And the old Devil went away, having failed to bring Ivan to reason by
means of the soldiers.
The old Devil changed himself into a clean gentleman and came to live in
Ivan’s kingdom, hoping to ruin Ivan by money, as he had done Taras.
“I want to do you good and teach you common sense,” he said. “I will
build myself a house in your midst and open an establishment.”
“Very well,” the people said; “you can live here.”
The clean gentleman spent the night and in the morning he went out to
the square with a bag of gold and a bundle of papers and said, “You all
live like swine. I want to teach you how you ought to live. Build me a
house according to this plan. You will work for me and I will teach you
and pay you in golden money.” And he showed them the gold.
The fools marvelled. They had no money in circulation, but exchanged
thing for thing, or paid by labour. And they began to exchange things
with the gentleman and to work for his golden coins. And the old Devil,
as in Taras’ kingdom, began to circulate gold, and people brought him
things and worked for him.
The old Devil rejoiced.
“At last my plan is beginning to work!” he thought. “I will ruin him as
I ruined Taras, and will get him completely in my power.”
The fools collected the golden coins and gave them to the women to make
themselves necklaces and to the girls to plait into their hair; the
children even played with the coins in the street. After a while every
one had enough and refused to take more. And the clean gentleman’s house
was not half finished, and the corn and cattle had not yet been stored
up for the year. And the gentleman invited people to come and work for
him to bring him corn and rear his cattle, offering to pay many golden
coins for everything brought and every piece of work done.
But no one would come and work, and no one would bring him anything,
unless a chance boy or girl brought him an egg in exchange for a golden
coin; and no one else came and he was left without any food. And the
clean gentleman was hungry and went through the village to buy himself
something for dinner. He went into one house and offered a golden coin
for a chicken, but the mistress would not take it.
“I have many such coins,” she said.
He went into another place to buy a salt herring, offering a golden
piece. “I don’t want it, my good man,” the mistress said. “I have no
children to play with them, and have three of these pieces already as
curiosities.”
He went into a peasant’s for some bread. The peasant too would not take
the money.
“I don’t want it,” he said. “But if you want the bread in Christ’s name,
then wait, and I’ll tell my old woman to cut you some.”
The old Devil spat on the ground and fled from the peasant. To hear the
word Christ was worse than a knife to him, let alone to take anything in
His name.
And so he got no bread. All had gold; wherever the old Devil went no one
would give him anything for money, and every one said, “Bring us
something else instead, or come and work, or take it in Christ’s name.”
And the Devil had nothing to offer but money and had no liking for work,
and he could not take anything in Christ’s name. He lost his temper.
“What more do you want when I offer you money?” he said. “You can buy
anything you like for gold and employ any kind of labour.”
But the fools did not heed him.
“We don’t need money,” they said. “We exchange everything in kind and
have no taxes to pay; what good would it be to us?”
The old Devil went supperless to bed.
The story reached Ivan the Fool. People came to him and said, “What
shall we do? A clean gentleman has appeared in our midst who likes to
eat and drink well, and dress in fine clothes, but he won’t work and
won’t take anything in Christ’s name; he only offers us golden coins.
People gave him what he wanted until they had enough of these coins, and
now no one gives him anything. What are we to do with him? He may die of
hunger.”
Ivan listened to what they had to say.
“He must be fed, certainly. Let him act as a shepherd to you all in
turn.”
Since there was no way out, the old Devil had to go about shepherding.
He went from house to house until it came to Ivan’s turn. The old Devil
came in to dinner and the deaf and dumb girl was getting it ready. She
had often been deceived by lazy folk who came in early to dinner without
having done their share of work and ate up all the porridge, so she
invented a means of finding out the sluggards by their hands. Those who
had horny hands were put at the table; the others were given the
leavings. The old Devil sat down by the table, but the deaf and dumb
girl seized him by the hands and looked at them to see if they had any
blisters, but they were clean and smooth and the finger nails were long.
The girl grunted and pulled the old Devil away from the table.
