Neglect The Fire

: THE CANDLE
: Fables For Children, Stories For Children, Natural Science Stori

And You Cannot Put It Out



Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother

sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?



Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but,

Until seventy times seven.



Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king,

which would take account of his servants.
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And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which

owed him ten thousand talents.



But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be

sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment

to be made.



The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord,

have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.



Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed

him, and forgave him the debt.



But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants,

which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took

him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest.



And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him,

saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.



And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should

pay the debt.



So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry,

and came and told unto their lord all that was done.



Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou

wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou

desiredst me:



Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant,

even as I had pity on thee?



And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till

he should pay all that was due unto him.



So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from

your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.

(Matt. xviii. 21-35.)





There lived in a village a peasant, by the name of Ivan Shcherbakov. He

lived well; he was himself in full strength, the first worker in the

village, and he had three sons,--all of them on their legs: one was

married, the second about to marry, and the third a grown-up lad who

drove horses and was beginning to plough. Ivan's wife was a clever woman

and a good housekeeper, and his daughter-in-law turned out to be a quiet

person and a good worker. There was no reason why Ivan should not have

led a good life with his family. The only idle mouth on the farm was his

old, ailing father (he had been lying on the oven for seven years, sick

with the asthma).



Ivan had plenty of everything, three horses and a colt, a cow and a

yearling calf, and fifteen sheep. The women made the shoes and the

clothes for the men and worked in the field; the men worked on their

farms.



They had enough grain until the next crop. From the oats they paid their

taxes and met all their obligations. An easy life, indeed, might Ivan

have led with his children. But next door to him he had a neighbour,

Gavrilo the Lame, Gordyey Ivanov's son. And there was an enmity between

him and Ivan.



So long as old man Gordyey was alive, and Ivan's father ran the farm,

the peasants lived in neighbourly fashion. If the women needed a sieve

or a vat, or the men had to get another axle or wheel for a time, they

sent from one farm to another, and helped each other out in a

neighbourly way. If a calf ran into the yard of the threshing-floor,

they drove it out and only said: "Don't let it out, for the heap has not

yet been put away." And it was not their custom to put it away and lock

it up in the threshing-floor or in a shed, or to revile each other.



Thus they lived so long as the old men were alive. But when the young

people began to farm, things went quite differently.



The whole thing began from a mere nothing. A hen of Ivan's

daughter-in-law started laying early. The young woman gathered the eggs

for Passion week. Every day she went to the shed to pick up an egg from

the wagon-box. But, it seems, the boys scared away the hen, and she flew

across the wicker fence to the neighbour's yard, and laid an egg there.

The young woman heard the hen cackle, so she thought:



"I have no time now, I must get the hut in order for the holiday; I will

go there later to get it."



In the evening she went to the wagon-box under the shed, to fetch the

egg, but it was not there. The young woman asked her mother-in-law and

her brother-in-law if they had taken it; but Taraska, her youngest

brother-in-law, said:



"Your hen laid an egg in the neighbour's yard, for she cackled there and

flew out from that yard."



The young woman went to look at her hen, and found her sitting with the

cock on the perch; she had closed her eyes and was getting ready to

sleep. The woman would have liked to ask her where she laid the egg, but

she would not have given her any answer. Then the young woman went to

her neighbour. The old woman met her.



"What do you want, young woman?"



"Granny, my hen has been in your yard to-day,--did she not lay an egg

there?"



"I have not set eyes on her. We have hens of our own, thank God, and

they have been laying for quite awhile. We have gathered our own eggs,

and we do not need other people's eggs. Young woman, we do not go to

other people's yards to gather eggs."



The young woman was offended. She said a word too much, the neighbour

answered with two, and the women began to scold. Ivan's wife was

carrying water, and she, too, took a hand in it. Gavrilo's wife jumped

out, and began to rebuke her neighbour. She reminded her of things that

had happened, and mentioned things that had not happened at all. And the

tongue-lashing began. All yelled together, trying to say two words at

the same time. And they used bad words.



"You are such and such a one; you are a thief, a sneak; you are simply

starving your father-in-law; you are a tramp."



"And you are a beggar: you have torn my sieve; and you have our

shoulder-yoke. Give me back the yoke!"



