fell upon him.
Just as he would have seized him by the collar, Gabriel twisted himself loose from his grasp, and caught Ivan by the lappet of his coat; the lappet gave way, and Ivan fell to the ground. Ivan leaped to his feet: "Stop thief," he cried, and ran after him.
By the time he had got up, however, Gabriel was already in his own courtyard, but here Ivan had already caught him up, and was about to clutch hold of him, when suddenly something crashed down on his head just as if he had been struck by a stone in the dark. Gabriel had caught up an oak chump from his courtyard, and, when Ivan rushed towards him, struck him with all his might on the head. Ivan staggered dizzily, sparks flew up before his eyes, and down he went. When he came to himself Gabriel was no longer there, it was as light as day all about him, and from the direction of his own courtyard there was a humming and a whirring as of an engine at work. Ivan turned him round and saw that the back barn was all aflame, and the flames had also caught the side barn, and the fire and the smoke and chips of burning straw were driving with the smoke towards the hut.
​"Why, what is all this, my brothers?" cried Ivan, and raised and wrung his hands; "why, I've only got to pull the burning stuff from under the roof and trample it out!"
He would have called out, but his breath failed him, he could not utter a sound. He would have run—his legs did not move—they clave together. He tottered on a step or two and down he fell, his breath again failing him. He stood up and gasped and went on again. By the time he had gone the round of the barn and got to the fire the side barn was now all ablaze, the corner of the hut had also caught, and the door too, and out of the hut rolled waves of fire; there was no getting at it. A lot of people came running up, but nothing could be done. The neighbours drew their own things out of the reach of the fire, and drove their cattle out of their yards. Gabriel's barns now also caught the fire from Ivan's; the wind arose and whirled right down the street. It swept away half the village like a broom.
All they could pull out of Ivan's hut was the old man, the rest leaped out as best they could and left everything. Except the horses in their night-quarters all the cattle were burned; the fowls were burned on their perches; the carts, the ploughs, the harrows, the women's things, the bread in the cupboards, everything was burned.
Gabriel's live stock was driven out, and they managed to snatch a thing or two of his from the flames.
The burning lasted a long time, all night through in fact. Ivan stood outside his courtyard and looked ​on, and could only keep repeating, "What is this, my brothers? You have only to seize hold of it and put it out." But when the roof of the hut fell in, he rushed towards the fire, seized the burning beam, and dragged it out of the flames. The women saw him and began crying to him to go back, but he dragged out the beam and ran back for others, and staggered and fell into the fire. His son ran forward and dragged him out. Ivan's beard had caught fire and his hair; he had scorched through his clothes, and his hands were injured, but he felt nothing.
"He has got crazy over the fire," the people said.
The fire began to die out, but Ivan still kept standing there and said all along:
"What's all this, my brothers? Come and but buckle to it, and we'll put it out."
In the morning the starosta sent his son to fetch Ivan.
"Uncle Ivan, thy parent is dying, and he bade us call thee to him."
Ivan had clean forgotten even his father, and understood not what they said to him.
"What," said he, "my parent? What's his name?"
"He bade us send for thee; he is in our hut, and dying. Come, Uncle Ivan."
Ivan with a great effort rallied his wits, and went with the son of the starosta.
The old man, while they were drawing him out, had fallen among the burning straw and been burnt all over. They carried him to the starosta's, to a hamlet a good way off, out of reach of the fire.
When Ivan came in to his father the only persons ​in the hut were an old woman and some children on the stove. All the others had gone to the fire. The old man lay upon a bench with a taper in his hand, and was looking sideways at the door. When his son came in he shifted a bit. The old woman went to him and told him that his son had come. He bade her call him closer. Ivan went right up to him, and then the old man spoke.
"What did I say to thee, Vanyatko? Who burned the village?"
"'Twas he, dear little father," said Ivan, "I caught him at it. He was at my place and set fire to the roof. I need only have pulled off a lump of burning straw and put it out, and there would have been no fire at all."
"Ivan," said the old man, "I am nigh unto death, and thou wilt die too. Whose was the sin?"
Ivan looked at his father and was silent; he could not utter a word.
"In God's Name speak! Whose was the sin? What did I tell thee?"
Then only did Ivan wake up and understand everything. He sniffed with his nose and fell down on his knees before his father, burst into tears, and said:
"Mine is the fault, dear little father. Forgive me for Christ's sake! I am guilty both before thee and before God!"
The old man shifted his hands, transferred the taper to his left hand, moved his right hand towards ​his brow; he wanted to cross himself, but he could not get his hand far enough round, so he forbore.
"Glory be to Thee, O Lord! Glory be to Thee, O Lord," said he, and again he cast a glance at his son.
"Van'ka, but Van'ka!"
"What is it, dear little father?"
"What ought to be done now?"
Ivan was all in tears. "I know not, dear little father, how I shall live now," said he.
The old man closed his eyes and moved his lips as if he were rallying all his strength, and again he opened his eyes, and he said:
"Live and prosper. With God ye shall live—live and prosper."
The old man was again silent for a time. Then he smiled and said:
"Look now, Van'ya! Don't say who set the fire on. Hide others' sins, and God will forgive thee thine twice over."
And the old man grasped the taper with both hands, folded them on his breast, sighed, stretched himself, and died.
Ivan did not tell of Gabriel, and nobody ever knew who was the author of the fire.
And Ivan's heart went out to Gabriel, and Gabriel was astonished that Ivan told nobody anything about it. At first Gabriel was afraid of him, but afterwards he quieted down.
The muzhiks ceased quarrelling and their families ​ceased quarrelling also. Until the village was built up, both families lived together in one abode, and when the village was quite built up again, the farms were larger in extent, and Ivan and Gabriel were neighbours again as in one nest.
And Ivan and Gabriel lived neighbourly together as their fathers had done. And Ivan Shcherbakov remembered the counsel of the old man, and the divine precept that a fire (of hate) should be put out at the very beginning.
And if anyone did ill to him he laid wait, not to revenge himself, but to smooth matters straight again; and if anyone said an ill-word to him, he did not wait his opportunity to say a still more evil one, but how to teach such a one not to say evil things, and so also did he teach his women folk and children. And Ivan Shcherbakov amended his ways and lived better than heretofore.
* ↑ i.e. Able to shift for themselves.
* ↑ Starukha (wife).
* ↑ i.e. Tilled the ground.
* ↑ The lame.
* ↑ A contemptuous diminutive for Ivan.
* ↑ The peasant's living room, with the big stove in it.
* ↑ Dear little Ivan.
* ↑ The plank that goes beneath the door, hence the name.
* ↑ An old fur pelisse.
* ↑ A long coat.
* ↑ Little Ivan—Jacky.