"Oh, you mean our Ivan Ilyitch. Well, he does not live here any
longer. Where have you been that you have not heard? His is the big
new house on the hill. You can see it through the trees over there,
where all these people are walking. He has a kind heart, he has, and
riches have not spoiled it. He has invited the whole village to feast
with him, because to-day is his name-day."
"Riches!" thought the merchant; "a new house!" He was very much
surprised, but as he drove along the road he was more surprised still.
For he passed all the villagers on their way to the feast; and every
one was talking of his brother, and how kind he was and how generous,
and what a feast there was going to be, and how many barrels of mead
and, wine had been taken up to the house. All the folk were hurrying
along the road licking their lips, each one going faster than the
other so as to be sure not to miss any of the good things.
The rich brother from the town drove with his wife into the courtyard
of the fine new house. And there on the steps was the peasant brother,
Ivan Ilyitch, and his wife, receiving their guests. And if the rich
brother was well dressed, the peasant was better dressed; and if the
rich brother's wife was in her fine clothes, the peasant's wife fairly
glittered--what with the gold braid on her bosom and the shining
silver in her hair.
And the peasant brother kissed his brother from the town on both
cheeks, and gave him and his wife the best places at the table. He fed
them--ah, how he fed them!--with little red slips of smoked salmon,
and beetroot soup with cream, and slabs of sturgeon, and meats of
three or four kinds, and game and sweetmeats of the best. There never
was such a feast--no, not even at the wedding of a Tzar. And as for
drink, there were red wine and white wine, and beer and mead in great
barrels, and everywhere the peasant went about among his guests,
filling glasses and seeing that their plates were kept piled with the
foods each one liked best.
And the rich brother wondered and wondered, and at last he could wait
no longer, and he took his brother aside and said,--
"I am delighted to see you so rich. But tell me, I beg you, how it was
that all this good fortune came to you."
The poor brother, never thinking, told him all--the whole truth about
little Master Misery and the pit full of gold, and how Misery was shut
in there under the big stone.
The merchant brother listened, and did not forget a word. He could
hardly bear himself for envy, and as for his wife, she was worse. She
looked at the peasant's wife with her beautiful head-dress, and she
bit her lips till they bled.
As soon as they could, they said good-bye and drove off home.
The merchant brother could not bear the thought that his brother was
richer than he. He said to himself, "I will go to the field, and move
the stone, and let Master Misery out. Then he will go and tear my
brother to pieces for shutting him in; and his riches will not be of
much use to him then, even if Misery does not give them to me as a
token of gratitude. Think of my brother daring to show off his riches
to me!"
So he drove off to the field, and came at last to the big stone. He
moved the stone on one side, and then bent over the pit to see what
was in it.
He had scarcely put his head over the edge before Misery sprang up out
of the pit, seated himself firmly on his shoulders, squeezed his neck
between his little wiry legs, and pulled out handfuls of his hair.
"Scream away!" cried little Master Misery. "You tried to kill me,
shutting me up in there, while you went off and bought fine clothes.
You tried to kill me, and came to feast your eyes on my corpse. Now,
whatever happens, I'll never leave you again."
"Listen, Misery!" screamed the merchant. "Ai, ai! stop pulling my
hair. You are choking me. Ai! Listen. It was not I who shut you in
under the stone...."
"Who was it, if it was not you?" asked Misery, tugging out his hair,
and digging his knees into the merchant's throat.
"It was my brother. I came here on purpose to let you out. I came out
of pity."
Misery tugged the merchant's hair, and twisted the merchant's ears
till they nearly came off.
"Liar, liar!" he shouted in his little, wretched, angry voice. "You
tricked me once. Do you think you'll get the better of me again by a
clumsy lie of that kind? Now then. Gee up! Home we go."
And so the rich brother went trotting home, crying with pain; while
little Master Misery sat firmly on his shoulders, pulling at his
hair.
Instantly Misery was at his old tricks.
"You seem to have bought a good deal with the gold," he said, looking
at the merchant's house. "We'll see how far it will go." And every day
he rode the rich merchant to the tavern, and made him drink up all his
money, and his house, his clothes, his horses and carts and
sledges--everything he had--until he was as poor as his brother had
been in the beginning.
The merchant thought and thought, and puzzled his brain to find a way
to get rid of him. And at last one night, when Misery had groaned
himself to sleep, the merchant went out into the yard and took a big
cart wheel and made two stout wedges of wood, just big enough to fit
into the hub of the wheel. He drove one wedge firmly in at one end of
the hub, and left the wheel in the yard with the other wedge, and a
big hammer lying handy close to it.
In the morning Misery wakes as usual, and cries out to be taken to the
tavern.
"We've sold everything I've got," says the merchant.
"Well, what are you going to do to amuse me?" says Misery.
"Let's play hide-and-seek in the yard," says the merchant.
"Right," says Misery; "but you'll never find me, for I can make myself
so small I can hide in a mouse-hole in the floor."
"We'll see," says the merchant.
The merchant hid first, and Misery found him at once.
"Now it's my turn," says Misery; "but what's the good? You'll never
find me. Why, I could get inside the hub of that wheel if I had a mind
to."
"What a liar you are!" says the merchant; "you never could get into
that little hole."
"Look," says Misery, and he made himself little, little, little, and
sat on the hub of the wheel.
"Look," says he, making himself smaller again; and then, pouf! in he
pops into the hole of the hub.
Instantly the merchant took the other wedge and the hammer, and drove
the wedge into the hole. The first wedge had closed up the other end,
and so there was Misery shut up inside the hub of the cart wheel.
The merchant set the wheel on his shoulders, and took it to the river
and threw it out as far as he could, and it went floating away down to
the sea.
Then he went home and set to work to make money again, and earn his
daily bread; for Misery had made him so poor that he had nothing left,
and had to hire himself out to make a living, just as his peasant
brother used to do.
But what happened to Misery when he went floating away?
He floated away down the river, shut up in the hub of the wheel. He
ought to have starved there. But I am afraid some silly, greedy fellow
thought to get a new wheel for nothing, and pulled the wedges out and
let him go; for, by all I hear, Misery is still wandering about the
world and making people wretched--bad luck to him!