They grabbed the yoke, spilled the water, tore off their kerchiefs, and

began to fight. Gavrilo drove up from the field, and he took his wife's

part. Ivan jumped out with his son, and they all fell in a heap. Ivan

was a sturdy peasant, and he scattered them all. He yanked out a piece

of Gavrilo's beard. People ran up to them, and they were with difficulty

pulled apart.



That's the way it began.



Gavrilo wrapped the piece of his beard in a petition and went to the

township court to enter a complaint.



"I did not raise a beard for freckled Ivan to pull it out."



In the meantime his wife bragged to the neighbours that they would now

get Ivan sentenced and would have him sent to Siberia, and the feud

began.



The old man on the oven tried to persuade them to stop the first day

they started to quarrel, but the young people paid no attention to him.

He said to them:



"Children, you are doing a foolish thing, and for a foolish thing have

you started a feud. Think of it,--the whole affair began from an egg.

The children picked up the egg,--well, God be with them! There is no

profit in one egg. With God's aid there will be enough for everybody.

Well, you have said a bad word, so correct it, show her how to use

better words! Well, you have had a fight,--you are sinful people. That,

too, happens. Well, go and make peace, and let there be an end to it! If

you keep it up, it will only be worse."



The young people did not obey the old man; they thought that he was not

using sense, but just babbling in old man's fashion.



Ivan did not give in to his neighbour.



"I did not pull his beard," he said. "He jerked it out himself; but his

son has yanked off my shirt-button and has torn my whole shirt. Here it

is."



And Ivan, too, took the matter to court. The case was heard before a

justice of the peace, and in the township court. While they were suing

each other, Gavrilo lost a coupling-pin out of his cart. The women in

Gavrilo's house accused Ivan's son of having taken it.



"We saw him in the night," they said, "making his way under the window

to the cart, and the gossip says that he went to the dram-shop and asked

the dram-shopkeeper to take the pin from him."



Again they started a suit. But at home not a day passed but that they

quarrelled, nay, even fought. The children cursed one another,--they

learned this from their elders,--and when the women met at the brook,

they did not so much strike the beetles as let loose their tongues, and

to no good.



At first the men just accused each other, but later they began to snatch

up things that lay about loose. And they taught the women and children

to do the same. Their life grew worse and worse. Ivan Shcherbakov and

Gavrilo the Lame kept suing one another at the meetings of the Commune,

and in the township court, and before the justices of the peace, and all

the judges were tired of them. Now Gavrilo got Ivan to pay a fine, or he

sent him to the lockup, and now Ivan did the same to Gavrilo. And the

more they did each other harm, the more furious they grew. When dogs

make for each other, they get more enraged the more they fight. You

strike a dog from behind, and he thinks that the other dog is biting

him, and gets only madder than ever. Just so it was with these peasants:

when they went to court, one or the other was punished, either by being

made to pay a fine, or by being thrown into prison, and that only made

their rage flame up more and more toward one another.



"Just wait, I will pay you back for it!"



And thus it went on for six years. The old man on the oven kept

repeating the same advice. He would say to them:



"What are you doing, my children? Drop all your accounts, stick to your

work, don't show such malice toward others, and it will be better. The

more you rage, the worse will it be."



They paid no attention to the old man.



In the seventh year the matter went so far that Ivan's daughter-in-law

at a wedding accused Gavrilo before people of having been caught with

horses. Gavrilo was drunk, and he did not hold back his anger, but

struck the woman and hurt her so that she lay sick for a week, for she

was heavy with child. Ivan rejoiced, and went with a petition to the

prosecuting magistrate.



"Now," he thought, "I will get even with my neighbour: he shall not

escape the penitentiary or Siberia."



Again Ivan was not successful. The magistrate did not accept the

petition: they examined the woman, but she was up and there were no

marks upon her. Ivan went to the justice of the peace; but the justice

sent the case to the township court. Ivan bestirred himself in the

township office, filled the elder and the scribe with half a bucket of

sweet liquor, and got them to sentence Gavrilo to having his back

flogged. The sentence was read to Gavrilo in the court.



The scribe read:



"The court has decreed that the peasant Gavrilo Gordyey receive twenty

blows with rods in the township office."



Ivan listened to the decree and looked at Gavrilo, wondering what he

would do. Gavrilo, too, heard the decree, and he became as pale as a

sheet, and turned away and walked out into the vestibule. Ivan followed

him out and wanted to go to his horse, when he heard Gavrilo say:



"Very well, he will beat my back, and it will burn, but something of his

may burn worse than that."



