Tolstoi for the young: Select tales from Tolstoi

XI

One night the godson set out to water his pieces of charcoal and when he had finished he sat down in his cell to rest. He peered along the path now and again to see if any visitor was coming, but no one came that day. The godson sat alone until evening and he grew lonesome and weary and began to think about his life. He recollected how the robber had reproached him for living by his piety. He began to look back upon his life. “I am not living as the hermit told me,” he thought. “The hermit imposed a penance on me and I have used it as a means of earning my bread and even gaining fame thereby. I have been so led astray over it that I am even dull when people do not come to see me, and when they do come, I rejoice when they praise my saintliness. This is not the way one must live. I have been blinded by fame. Not only have I not atoned for past sins but have taken new ones upon myself. I will go away to another place far into the wood, where the people will not find me, and I will live alone there and atone for my past sins, taking care not to commit new ones.”

Thinking thus the godson took a bag of rusks and a spade, and he left the cell and set out down a ravine to build himself a mud hut in the thicket and disappear from people’s sight.

“Why didn’t I say anything to him about his life?” the godson thought. “He may be repentant now. He seemed softer of manner and did not threaten to kill me to-day.” And he called to the robber saying, “It is time you repented. You cannot get away from God.”

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“On what God gives,” he said.

“But what will you live on if no one comes to see you?”

With these words the robber rode away.

The robber wondered.

The robber turned his horse round, seized a knife from his girdle and brandished it aloft. The godson took fright and ran away into the wood.

The robber made no reply and went his way.

The robber did not trouble to go after him, he merely said, “I have let you off twice, old man; take care not to come my way a third time, or I’ll kill you.”

The godson was walking along with his bag and spade when the robber jumped out upon him. The godson was afraid and would have run away, but the robber stopped him.

The godson told him that he wanted to go away from people and bury himself in a wild part of the wood where no one would come to him.

The godson had not thought of that, but now the robber had mentioned it he remembered that he had to eat.

That evening the godson went to water his pieces of charcoal and behold! one of the pieces had sprouted! A young apple-tree had shot forth.