Once upon a time there was a soldier who had served God and the Great
Sovereign for twenty-five whole years, and had only in the end earned
three biscuits, and was journeying back home. And, as he went along, he
thought: “Lord! here am I; I have served my Tsar for twenty-five years,
have received my food and dress, and what have I lived for after all? I
am cold and hungry, and have only three biscuits to eat.” So he pondered
and thought, and decided to desert and run away whither his eyes might
lead him.
As he went along he met a poor beggar who asked alms of him. The soldier
gave him one biscuit, and kept two. And, as he trudged on, he soon came
across another poor beggar, who bowed down low and asked for alms. So
the soldier gave him another biscuit, and had only one left. Again on he
went, and met a third beggar. The old fellow bowed low and asked for
alms. The soldier got his last biscuit out, and thought: “If I give him
the whole, I shall have none left; if I give half, why, this old man
will come across brother-beggars, will see they have a whole biscuit,
and be offended. Better let him have it all, and I shall get on
somehow.” So he gave his last biscuit, and had nothing left.
Then the old man asked him: “Tell me, good man, what do you wish? Of
what have you need? I will help you.”
“God bless you!” the soldier answered. “How should I take anything of
you?—you are old and poor.”
“Don’t think of my poverty,” he replied. “Just say what you would like,
and I will requite you according to your own goodness.”
“I want nothing; but, if you have any cards, give me some as a
keepsake.”
For the old man was Christ Himself walking on earth in a beggar’s guise.
The old man put his hand into his breast and drew out a pack of cards,
saying: “Take them. With whomsoever you play, you will win the game; and
here you have a nosebag. Whatever you meet on the way, whether wild
beast or bird that you would like to catch, just say to it: ‘Jump in
here, beast or bird!’ and your wish will be carried out.”
“Thank you!” said the soldier, took the cards and the nosebag, and fared
forth.
He went on and on, may-be far, may-be near, may-be short, may-be long,
and arrived at a lake, on which three wild geese were swimming. Then the
soldier suddenly remembered the nosebag and thought: “I’ll just test
this nosebag”; took it out, opened it, and said: “Hi! you wild geese,
fly into my nosebag!” No sooner uttered than the geese flew straight up
from the lake into the bag. The soldier grabbed the bag, tied it up, and
went on his way.
He travelled on and on and came to a town. He entered an eating-house
and told the inn-keeper: “Take this goose and cook it for my supper, and
I will give you another goose for your pains. Change me this third one
for vódka.” So there the soldier sat like a lord in the inn, at his
ease, drinking wine and feasting on roast goose.
It occurred to him suddenly he might peer out of the window, and he saw
opposite a big palace, but not one pane of glass was whole. “What is
this?” he asked the inn-keeper. “What is this palace? Why does it stand
empty?”
“Why, don’t you know?” the master replied. “Our Tsar built himself this
palace, but cannot inhabit it; and, for seven years, it has been
standing empty. Some unholy power drives every one out of the place.
Every night an assemblage of devils meets there, make a row, dance, play
cards, and perpetrate every sort of vileness!”
So off the soldier went to the Tsar. “Your Imperial Majesty,” quoth he,
“please let me spend one night in your empty palace!”
“What do you mean, fellow?” said the Tsar. “God bless you; but there
have been some dare-devils like you who passed a night in this palace,
and not one emerged alive!”
“Well, still, a Russian soldier cannot drown in water, or burn in fire.
I served God and the Great Sovereign five-and-twenty years, and never
died of it; and, for one night’s service for you, I am to die! No!”
“But I tell you: a man enters the palace at night alive, and only his
bones are found there in the morning!”
But the soldier stood firm: he must be admitted into the palace.
“Well,” said the Tsar, “go, and God help you. Stay the night there if
you will; you are free, and I won’t hinder you!”
So the soldier marched into the palace, and settled himself down in the
biggest saloon, took his knapsack off and his sabre, put the knapsack in
a corner and the sabre on a hand-peg, sat down on a chair, put his hand
into his pocket for his tobacco-pouch, lit his pipe, and smoked at his
ease. Then about midnight, I don’t know where from, hordes of devils,
seen and unseen, scurried up, and made such a turmoil and row, and set
up a dance with wild music. “What, you here, discharged soldier!” all
the devils began yelling. “Welcome! Will you play cards with us?”
“Certainly; here I have a set ready. Let’s start!”
He took them out and dealt round. They began, played a game out, and the
soldier won; another, and the same luck; and all the finessing of the
devils availed them nothing; the soldier won all the money, and raked it
all together.
“Stop, soldier,” the devils said. “We still have sixty ounces of silver
and forty of gold. We’ll stake them on the last game.” And they sent a
little devil-boy to fetch the silver.
So a new game commenced; and then the little devil had to pry in every
nook and come back and tell the old devil: “It’s no use, grandfather—we
have no more.”
“Off you go; find some gold!” And the urchin went and hunted up gold
from everywhere, turned an entire mine inside out and still found
nothing: the soldier had played everything away.