When Ivan heard these words, he returned to the judges.



"Righteous judges! He threatens to set fire to my house. Listen, he said

it in the presence of witnesses."



Gavrilo was called in.



"Is it true that you said so?"



"I said nothing. Flog me, if you please. Evidently I must suffer for my

truth, while he may do anything he wishes."



Gavrilo wanted to say something more, but his lips and cheeks trembled.

He turned away toward the wall. Even the judges were frightened as they

looked at him.



"It would not be surprising," they thought, "if he actually did some

harm to his neighbour or to himself."



And an old judge said to them:



"Listen, friends! You had better make peace with each other. Did you do

right, brother Gavrilo, to strike a pregnant woman? Luckily God was

merciful to you, but think what crime you might have committed! Is that

good? Confess your guilt and beg his pardon! And he will pardon you.

Then we shall change the decree."



The scribe heard that, and said:



"That is impossible, because on the basis of Article 117 there has taken

place no reconciliation, but the decree of the court has been handed

down, and the decree has to be executed."



But the judge paid no attention to the scribe.



"Stop currycombing your tongue. The first article, my friend, is to

remember God, and God has commanded me to make peace."



And the judge began once more to talk to the peasants, but he could not

persuade them. Gavrilo would not listen to him.



"I am fifty years old less one," he said, "and I have a married son. I

have not been beaten in all my life, and now freckled Ivan has brought

me to being beaten with rods, and am I to beg his forgiveness? Well, he

will--Ivan will remember me!"



Gavrilo's voice trembled again. He could not talk. He turned around and

went out.



From the township office to the village was a distance of ten versts,

and Ivan returned home late. The women had already gone out to meet the

cattle. He unhitched his horse, put it away, and entered the hut. The

room was empty. The children had not yet returned from the field, and

the women were out to meet the cattle. Ivan went in, sat down on a

bench, and began to think. He recalled how the decision was announced to

Gavrilo, and how he grew pale, and turned to the wall. And his heart was

pinched. He thought of how he should feel if he were condemned to be

flogged. He felt sorry for Gavrilo. He heard the old man coughing on the

oven. The old man turned around, let down his legs, and sat up. He

pulled himself with difficulty up to the bench, and coughed and coughed,

until he cleared his throat, and leaned against the table, and said:



"Well, have they condemned him?"



Ivan said:



"He has been sentenced to twenty strokes with the rods."



The old man shook his head.



"Ivan, you are not doing right. It's wrong, not wrong to him, but to

yourself. Well, will it make you feel easier, if they flog him?"



"He will never do it again," said Ivan.



"Why not? In what way is he doing worse than you?"



"What, he has not harmed me?" exclaimed Ivan. "He might have killed the

woman; and he even now threatens to set fire to my house. Well, shall I

bow to him for it?"



The old man heaved a sigh, and said:



"You, Ivan, walk and drive wherever you please in the free world, and I

have passed many years on the oven, and so you think that you see

everything, while I see nothing. No, my son, you see nothing,--malice

has dimmed your eyes. Another man's sins are in front of you, but your

own are behind your back. You say that he has done wrong. If he alone

had done wrong, there would be no harm. Does evil between people arise

from one man only? Evil arises between two. You see his badness, but you

do not see your own. If he himself were bad, and you good, there would

be no evil. Who pulled out his beard? Who blasted the rick which was at

halves? Who is dragging him to the courts? And yet you put it always on

him. You yourself live badly, that's why it is bad. Not thus did I live,

and no such thing, my dear, did I teach you. Did I and the old man, his

father, live this way? How did we live? In neighbourly fashion. If his

flour gave out, and the woman came: 'Uncle Frol, I need some

flour.'--'Go, young woman, into the granary, and take as much as you

need.' If he had nobody to send out with the horses,--'Go, Ivan, and

look after his horses!' And if I was short of anything, I used to go to

him. 'Uncle Gordyey, I need this and that.' And how is it now? The other

day a soldier was talking about Plevna. Why, your war is worse than what

they did at Plevna. Do you call this living? It is a sin! You are a

peasant, a head of a house. You will be responsible. What are you

teaching your women and your children? To curse. The other day Taraska,

that dirty nose, cursed Aunt Arina, and his mother only laughed at him.

