This is a story by great
Russian writer and thinker, Leo Tolstoy (1828-
1910). He gave up a life
of wealth and pleasure in order to help poor. He
believed in love and
non-violence, and taught that all forms of violence were
bad. Gandhiji was very
much interested in his teachings and writings, and for
some time the two wrote
letters to each other.
I
Once there lived a peasant
named Ivan in a village in Russia. He had three
sons; the eldest of them
was married. Ivan was quite well off because he and his
sons were hard workers.
His wife and his daughter-in-law managed the home
well, besides helping in
the field. They had only one idle mouth to feed; that was
Ivan’s old father who
suffered from asthma and had been lying ill in his bed for
seven years. They had all
they needed, and the family might have lived quite
comfortably if there had
not been a quarrel between them and their next-door
neighbour, Limping
Gabriel.
As long as Gabriel’s old father was
alive and Ivan’s father
was still able to
manage his home, the two families lived as
neighbours should. They
trusted and helped
each other gladly and never quarrelled over
little things. If one
family needed a bucket
or a plough, the other would gladly lend it;
and if a cow happened to
wonder in to the
neighbours yard , they just drove it out, and
never thought of
quarrelling about the
matter. But when the sons
became heads of the families, every thing changed.
II
A small matter started all
the trouble. Ivan’s daughter-in-law had a hen that
used to lay its eggs in
the cart-shed. One day, probably frightened by the children,
it flew over the fence
into the neighbour’s yard and laid its egg there. Ivan’s
daughter-in-law looked for
the egg in the cart-shed as usual. Taras, her youngest
brother-in-law, said,
“Your hen flew over the fence and laid its egg in the
neighbour’s yard. Then
it flew back across the fence again.” So Ivan’s daughter-
in-law went to Gabriel’s
house.
“What do you want, young
woman?” Gabriel’s mother asked her.
“One of my hens flew
across the fence this morning. Did it not lay an egg
here?”
The old woman’s reply
was not very polite. “We didn’t see anything of it,”
she said. “We collect
our own eggs and have no need for other people’s. And we
don’t go looking for
eggs in other people’s yards!”
The young woman was
offended and said more than she should have done.
Gabriel’s mother
answered back, and soon the woman were shouting and abusing
each other. Ivan’s wife
happened to pass by, carrying a bucket of water, and she
joined in. Gabriel’s
wife rushed out and they all began abusing and accusing
each other. “You are a
dirty woman.” “You are starving your father-in-law.”
“Just give us back our
bucket.” And so on. Then they caught hold of the bucket
and began pulling at it
and pushing each other. Gabriel, coming home from the
fields, stopped there to
take his wife’s part. Ivan rushed out and joined in. Ivan
was a strong fellow; he
scattered the whole lot of them and pulled a handful of
hair out of Gabriel’s
beard. Then their neighbours came and separated the fighters
with difficulty.
III
Gabriel wrapped the hair
torn from his beard in a piece of paper and went
to court. His wife went
about saying that Ivan would be condemned and sent to
Siberia as a punishment.
“I never pulled out his
beard,” said Ivan; “he pulled it out himself. But his
son has torn my shirt and
pulled the buttons off.” So Ivan went to law too, and the
quarrel grew. The longer
they quarrelled, the harder life became for them. At
first they abused one
another, and then they began to snatch anything they saw
lying about. The children
followed the example of the older folk. Almost every
day there was a quarrel or
a fight.
Ivan’s old father, lying
in his sickbed, tried to persuade his family to make
peace.
“What are you doing?”
he said. “What is the value of an egg? Why, God
sends enough for all!
Suppose your neighbour did offend you by saying an impolite
or unkind word – put it
right; show her how to say a better one. Stop trying to pay
back, and be reconciled
with your neighbour. The more you hate, the worse it
will be for you.”
But the younger folk would
not listen to him. Ivan and Gabriel kept going to
law until all the judges
got disgusted with both of them. Now Gabriel got Ivan
imprisoned or fined, and
then Ivan in his turn managed to get the same thing done
to Gabriel. The longer
this went on, the angrier they grew.
IV
In the seventh year, at a
marriage, Ivan’s daughter-in-law accused Gabriel,
in front of everyone
there, of horse-stealing. Gabriel had been drinking; he gave
the woman such a blow that
she laid up for a week. She was expecting a baby at
the time.
Ivan was delighted. “Now
that he has beaten a pregnant woman, I will get
rid of him!” he said to
himself. But the magistrate dismissed the complaint because
the woman showed no signs
of injury. Then Ivan took the case to a higher court.
He bribed the clerk and
the elders of the court, and got Gabriel condemned to be
beaten publicly. Gabriel
turned pale when he heard the sentence. And he turned
his face to the wall. As
he went out Ivan overheard him say, “He will have my
back beaten. That will
make it burn; but something of his may burn worse than
that!” Ivan complained
to the judges at once. But Gabriel denied having said
anything about burning.
The old judge tried to
reconcile them. “Don’t go on with this quarrel,” he
said. “Was it right on
your part, Gabriel, to hit a woman who was expecting a
baby? You ought not to
have done that. Think what might have happened. Why
not confess, and ask him
to forgive you? If you are reconciled, we will change
the sentence.” But the
judge could not persuade them to make peace.
“I shall be fifty next
year,” said Gabriel. “I have never been beaten in my
life. Now that I am going
to be beaten because of Ivan, am I to go and ask for his
forgiveness? Never! He
shall have cause to remember me!” He went out trembling
with anger
.