Читать книгу Tolstoi for the young. Select tales from Tolstoi - Лев Толстой, Tolstoy Leo, Leo Tolstoy - Страница 12

And the old Devil went away, having failed to bring Ivan to reason by means of the soldiers.

The old Devil changed himself into a clean gentleman and came to live in Ivan’s kingdom, hoping to ruin Ivan by money, as he had done Taras.

“I want to do you good and teach you common sense,” he said. “I will build myself a house in your midst and open an establishment.”

“Very well,” the people said; “you can live here.”

The clean gentleman spent the night and in the morning he went out to the square with a bag of gold and a bundle of papers and said, “You all live like swine. I want to teach you how you ought to live. Build me a house according to this plan. You will work for me and I will teach you and pay you in golden money.” And he showed them the gold.

The fools marvelled. They had no money in circulation, but exchanged thing for thing, or paid by labour. And they began to exchange things with the gentleman and to work for his golden coins. And the old Devil, as in Taras’ kingdom, began to circulate gold, and people brought him things and worked for him.

The old Devil rejoiced.

“At last my plan is beginning to work!” he thought. “I will ruin him as I ruined Taras, and will get him completely in my power.”

The fools collected the golden coins and gave them to the women to make themselves necklaces and to the girls to plait into their hair; the children even played with the coins in the street. After a while every one had enough and refused to take more. And the clean gentleman’s house was not half finished, and the corn and cattle had not yet been stored up for the year. And the gentleman invited people to come and work for him to bring him corn and rear his cattle, offering to pay many golden coins for everything brought and every piece of work done.

But no one would come and work, and no one would bring him anything, unless a chance boy or girl brought him an egg in exchange for a golden coin; and no one else came and he was left without any food. And the clean gentleman was hungry and went through the village to buy himself something for dinner. He went into one house and offered a golden coin for a chicken, but the mistress would not take it.

“I have many such coins,” she said.

He went into another place to buy a salt herring, offering a golden piece. “I don’t want it, my good man,” the mistress said. “I have no children to play with them, and have three of these pieces already as curiosities.”

He went into a peasant’s for some bread. The peasant too would not take the money.

“I don’t want it,” he said. “But if you want the bread in Christ’s name, then wait, and I’ll tell my old woman to cut you some.”

The old Devil spat on the ground and fled from the peasant. To hear the word Christ was worse than a knife to him, let alone to take anything in His name.

And so he got no bread. All had gold; wherever the old Devil went no one would give him anything for money, and every one said, “Bring us something else instead, or come and work, or take it in Christ’s name.” And the Devil had nothing to offer but money and had no liking for work, and he could not take anything in Christ’s name. He lost his temper.

“What more do you want when I offer you money?” he said. “You can buy anything you like for gold and employ any kind of labour.”

But the fools did not heed him.

“We don’t need money,” they said. “We exchange everything in kind and have no taxes to pay; what good would it be to us?”

The old Devil went supperless to bed.

The story reached Ivan the Fool. People came to him and said, “What shall we do? A clean gentleman has appeared in our midst who likes to eat and drink well, and dress in fine clothes, but he won’t work and won’t take anything in Christ’s name; he only offers us golden coins. People gave him what he wanted until they had enough of these coins, and now no one gives him anything. What are we to do with him? He may die of hunger.”