Ivan’s wife said to him, “Don’t be offended, fine gentleman. My
sister-in-law never lets any one sit at the table who hasn’t horny
hands. In good time, when the others have finished, you shall get what
is left.”
And the old Devil was hurt that in the King’s house they should want to
feed him with the pigs. And he said to Ivan, “What a stupid custom there
is in your kingdom that all people must work with their hands! I
suppose you were too stupid to think of anything else. Do you think it’s
only with the hands people work? Do you know what wise men work with?”
And Ivan said, “How are we fools to know; we work only with our hands
and backs.”
“That is because you are fools. I will teach you how to work with the
head, then you will know that it is more profitable than to work with
the hands.”
Ivan wondered.
“Really! No wonder people call us fools!”
And the old Devil said, “Only it’s not easy to work with the head. You
won’t give me any dinner because my hands are smooth, but you don’t know
that it’s a hundred times harder to work with the head. Sometimes one’s
head nearly splits.”
Ivan grew thoughtful.
“Why should you torture yourself so, my good man? Wouldn’t it be better
to do the easier work with your hands and back?”
And the Devil said, “I torture myself because I pity you fools. If I
were not to torture myself you would remain fools for ever. I have
worked with the head and now I’m going to teach you.”
Ivan wondered.
“Teach us, then,” he said, “so that when our hands are tired we can work
with the head.”
The Devil promised to teach them.
And Ivan proclaimed throughout his kingdom that a clean gentleman had
appeared among them who would teach every one to work with his head and
that it was more profitable to work with the head than with the hands,
and he bade every man come and hear him.
There was a high tower in Ivan’s kingdom and a steep staircase leading
up to it and there was a turret on the top. And Ivan took the gentleman
up the tower, so that he might be seen by all.
And the gentleman took his place on the top of the tower and began to
speak, and the fools flocked to look at him. They thought that the
gentleman would really show them how to work with the head instead of
the hands, but he merely told them in words how they could live without
working at all. The fools did not understand him. They stared and
stared, then went home to attend to their own affairs.
The old Devil stood on top of the tower one day and another, speaking
all the time. He was hungry, but it never occurred to the fools to bring
him some bread up the tower. They thought that if he could work with the
head better than with the hands, he could easily make himself some
bread. The old Devil stood on the tower for another day, still speaking.
The people came and stared at him for a while; then went their ways.
“Well, has the gentleman begun to work with his head?” Ivan asked.
“Not yet; he is still jabbering.”
The Devil stood on the tower for another day and began to grow faint. He
swayed and knocked his head against a pillar. One of the fools saw him
and told Ivan’s wife, who hastened to Ivan at the ploughing.
“Come, come,” she said. “They say the gentleman has begun to work with
his head.”
Ivan wondered.
“Really?” he said, and turning his horse round, he went to the tower.
When he got there, the old Devil, who was quite faint with hunger by
this time, was staggering and knocking his head against the pillars, and
when Ivan came up he fell with a crash down the stairs, counting each
step on the way with a knock of his head.
“Well,” Ivan said, “the clean gentleman spoke truly when he said that
the head splits sometimes. Blisters on the hands are nothing to this;
after such work there will be bumps on the head.”
The old Devil fell to the bottom of the stairs and thumped his head
against the ground. Ivan was about to go up and see how much work he had
done, when suddenly the earth opened and the old Devil fell through.
Only a hole was left.
Ivan scratched his head.
“You horrid wretch! One of those devils again! The father of the others,
no doubt. What a huge one too!”
Ivan is living to this day and people flock to his kingdom. His own
brothers have come to him and he supports them. When any one comes and
says, “Feed me,” Ivan says, “Very well, you can live with us; we have
plenty of everything.” Only there is a special custom in his
kingdom--whoever has horny hands comes to table; whoever has smooth ones
eats the leavings.
[Illustration: WHERE THERE IS LOVE, THERE IS GOD ALSO.
_To face page 56._]