Tolstoi for the young: Select tales from Tolstoi

III

Ivan had ploughed all the fallow but one strip, and he went to finish that. His stomach ached, yet he had to plough. He undid the harness ropes, turned over the plough and set out to the fields. He drove one furrow, but coming back, the ploughshares caught on something that seemed like a root.

“What a strange thing!” Ivan thought. “There were no roots here, yet here’s a root!”

“You horrid little wretch, you!”

“What can you do?”

“Very well,” Ivan said; “go, in God’s name.”

“Very well,” Ivan said. “It is time for bed anyway, and I must feed the mare.”

“Very well,” Ivan said, “you can live here.”

“There,” he said; “if any one swallows a single one of these roots all pain will pass away from him.”

“Tell me what you want.”

“My stomach aches,” he said; “can you make it well?”

“Let me go now,” the Devilkin begged once more. “I will dive through the earth and never bother you again.”

“I can.”

“Do it, then.”

When Ivan sat down by the table, the smell of him was displeasing to the lady and she said to her husband, “I cannot sup together with a stinking peasant.”

The Devilkin bent down, rummaged about with his nails in the furrow and pulled out three little roots, grown together.

Ivan took the three roots, separated them and swallowed one. His stomach-ache instantly left him.

Ivan scratched his head.

Ivan raised his hand to dash its head against the plough, but the Devilkin squealed, “Don’t kill me, and I’ll do whatever you want me to.”

He put his hand into the furrow and clutched hold of something soft. He pulled it out. It was a thing as black as a root and it moved. He looked closely and saw that it was a live Devilkin.

At the mention of God the Devilkin plunged into the ground like a stone thrown into water, and there was nothing but the hole left. Ivan thrust the two remaining little roots into his cap and went on with his ploughing. He finished the strip, turned over his plough and set off home. He unharnessed and went into the house, and there was his brother, Simon the Warrior, sitting at table with his wife, having supper. His estate had been taken from him; he had escaped from prison and come back to live with his father.

As soon as Simon the Warrior saw Ivan, he said to him, “I have come with my wife to live with you; will you keep us both until I find another place?”

And Simon the Warrior said, “My lady says you do not smell sweet; you had better eat in the passage.”

Ivan took some bread and his coat and went out for the night.