Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/322

Tales from Tolstoi people pursue evil, the more they spread evil abroad. It is impossible to remove evil by evil. But how remove it then? I know not. It was well that the calf listened to the old woman; but if he had not listened, how then could he have gone out?"

The godson thought and thought the matter over, but it was of no use, he could not get to the bottom of it by thinking, so he went on further.

He went on and on, until he came to a village. He asked for a night's lodging at a wayside hut. The woman who owned the hut was plainly very poor. There was nothing at all in the hut but the woman herself, and she was washing.

The godson went in, got on to the stove, and began to watch what the woman was doing. He watched and saw that when she had washed the hut, she began to wash the table. Presently she finished washing the table, and began wiping it with a dirty clout. She began to wipe one corner of it, and the table would not get clean, for the dirty clout left long streaks of dirt upon the table. She set to drying it on the other side, and in wiping off the streaks of dirt she left others in their place. Then she began wiping it all over again, with the same result. She kept smearing it with the dirty clout; whenever she wiped off one piece of dirt she left another in its stead. The godson kept on looking and looking, at last he spoke. 272