The devils got angry at losing all their money, and began to assault the
soldier, roaring out: “Smash him up, brothers! Eat him up!”
“We’ll see who’ll have the last word if it comes to eating,” said the
soldier, shook the nosebag open, and asked, “What is this?”
“A nosebag,” said the devils.
“Well, in you all go, by God’s own spell!” And he collected them all
together—so many you couldn’t count them all! Then the soldier buckled
the bag tightly, hung it on a peg, and lay down to sleep.
In the morning the Tsar sent for all his folks. “Come up to me and
inform me how does it stand with the soldier. If the unholy powers have
destroyed him, bring me his little bones.”
So off they went and entered the palace, and there saw the soldier
trudging up and down gaily in the rooms and smoking his pipe. “Well, how
are you, discharged soldier? We never expected to see you again alive.
How did you pass the night? What kind of bargain did you make with the
devils?”
“What devils! Just come and look what a lot of gold and silver I won off
them. Look, what piles of it!” And the Tsar’s servants looked and were
amazed. And the soldier told them: “Bring me two smiths as fast as you
can. Tell them to bring an iron anvil and a hammer.”
Off they went helter-skelter to the smiths, and the matter was soon
arranged.
The smiths arrived with iron anvil and with heavy hammers.
“Now,” said the soldier, “take this nosebag and beat it hard after the
ancient manner of smiths.”
So the smiths took the nosebag, and they began to whisper to each other:
“How fearfully heavy it is! The devil must be in it.”
The devils shrieked in answer: “Yes, we are there, father—yes, we are
there! Kinsmen, help us!”
So the smiths instantly laid the nosebag on the iron anvil, and they
began to knock it about with their hammers as though they were hammering
iron.
Very soon the devils saw that they could not possibly stand such
treatment, and they began to shriek: “Mercy on us!—mercy on us! Let us
out, discharged soldier, into the free world. Unto all eternity we will
not forget you, and into this palace never a devil shall enter again. We
will forbid everybody—all of them—and drive them all a hundred _versts_
away.”
So the soldier bade the smiths stop, and as soon as he unbuckled the
nosebag the devils rushed out, and flew off, without looking, into the
depths of hell—into the abysses of hell. But the soldier was no fool;
and as they were flying out he laid hold of one old devil—laid hold of
him tight by his paw. “Come along,” he said; “give me some written
undertaking that you will always serve me faithfully.”
The unholy spirit wrote him out this undertaking in his own blood, gave
it him, and took to his heels.
All the devils ran away into the burning pitch, and got away as fast as
they could with all their infernal strength, both the old ones and the
young ones; and henceforth they established guards all round the burning
pit and issued stern ordinances that the gates be constantly guarded, in
order that the soldier and the nosebag might never draw near.
The soldier came to the Tsar, and he told him some kind of tale how he
had delivered the palace from the infernal visitation.
“Thank you,” the Tsar answered. “Stay here and live with me. I will
treat you as if you were my brother.”
So the soldier went and stayed with the Tsar, and had a sufficiency of
all things, simply rolled in riches, and he thought it was time he
should marry. So he married, and one year later God gave him a son. Then
this boy fell into such a fearful illness—so terrible that there was
nobody who could cure it—and it was beyond the skill of the physicians;
there was no understanding of it. The soldier then thought of the old
devil and of the undertaking he had given him, and how it had run in the
undertaking: “I shall serve you eternally as a faithful servant.” And he
thought and said: “What is my old devil doing?”
Suddenly the same old devil appeared in front of him and asked: “What
does your worship desire?”
And the soldier answered: “My little boy is very ill. Do you know how to
cure him?”
So the devil fumbled in his pocket, got out a glass, poured cold water
into it, and put it over the head of the sick child, and told the
soldier: “Come here, look into the water.” And the soldier looked at the
water; and the devil asked him: “Well, what do you see?”
“I see Death standing at my son’s feet.”
“Well, he is standing at his feet; then he will survive. If Death stands
at his head, then he cannot live another day.” So the devil took the
glass with the water in it and poured it over the soldier’s son, and in
that same minute the son became well.
“Give me this glass,” the soldier said, “and I shall never trouble you
for anything more.” And the devil presented him with the glass, and the
soldier returned him the undertaking.
Then the soldier became an enchanter, and set about curing the _boyárs_
and the generals. He would go and look at the glass, and instantly he
knew who had to die and who should recover. Now, the Tsar himself became
ill, and the soldier was called in. So he poured cold water into the
glass, put it at the Tsar’s head, and saw that Death was standing at the
Tsar’s head.
The soldier said: “Your Imperial Majesty, there is nobody in the world
who can cure you. Death is standing at your head, and you have only
three hours left of life.”
When the Tsar heard this speech, he was furious with the soldier. “What,
what!” he shrieked at him. “You who have cured so many _boyárs_ and
generals, cannot do anything for me! I shall instantly have you put to
death.”
