Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/199

Rh down, the old man dragged himself towards the bench and sat down. The effort of getting to the bench had quite exhausted him. After coughing out his cough, the old man leaned on the table for support, and said:

"Well, have they given judgment?"

Ivan answered: "The sentence is twenty stripes with birches."

The old man shook his head. Tis a bad job thou hast done, Ivan," said he. "Oh, bad indeed! Not to him but to thine own self hast thou done badly. Come now! Does it ease thy shoulder at all to bend his back?"

"It will not happen again," said Ivan.

"It will not happen again, sayest thou? How has he ever done thee a worse turn?"

Ivan grew angry. "How? Do you mean to say he has never wronged me? He nearly beat my old woman to death! And now he threatens to burn me out. I suppose I am to bow low to him for that, eh?"

The old man sighed, and said: "Thou, Ivan, dost go and walk about the world quite freely, and I lie on the stove the whole year through—thou think'st that thou seest everything, and I see nothing. No, little one! Thou seest nothing, for an evil eye of vengeance blinds thee. Others' sins are right before thee, thine own behind thy back. Why say, He has done wrong? If he only had done wrong, no evil need have come of it. As if the ill-will between people arises from the fault of one side only! Evil arises from the fault of two. His wrong-doing is plain before thine eyes, but thine own thou seest not at all. If only he had been evil, and thou hadst been 149