Is that good? You will be responsible for it. Think of your soul. Is

that right? You say a word to me, and I answer with two; you box my

ears, and I box you twice. No, my son, Christ walked over the earth and

taught us fools something quite different. If a word is said to

you,--keep quiet, and let conscience smite him. That's what he, my son,

has taught us. If they box your ears, you turn the other cheek to them:

'Here, strike it if I deserve it.' His own conscience will prick him. He

will be pacified and will do as you wish. That's what he has commanded

us to do, and not to crow. Why are you silent? Do I tell you right?"



Ivan was silent, and he listened.



The old man coughed again, and with difficulty coughed up the phlegm,

and began to speak again:



"Do you think Christ has taught us anything bad? He has taught us for

our own good. Think of your earthly life: are you better off, or worse,

since that Plevna of yours was started? Figure out how much you have

spent on these courts, how much you have spent in travelling and in

feeding yourself on the way? See what eagles of sons you have! You ought

to live, and live well, and go up, but your property is growing less.

Why? For the same reason. From your pride. You ought to be ploughing

with the boys in the field and attend to your sowing, but the fiend

carries you to court or to some pettifogger. You do not plough in time

and do not sow in time, and mother earth does not bring forth anything.

Why did the oats not do well this year? When did you sow them? When you

came back from the city. And what did you gain from the court? Only

trouble for yourself. Oh, son, stick to your business, and attend to

your field and your house, and if any one has offended you, forgive him

in godly fashion, and things will go better with you, and you will feel

easier at heart."



Ivan kept silence.



"Listen, Ivan! Pay attention to me, an old man. Go and hitch the gray

horse, and drive straight back to the office: squash there the whole

business, and in the morning go to Gavrilo, make peace with him in godly

fashion, and invite him to the holiday" (it was before Lady-day), "have

the samovar prepared, get a half bottle, and make an end to all sins, so

that may never happen again, and command the women and children to live

in peace."



Ivan heaved a sigh, and thought: "The old man is speaking the truth,"

and his heart melted. The only thing he did not know was how to manage

things so as to make peace with his neighbour.



And the old man, as though guessing what he had in mind, began once

more:



"Go, Ivan, do not put it off! Put out the fire at the start, for when it

burns up, you can't control it."



The old man wanted to say something else, but did not finish, for the

women entered the room and began to prattle like magpies. The news had

already reached them about how Gavrilo had been sentenced to be flogged,

and how he had threatened to set fire to the house. They had found out

everything, and had had time in the pasture to exchange words with the

women of Gavrilo's house. They said that Gavrilo's daughter-in-law had

threatened them with the examining magistrate. The magistrate, they

said, was receiving gifts from Gavrilo. He would now upset the whole

case, and the teacher had already written another petition to the Tsar

about Ivan, and that petition mentioned all the affairs, about the

coupling-pin, and about the garden,--and half of the estate would go

back to him. Ivan listened to their talk, and his heart was chilled

again, and he changed his mind about making peace with Gavrilo.



In a farmer's yard there is always much to do. Ivan did not stop to talk

with the women, but got up and went out of the house, and walked over to

the threshing-floor and the shed. Before he fixed everything and started

back again, the sun went down, and the boys returned from the field.

They had been ploughing up the field for the winter crop. Ivan met them,

and asked them about their work and helped them to put up the horses. He

laid aside the torn collar and was about to put some poles under the

shed, when it grew quite dark. Ivan left the poles until the morrow;

instead he threw some fodder down to the cattle, opened the gate, let

Taraska out with the horses into the street, to go to the night pasture,

and again closed the gate and put down the gate board.



"Now to supper and to bed," thought Ivan. He took the torn collar and

went into the house. He had entirely forgotten about Gavrilo, and about

what his father had told him. As he took hold of the ring and was about

to enter the vestibule, he heard his neighbour on the other side of the

wicker fence scolding some one in a hoarse voice.



"The devil take him!" Gavrilo was crying to some one. "He ought to be

killed."



These words made all the old anger toward his neighbour burst forth in

Ivan. He stood awhile and listened to Gavrilo's scolding. Then Gavrilo

grew quiet, and Ivan went into the house.



He entered the room. Fire was burning within. The young woman was

sitting in the corner behind the spinning-wheel; the old woman was

getting supper ready; the eldest son was making laces for the bast

shoes, the second was at the table with a book, and Taraska was getting

ready to go to the night pasture.



In the house everything was good and merry, if it were not for that

curse,--a bad neighbour.



