Godson-05

The Godson
by Leo Tolstoy

V

Then the door opened, and the godfather entered. He went up to his godson, and, taking him by the hand, led him down from the throne.

"You have not obeyed my commands," he said. "One thing you have done which you ought not: you have opened the forbidden door. A second thing you have done which you ought not: you have ascended the throne and taken my scepter into your hands. And a third thing you have done which you ought not: you have caused much evil in the world. Had you sat there but another hour you would have ruined the half of mankind."

Then the godfather led his godson back to the throne, and took the scepter into his hands. Once again the wa1ls rolled back, and all the world became visible.

"Look first at what you have done to your father," said the godfather. "Vassili lay for a year in prison, and there learnt every kind of villainy and became embittered against his fellow-man. Now; look you, he has just stolen two of your father’s horses, and is at this very moment in the act of firing his farm also. That is what you have done to your father."

Yet, hardly had the godson perceived that his father’s farm was blazing up before his godfather hid the spectacle from him and bade him look in another direction.

"Look there," he said. "It is just a year since your godmother was deserted by her husband for an unlawful love, and she has been driven by her grief to drink, and her husband’s paramour to utter ruin. That is what you have done to your godmother."

Then this picture also was hid from the godson by his godfather as he pointed towards the godson’s own home. In it sat his mother, weeping tears of remorse for her sins and saying: "Far better had it been had the robber killed me, for then I should have sinned the less."

"That is what you have done to your mother," added the godfather. Then he hid this spectacle also from his godson, and pointed below it. There the godson saw the robber standing before a dungeon, with a warder holding him on either side.

And the godfather said to his godson: "This man has taken nine lives during his career. For those sins he would have had to atone had you not killed him. But now you have transferred those sins to yourself, and for them all you must answer. That is what you have done to yourself."

Then the godfather went on: "The first time that the old she-bear pushed away the log, she only frightened her cubs a little. The second time that she pushed it away, she killed the yearling bear by doing so. But the third time that she pushed the log away, she killed herself. So also have you done. Yet I will set you now a term of thirty years in which to go forth into the world and atone for the sins of that robber. Should you not atone for them within that time, then it will be your fate to go where he has gone."

And the godson said: "In what manner shall I atone for his sins?"

To this the godfather replied: "When you have relieved the world of as much evil as you have brought into it, then will you have atoned for the sins of that robber."

"But in what manner," asked his godson again, "am I to relieve the world of evil?"

"Go you towards the rising sun," replied his godfather, "until you come to a field with men in it. Note carefully what those men do, and teach them what you yourself have learnt. Then go forward again, still noting what you see, and on the fourth day you win come to a forest Within that forest there stands a hermit’s cell, and in that cell there lives an old man. Tell him all that has befallen you, and he will instruct you When you have done all that he bids you do, then will you have atoned both for the sins of that robber and for your own."

Thus spoke his godfather, and dismissed him from the entrance gates.

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