Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories, Popular Education, Decembrists, Moral Tales

The old devil started to go over the kingdom, to gather volunteers. He said that they should go and get their crowns shaved, for which they would get a bottle of vódka each, and a red cap.

The fools laughed at him.

"We have all the liquor we want," they said, "for we distil it ourselves, and as for caps, our women will make us any we want, even motley ones, with tassels at that."

Not one of them would go. The old devil went to Iván and said:

"Your fools will not go of their own will; you will have to force them."

"All right," he said, "drive them by force!"

And so the old devil announced that all the fools were to inscribe themselves as soldiers, and that Iván would execute those who would not go.

The fools came to the general and said:

"You say that the king will have us killed if we do not become soldiers, but you do not tell us what we shall have to do as soldiers. They say that soldiers, too, are killed."

"Yes, that cannot be helped."

When the fools heard that, they became stubborn.

"We will not go," they said. "If so, let us be killed at home! Death cannot be escaped anyway."

"Fools that you are!" said the old devil. "A soldier may be killed or not, but if you do not go, King Iván will certainly have you killed."

The fools considered the matter, and went to see Iván the Fool.

"Your general has come," they said, "and tells us all to turn soldiers. 'If you become soldiers,' he says, 'you may be killed, or not, but if you do not become soldiers King Iván will certainly put you to death.' Is that true?"

Iván began to laugh.

"How can I, one man, have you all put to death? If I were not a fool, I should explain that to you, but as it is, I do not understand it myself."

"If so," they said, "we shall not become soldiers."

"All right," he said, "don't."

The fools went to the general and refused to become soldiers.

The old devil saw that his business did not work, so he went to the King of Cockroachland, and got into his favour.

"Let us go," he said, "and wage war on King Iván, and vanquish him. He has no money, but he has plenty of grain, and cattle, and all kinds of things."

The King of Cockroachland went out to make war: he had gathered a large army, and collected guns and cannon, and left his borders, to enter Iván's kingdom.

People came to Iván and said:

"The King of Cockroachland is coming against us."

"All right," he said, "let him come."

The King of Cockroachland crossed the border, and sent the advance-guard to find Iván's army. They looked and looked for it, and could not find it. They thought that they might wait for it to show up. But they heard nothing about it, – there was no army to fight.

The King of Cockroachland sent out his men to take possession of the villages. The soldiers came to one village, – and there the fools jumped out to look at the soldiers and to marvel at them. The soldiers began to take away the grain and the cattle: the fools gave it all up, and did not resist. The soldiers went to the next village, and the same happened. The soldiers walked for a day or two, and everywhere the same happened. They gave up all they had, and nobody resisted, and they invited the soldiers to come and live with them:

"If you, dear people," they said, "have not enough to live on in your country, come and settle among us."

The soldiers walked and walked, but no army was to be found; everywhere people were living, and feeding themselves and other people, and they did not resist, but invited them to come and live with them.

The soldiers felt bad, and they came back to the King of Cockroachland.

"We cannot fight here," they said, "so take us to some other place: war would be a good thing, but this is as though we were to cut soup. We cannot fight here."

The King of Cockroachland grew wroth, and commanded his soldiers to march through the whole kingdom, and destroy villages and houses, and burn the grain and kill the cattle.

"If you do not obey my command," he said, "I shall have you all executed."

The soldiers became frightened, and began to carry out the king's command. They started to burn the houses and the grain, and to kill the cattle. And still the fools did not resist, but only wept. The old men wept, and the old women wept, and the children wept.

"Why do you offend us? Why do you destroy the property? If you need it, take it along!"

The soldiers felt ashamed. They did not go any farther, and the whole army ran away.

XII

The old devil went away, – he could not get at Iván by means of the soldiers. The old devil changed into a clean-looking gentleman, and went to live in Iván's kingdom: he wished to get at him by means of money, as he had done with Tarás the Paunch.

"I want to do you good," he said, "and to teach you what is good and proper. I will build a house in your country, and will start an establishment."

"All right," he said, "stay here!"

The clean-looking gentleman stayed overnight, and the following morning he took a large bag of gold to the market-square, and a sheet of paper, and said:

"You are all of you living like pigs. I will teach you how to live. Build me a house according to this plan! You work, and I will show you how, and will pay gold money to you."

And he showed them the gold. The fools were astounded: they had no such a thing as money, and only exchanged things among themselves, or paid with work. They marvelled at the gold and said:

"They are nice things."

And for these gold things they began to give him what they had and to work for him. The old devil rejoiced and thought:

"My affair is proceeding favourably. I will now ruin Iván completely, as I have ruined Tarás, and will buy him up, guts and all."

As soon as the fools had any gold, they gave it all away to their women for necklaces, and their girls wove it into their braids, and the children began to play in the streets with those pretty things. When all had enough of it, they refused to get any more. The clean-looking gentleman's palace was not half done, and the grain and the cattle were not yet attended to for the year. And the gentleman demanded that they should go and work for him, and haul his grain, and drive his cattle; he promised them much gold for everything and for all work.

But no one came to work, and they brought nothing to him. Only now and then a boy or girl would run in to exchange an egg for a gold coin; otherwise nobody came, and he had nothing to eat. The clean-looking gentleman was starved, and he went to the village to buy something to eat: he went into one yard, and offered a gold coin for a chicken, but the woman would not take it.

"I have too many of them as it is," she said.

He went to a homeless woman, to buy a herring of her, and offered her a gold coin.

"I do not want it, dear man," she said. "I have no children, and so there is nobody to play with it; I myself have three of these for show."