Ivan was angry when he entered the room. He knocked the cat down from

the bench and scolded the women because the vat was not in the right

place. Ivan felt out of humour. He sat down, frowning, and began to mend

the collar. He could not forget Gavrilo's words, with which he had

threatened him in court, and how he had said about somebody, speaking in

a hoarse voice: "He ought to be killed."



The old woman got Taraska something to eat. When he was through with his

supper, he put on a fur coat and a caftan, girded himself, took a piece

of bread, and went out to the horses. The eldest brother wanted to see

him off, but Ivan himself got up and went out on the porch. It was

pitch-dark outside, the sky was clouded, and a wind had risen. Ivan

stepped down from the porch, helped his little son to get on a horse,

frightened a colt behind him, and stood looking and listening while

Taraska rode down the village, where he met other children, and until

they all rode out of hearing. Ivan stood and stood at the gate, and

could not get Gavrilo's words out of his head, "Something of yours may

burn worse."



"He will not consider himself," thought Ivan. "It is dry, and a wind is

blowing. He will enter somewhere from behind, the scoundrel, and will

set the house on fire, and he will go free. If I could catch him, he

would not get away from me."



This thought troubled Ivan so much that he did not go back to the porch,

but walked straight into the street and through the gate, around the

corner of the house.



"I will examine the yard,--who knows?"



And Ivan walked softly down along the gate. He had just turned around

the corner and looked up the fence, when it seemed to him that something

stirred at the other end, as though it got up and sat down again. Ivan

stopped and stood still,--he listened and looked: everything was quiet,

only the wind rustled the leaves in the willow-tree and crackled through

the straw. It was pitch-dark, but his eyes got used to the darkness:

Ivan could see the whole corner and the plough and the penthouse. He

stood and looked, but there was no one there.



"It must have only seemed so to me," thought Ivan, "but I will,

nevertheless, go and see," and he stole up along the shed. Ivan stepped

softly in his bast shoes, so that he did not hear his own steps. He came

to the corner, when, behold, something flashed by near the plough, and

disappeared again. Ivan felt as though something hit him in the heart,

and he stopped. As he stopped he could see something flashing up, and he

could see clearly some one in a cap squatting down with his back toward

him, and setting fire to a bunch of straw in his hands. He stood

stock-still.



"Now," he thought, "he will not get away from me. I will catch him on

the spot."



Before Ivan had walked two lengths of the fence it grew quite bright,

and no longer in the former place, nor was it a small fire, but the

flame licked up in the straw of the penthouse and was going toward the

roof, and there stood Gavrilo so that the whole of him could be seen.



As a hawk swoops down on a lark, so Ivan rushed up against Gavrilo the

Lame.



"I will twist him up," he thought, "and he will not get away from me."



But Gavrilo the Lame evidently heard his steps and ran along the shed

with as much speed as a hare.



"You will not get away," shouted Ivan, swooping down on him.



He wanted to grab him by the collar, but Gavrilo got away from him, and

Ivan caught him by the skirt of his coat. The skirt tore off, and Ivan

fell down.



Ivan jumped up.



"Help! Hold him!" and again he ran.



As he was getting up, Gavrilo was already near his yard, but Ivan caught

up with him. He was just going to take hold of him, when something

stunned him, as though a stone had come down on his head. Gavrilo had

picked up an oak post near his house and hit Ivan with all his might on

the head, when he ran up to him.



Ivan staggered, sparks flew from his eyes, then all grew dark, and he

fell down. When he came to his senses, Gavrilo was gone. It was as light

as day, and from his yard came a sound as though an engine were working,

and it roared and crackled there. Ivan turned around and saw that his

back shed was all on fire and the side shed was beginning to burn; the

fire, and the smoke, and the burning straw were being carried toward the

house.



"What is this? Friend!" cried Ivan. He raised his hands and brought them

down on his calves. "If I could only pull it out from the penthouse, and

put it out! What is this? Friends!" he repeated. He wanted to shout, but

he nearly strangled,--he had no voice. He wanted to run, but his feet

would not move,--they tripped each other up. He tried to walk slowly,

but he staggered, and he nearly strangled. He stood still again and drew

breath, and started to walk. Before he came to the shed and reached the

fire, the side shed was all on fire, and he could not get into the yard.

People came running up, but nothing could be done. The neighbours

dragged their own things out of their houses, and drove the cattle out.

After Ivan's house, Gavrilo's caught fire; a wind rose and carried the

fire across the street. Half the village burned down.