So the soldier thought and thought what he should do. And he began to
beseech Death. “O Death,” he said, “give the Tsar my life and take me
instead, for it doesn’t matter to me whether I live or die; for it is
better to die by my own death than to suffer such a cruel punishment.”
And he looked in the glass, and saw that Death was standing at the
Tsar’s feet. Then the soldier took the water and sprinkled the Tsar, and
he recovered completely. “Now, Death,” said the soldier, “give me only
three hours’ interval in order that I may go home and say farewell to my
wife and my son.”
“Well, you may have three hours. Go,” Death replied.
So the soldier went away home, lay down on his bed, and became very ill.
And when Death was standing very near him, she said, “Now, discharged
soldier, say good-bye quickly—you have only three minutes left to live
in the bright world.”
So the soldier stretched himself out, took his nosebag from under his
head, opened it, and asked: “What is this?”
Death answered: “A nosebag.”
“Well, if it is a nosebag, then jump into it!”
And Death instantly jumped straight into the bag. And the soldier, ill
as he was, jumped up from his bed, buckled the nosebag together firmly,
very tightly, threw it on his shoulder, and went into the Bryánski
Woods, the slumbrous forest. And he went there, and he hung this bag on
the bitter aspen, on the very top twig, and he went back home.
From that day forward nobody died in that kingdom: they were born, and
they kept on being born, and they never died. And very many years went
by, and the soldier never took his nosebag down. One day he happened to
go into the town. He went, and on his way he met such an old, old lady,
so old that on whichever side the wind blew, she inclined. “Oh, what an
old lady!” the soldier said. “Why, it is almost time she died.”
“Yes, father,” the old dame replied. “The time has come and gone long
since. At the time when you put Death into the nosebag I had only one
hour left in which to live in the white world. I should be very glad to
have some rest; but unless I die, earth will not take me up; and you,
discharged soldier, are guilty of an unforgivable sin in God’s eyes. For
there is no single soul left on earth who is tortured as I am.”
Then the soldier stayed and began to think. “Yes, yes; it would be
better to let Death out; perhaps I, too, might die. And beyond this,
too, I have many sins on my conscience. Thus it is better now whilst I
am still strong and I bear pain on this earth; for when I shall become
very old then it will be all the worse for me to suffer anything.”
So he got up and he went up into the Bryánski Woods, and he went up to
the aspen, and saw there the nosebag was hanging very high, shaking in
the winds to all sides. “Oh, you Death,” he says, “are you still alive?”
A faint voice came out of the nosebag: “Yes, father, I am alive.”
So the soldier took the nosebag, opened it, and he let out Death.
And he himself lay down on his bed, bade farewell to his wife and son,
and he begged Death that he might die. And she[19] ran outside the door
with all the strength in her feet. “Go!” she cried. “It is the devils
who shall slay you—I shall not slay you!”
So the soldier remained alive and healthy. And he thought: “Shall I go
straight into the burning pitch, for then the devils will throw me into
the seething sulphur until such time as my sins shall have been melted
from off me.” And he bade farewell from all, and he went with the
knapsack in his hand straight into the burning pitch.
And he went on: may-be near, may-be far, may-be downhill, may-be uphill,
may-be short, may-be long; and he at last arrived in the abyss, and he
looked, and all round the burning cauldron there stood watchmen. As soon
as he stopped at the gate a devil asked who was coming.
“A guilty soul to be tortured.”
“Why do you come? What are you carrying with you?”
“Oh, a nosebag.”
And the devil shrieked out of his full throat and made a tremendous
stir. All the infernal powers roused themselves and looked out of the
gates and windows with their unbreakable bolts.
And the soldier went all round the cauldron, and he called out to the
master of the cauldron: “Let me in, please; do let me into the cauldron.
I have come to you to be tortured for my sins.”
“No, I will not let you in. Go away wherever you will—there is no room
for you here.”
“Well, if you will not let me in to be tortured, at least give me two
hundred souls. I will take them up to God, and perhaps the Lord will
pardon my faults.”
And the master of the cauldron answered: “I will add fifty more souls to
the lot; only do go away!” So he instantly ordered two hundred and fifty
souls to be counted out and to be taken to the rear gates in order that
the soldier might not see him.
So the soldier gathered up the guilty souls, and he went up to the gates
of Paradise.
The Apostles saw him, and said to the Lord: “Some soldier or other has
come up here with two hundred and fifty souls from hell!”
“Take them into Paradise, but do not let the soldier in.”
But the soldier had given up his nosebag to one guilty soul, and had
told it: “Just look here. When you enter the gates of Paradise, say at
once: ‘Soldier, jump into the nosebag!’”
Then the gates of Paradise opened, and the souls began to go in; and
this guilty soul also went in, and for sheer joy forgot all about the
soldier.
Thus the soldier was left behind, and could not find any home in either
place, and for long after that he still had to live and go on living in
the white world. And after very many days he died.