‘I will look,’ said he, ‘and see what is happening at home, and whether the harvest is good.’
He looked towards his father’s fields and saw the sheaves standing in stooks. He began counting them to see whether there was much corn, when he noticed a peasant driving in a cart. It was night, and the godson thought it was his father coming to cart the corn by night. But as he looked he recognized Vasíly Koudryashóf, the thief, driving into the field and beginning to load the sheaves on to his cart. This made the godson angry, and he called out:
‘Father, the sheaves are being stolen from our field!’
His father, who was out with the horses in the night-pasture, woke up.
‘I dreamt the sheaves were being stolen,’ said he. ‘I will just ride down and see.’
So he got on a horse and rode out to the field. Finding Vasíly there, he called together other peasants to help him, and Vasíly was beaten, bound, and taken to prison.
Then the godson looked at the town, where his godmother lived. He saw that she was now married to a tradesman. She lay asleep, and her husband rose and went to his mistress. The godson shouted to her:
‘Get up, get up, your husband has taken to evil ways.’
The godmother jumped up and dressed, and finding out where her husband was, she shamed and beat his mistress, and drove him away.
Then the godson looked for his mother, and saw her lying asleep in her cottage. And a thief crept into the cottage and began to break open the chest in which she kept her things. The mother awoke and screamed, and the robber seizing an axe, swung it over his head to kill her.
The godson could not refrain from hurling the sceptre at the robber. It struck him upon the temple, and killed him on the spot.
VI
As soon as the godson had killed the robber, the walls closed and the hall became just as it had been before.
Then the door opened and the godfather entered, and coming up to his godson he took him by the hand and led him down from the throne.
‘You have not obeyed my command,’ said he. ‘You did one wrong thing, when you opened the forbidden door; another, when you mounted the throne and took my sceptre into your hands; and you have now done a third wrong, which has much increased the evil in the world. Had you sat here an hour longer, you would have ruined half mankind.’
Then the godfather led his godson back to the throne, and took the sceptre in his hand; and again the walls fell asunder and all things became visible. And the godfather said:
‘See what you have done to your father. Vasíly has now been a year in prison, and has come out having learnt every kind of wickedness, and has become quite incorrigible. See, he has stolen two of your father’s horses, and he is now setting fire to his barn. All this you have brought upon your father.’
The godson saw his father’s barn breaking into flames, but his godfather shut off the sight from him, and told him to look another way.
‘Here is your godmother’s husband,’ he said. ‘It is a year since he left his wife, and now he goes after other women. His former mistress has sunk to still lower depths. Sorrow has driven his wife to drink. That’s what you have done to your godmother.’
The godfather shut off this also, and showed the godson his father’s house. There he saw his mother weeping for her sins, repenting, and saying:
‘It would have been better had the robber killed me that night. I should not have sinned so heavily.’
‘That,’ said the godfather, ‘is what you have done to your mother.’
He shut this off also, and pointed downwards; and the godson saw two warders holding the robber in front of a prison-house.
And the godfather said:
‘This man had murdered ten men. He should have expiated his sins himself, but by killing him you have taken his sins on yourself. Now you must answer for all his sins. That is what you have done to yourself. The she-bear pushed the log aside once, and disturbed her cubs; she pushed it again, and killed her yearling; she pushed it a third time, and was killed herself. You have done the same. Now I give you thirty years to go into the world and atone for the robber’s sins. If you do not atone for them, you will have to take his place.’
‘How am I to atone for his sins?’ asked the godson.
And the godfather answered:
‘When you have rid the world of as much evil as you have brought into it, you will have atoned both for your own sins and for those of the robber.’
‘How can I destroy evil in the world?’ the godson asked.
‘Go out,’ replied the godfather, ‘and walk straight towards the rising sun. After a time you will come to a field with some men in it. Notice what they are doing, and teach them what you know. Then go on and note what you see. On the fourth day you will come to a forest. In the midst of the forest is a cell and in the cell lives a hermit. Tell him all that has happened. He will teach you what to do. When you have done all he tells you, you will have atoned for your own and the robber’s sins.’
And, having said this, the godfather led his godson out of the gate.
VII
The godson went his way, and as he went he thought: How am I to destroy evil in the world? Evil is destroyed by banishing evil men, keeping them in prison, or putting them to death. How then am I to destroy evil without taking the sins of others upon myself?’
The godson pondered over it for a long time, but could come to no conclusion. He went on until he came to a field where corn was growing thick and good and ready for the reapers. The godson saw that a little calf had got in among the corn. Some men who were at hand saw it, and mounting their horses they chased it backwards and forwards through the corn. Each time the calf was about to come out of the corn some one rode up and the calf got frightened and turned back again, and they all galloped after it, trampling down the corn. On the road stood a woman crying.
‘They will chase my calf to death,’ she said.
And the godson said to the peasants:
‘What are you doing? Come out of the cornfield all of you, and let the woman call her calf.’
The men did so; and the woman came to the edge of the cornfield and called to the calf. ‘Come along browney, come along,’ said she. The calf pricked up its ears, listened a while, and then ran towards the woman of its own accord, and hid its head in her skirts, almost knocking her over. The men were glad the woman was glad, and so was the little calf.
The godson went on, and he thought:
‘Now I see that evil spreads evil. The more people try to drive away evil, the more the evil grows. Evil, it seems, cannot be destroyed by evil; but in what way it can be destroyed, I do not know. The calf obeyed its mistress and so all went well; but if it had not obeyed her, how could we have got it out of the field?’
The godson pondered again, but came to no conclusion, and continued his way.
VIII
He went on until he came to a village. At the furthest end he stopped and asked leave to stay the night. The woman of the house was there alone, house-cleaning, and she let him in. The godson entered, and taking his seat upon the brick oven he watched what the woman was doing. He saw her finish scrubbing the room and begin scrubbing the table. Having done this, she began wiping the table with a dirty cloth.
She wiped it from side to side — but it did not come clean. The soiled cloth left streaks of dirt. Then she wiped it the other way. The first streaks disappeared, but others came in their place. Then she wiped it from one end to the other, but again the same thing happened. The soiled cloth messed the table; when one streak was wiped off another was left on. The godson watched for awhile in silence, and then said:
‘What are you doing, mistress?’
‘Don’t you see I’m cleaning up for the holiday. Only I can’t manage this table, it won’t come clean. I’m quite tired out.’
‘You should rinse your cloth,’ said the godson, ‘before you wipe the table with it.’
The woman did so, and soon had the table clean.
‘Thank you for