All they saved from Ivan's house was the old man, who was pulled out,

and everybody jumped out in just what they had on. Everything else was

burned, except the horses in the pasture: the cattle were burned, the

chickens on their roosts, the carts, the ploughs, the harrows, the

women's chests, the grain in the granary,--everything was burned.



Gavrilo's cattle were saved, and they dragged a few things out of his

house.



It burned for a long time, all night long. Ivan stood near his yard, and

kept looking at it, and saying:



"What is this? Friends! If I could just pull it out and put it out!"



But when the ceiling in the hut fell down, he jumped into the hottest

place, took hold of a brand, and wanted to pull it out. The women saw

him and began to call him back, but he pulled out one log and started

for another: he staggered and fell on the fire. Then his son rushed

after him and dragged him out. Ivan had his hair and beard singed and

his garments burnt and his hands blistered, but he did not feel

anything.



"His sorrow has bereft him of his senses," people said.



The fire died down, but Ivan was still standing there, and saying:



"Friends, what is this? If I could only pull it out."



In the morning the elder sent his son to Ivan.



"Uncle Ivan, your father is dying: he has sent for you, to bid you

good-bye."



Ivan had forgotten about his father, and did not understand what they

were saying to him.



"What father?" he said. "Send for whom?"



"He has sent for you, to bid you good-bye. He is dying in our house.

Come, Uncle Ivan!" said the elder's son, pulling him by his arm.



Ivan followed the elder's son.



When the old man, was carried out, burning straw fell on him and

scorched him. He was taken to the elder's house in a distant part of the

village. This part did not burn.



When Ivan came to his father, only the elder's wife was there, and the

children on the oven. The rest were all at the fire. The old man was

lying on a bench, with a taper in his hand, and looking toward the door.

When his son entered, he stirred a little. The old woman went up to him

and said that his son had come. He told her to have him come closer to

him. Ivan went up, and then the old man said:



"What have I told you, Ivan? Who has burned the village?"



"He, father," said Ivan, "he,--I caught him at it. He put the fire to

the roof while I was standing near. If I could only have caught the

burning bunch of straw and put it out, there would not have been

anything."



"Ivan," said the old man, "my death has come, and you, too, will die.

Whose sin is it?"



Ivan stared at his father and kept silence; he could not say a word.



"Speak before God: whose sin is it? What have I told you?"



It was only then that Ivan came to his senses, and understood

everything. And he snuffled, and said:



"Mine, father." And he knelt before his father, and wept, and said:

"Forgive me, father! I am guilty toward you and toward God."



The old man moved his hands, took the taper in his left hand, and was

moving his right hand toward his brow, to make the sign of the cross,

but he did not get it so far, and he stopped.



"Glory be to thee, O Lord! Glory be to thee, O Lord!" he said, and his

eyes were again turned toward his son.



"Ivan! Oh, Ivan!"



"What is it, father?"



"What is to be done now?"



Ivan was weeping.



"I do not know, father," he said. "How am I to live now, father?"



The old man closed his eyes and lisped something, as though gathering

all his strength, and he once more opened his eyes and said:



"You will get along. With God's aid will you get along." The old man was

silent awhile, and he smiled and said:



"Remember, Ivan, you must not tell who started the fire. Cover up

another man's sin! God will forgive two sins."



And the old man took the taper into both hands, folded them over his

heart, heaved a sigh, stretched himself, and died.



* * * * *



Ivan did not tell on Gavrilo, and nobody found out how the fire had been

started.



And Ivan's heart was softened toward Gavrilo, and Gavrilo marvelled at

Ivan, because he did not tell anybody. At first Gavrilo was afraid of

him, but later he got used to him. The peasants stopped quarrelling, and

so did their families. While they rebuilt their homes, the two families

lived in one house, and when the village was built again, and the

farmhouses were built farther apart, Ivan and Gavrilo again were

neighbours, living in the same block.



And Ivan and Gavrilo lived neighbourly together, just as their fathers

had lived. Ivan Shcherbakov remembered his father's injunction and God's

command to put out the fire in the beginning. And if a person did him

some harm, he did not try to have his revenge on the man, but to mend

matters; and if a person called him a bad name, he did not try to answer

with worse words still, but to teach him not to speak badly. And thus he

taught, also the women folk and the children. And Ivan Shcherbakov

improved and began to live better than ever.