Tolstoi for the young: Select tales from Tolstoi

IX

The three brothers lived and reigned.

The elder brother Simon the Warrior lived well. With his straw soldiers he gathered together real soldiers. Throughout the whole of his kingdom he ordered a levy of one soldier for every ten houses, and each soldier had to be tall and whole of body and clean of face. In this way he gathered many soldiers and trained them. If any one opposed him he sent his soldiers off at once and imposed his will, and people began to fear him. His life was a very goodly one. Whatever he saw and wanted was his. He sent his soldiers and they brought him all he wanted.

“Why should I go against my husband?” she said. “Where the needle goes, the thread follows.”

“What does it matter?” Ivan said.

“What does it matter? They needn’t. They’ll have more time for work. There’s the manure to cart; heaps of it lying about.”

“It’s so dull for me,” he said. “I’ve got fat, lost my appetite and can’t sleep.”

“Even a king must eat,” he said.

“Don’t pay them, then,” he said.

“But you are a king,” people remonstrated.

“But no one will serve us.”

When people came to Ivan for justice and said, “That man stole my money,” Ivan said, “Never mind; he must have wanted it.”

Taras the Pot-bellied also lived well. He did not lose the money Ivan had given him, but increased it a hundredfold. He introduced law and order into his kingdom. He stowed his money away in coffers and levied taxes on the people. There was a poll-tax, and tolls for walking and driving, and a tax on shoes and stockings and frills. He got whatever he wanted. For money people brought him everything, and even worked for him, for every one wanted money.

So she took off her royal robes, put them away in a chest and went to Malania to learn to work. When she knew how, she began to help her husband.

One of his ministers came to him and said, “We have no money to pay salaries.”

Ivan the Fool, too, did not live badly. As soon as his father-in-law was dead he took off his royal robes and gave them to his wife to stow away in a chest. And he put on his coarse linen shirt and breeches and peasant shoes and began to work once more.

His wife reflected awhile, but she was also a fool.

He brought his father and mother and sister to live with him, and began to work as of old.

And all realized that Ivan was a fool. And his wife said to him, “People say you are a fool.”

All the wise left Ivan’s kingdom, and only the fools remained.

Nobody had money. They lived and worked, fed themselves and others.