He went to a peasant to buy bread of him, but the peasant, too, would not take the money.

"I do not want it," he said. "If you want bread, for Christ's sake, wait, and I will have my wife cut you off a piece."

The devil just spit out and ran away from the peasant. Not only would he not take anything for Christ's sake, but it was worse than cutting him even to hear that word.

And so he did not get any bread. Everywhere it was the same; no matter where the devil went, they gave him nothing for money, but said:

"Bring us something else, or come and work for it, or take it for Christ's sake!"

But the devil had nothing but money. He did not like to work, and for Christ's sake he could not take anything. The old devil grew angry.

"What else do you want, if I give you money? You can buy anything for money, or hire a labourer."

The fools paid no attention to him.

"No," they said, "we do not want it. We have no taxes and no wages to pay, so what do we want with the money?"

The old devil went to bed without eating supper.

This affair reached the ears of Iván the Fool. They went to ask him:

"What shall we do? A clean-looking gentleman has appeared among us: he is fond of eating and drinking, and does not like to work, and does not beg for Christ's sake, but only offers us gold pieces. So long as we did not have enough of them, we gave him everything, but now we do not give him any more. What shall we do with him? We are afraid that he will starve."

Iván listened to what they had to say.

"All right," he said, "we shall have to feed him. Let him go from farm to farm as a shepherd!"

The old devil could not help himself, and he began to go from farm to farm. The turn came to Iván's farm. The old devil came to dinner, and the dumb girl was just fixing it. Those who were lazy used to deceive her. Without having worked they came to dinner earlier and ate up all the porridge. And so the dumb girl contrived to tell the good-for-nothing by their hands: if one had calluses, she seated him at the table, but if not, she gave him what was left of the dinner. The old devil climbed behind the table; but the dumb girl took hold of his hands, and there were no calluses; the hands were clean and smooth, and the nails long.

The dumb girl bawled, and pulled the devil out from behind the table.

Iván's wife said to him:

"Don't take it amiss, clean gentleman! My sister-in-law will not let a man without calluses sit down at the table. Wait awhile! Let the people eat first, and then you will get what is left."

The old devil was insulted, because at the king's house they would feed him with the swine. He said to Iván:

"What a fool's law you have in your country to let all men work with their hands! You have invented that in your stupidity. Do men work with their hands only? How do you suppose clever people work?"

But Iván said:

"How can we fools know? We labour mostly with our hands and with our backs."

"That is so, because you are fools. I will teach you," he said, "how to work with your heads. You will see that with your heads you can work faster than with your hands."

Iván marvelled.

"Indeed," he said, "we are called fools for good reason."

And the old devil said:

"But it is not easy to work with the head. You do not give me anything to eat because I have no calluses on my hands, and you do not know that it is a hundred times harder to work with the head. At times it just makes the head burst."

Iván fell to musing.

"But why do you torture yourself so much, my dear? It is no small matter to have your head burst. You had better do some easy work, – with your hands and back."

And the devil said:

"The reason I torture myself is because I pity you fools. If I did not torture myself, you would remain fools to the end of your days. I have worked with my head, and now I will teach you, too."

Iván marvelled.

"Teach us," he said, "for now and then the hands get tired, and it would be nice to use the head instead."

The devil promised to teach him.

And Iván proclaimed throughout his kingdom that a clean-looking man had appeared who would teach people how to work with their heads, that they could work more with their heads than with their hands, and that they should come and learn.

In Iván's kingdom there was a high tower, and a straight staircase led up to it, and at the top there was a spy-room. Iván took the gentleman there so that he might see better.

The gentleman stood up on the tower and began to speak from it. The fools gathered around to look at him. The fools thought that he would show them in fact how to work with the head instead of the hands. But the old devil taught them only in words how to live without working.

The fools did not understand a word. They looked and looked and went away, each to his work.

The old devil stood on the tower a day, and a second day, and kept talking. He wanted to eat; but the fools did not have enough sense to send some bread up to the tower. They thought that if he could work better with his head than with his hands, he would somehow earn bread for himself with his head. The old devil stood another day in the tower-room, and kept talking all the time. And the people came up and looked, and looked and went away.

Then Iván asked:

"Well, has the gentleman begun to work with his head?"

"Not yet," people said, "he is still babbling."

The old devil stood another day on the tower and began to weaken; he tottered and struck his head against a post. One of the fools saw that, and told Iván's wife about it, and she ran to her husband in the field.

"Come, let us go and see," she said. "The gentleman is beginning to work with his head."

Iván was surprised.

"Indeed?" he said. He turned in the horse, and went to the tower. When he came up to it, the old devil was weakened from hunger and tottering from side to side and knocking his head against the posts. Just as Iván came up, the devil stumbled and fell and rattled down the stairs, head foremost: he counted all the steps.

"Well," said Iván, "the clean-looking gentleman told the truth when he said that at times the head bursts. This is worse than calluses: such works will leave bumps on the head."

The old devil came down the whole staircase and struck his head against the ground. Iván wanted to go and see how much work he had done, but suddenly the earth gave way, and the old devil went through the earth, and nothing but a hole was left.

Iván scratched himself.

"I declare," he said, "it is a nasty thing! It is again he. He must be the father of those others. What a big fellow he is!"

Iván is still living, and people are all the time rushing to his kingdom, and his brothers, too, came to him, and he is feeding them all. If any one comes and says: "Feed me!" he replies:

"All right, stay here, we have plenty of everything."

They have but one custom in his country, and that is, if one has calluses on his hands, he may sit down at the table, and if he has not, he gets the remnants.

1

The Russian way of saying "Noah had three sons."