Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/142

130 Behind the pond stood a monstrous poplar, two spans in circumference. On all sides of it was a field, and this field was overgrown with young poplar shoots. I ordered the men to cut them down: I wanted to make the place more cheerful; but, above all, I wanted to make it easier for the old poplar, because I thought that all these young trees came from it and robbed it of sap.

As we were cutting down the young poplars, I sometimes felt a pang of regret to see the roots full of sap hacked in pieces underground. Sometimes four of us tried to pull up the roots of some young poplar that had been cut down, and found it impossible. It would resist with all its might, and would not die. I said to myself:—

"Evidently it ought to live, if it clings so stoutly to life."

But it was essential to cut them down; and I persisted in having them destroyed. But afterward, when it was too late, I learned that I ought not to have destroyed them.

I supposed that the saplings drew the sap from the old poplar, but it proved to be quite the reverse. By the time I had cut them down, the old poplar was also beginning to die. When it put forth leaves, I saw that one of its halves—it grew in two great branches—was bare, and that same summer it dried up. It had been long dying, and was conscious of it, and had been giving its life to its shoots.

That was the reason that they had grown so rapidly, and I, who had wished to help it, had killed all its children.

cherry had taken root on the path through the hazelnut grove, and was beginning to choke off the hazel bushes.