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Once upon a time in distant Orient Land, there lived a beautiful royal maiden, the Princess Zarashne. Her hair was long and black as the veils of night, her arms were fair as the pink sea-shells, and her gowns were as glorious in color as the feathers of the peacock. Everybody in the palace where she lived, and in the town outside the palace-walls, loved Princess Zarashne; even the animals who dwelt far away in the desert had heard how good and beautiful she was, and many of them came to town hoping they might see her—the lion and the tiger, and the striped zebra, the ostrich and the camel and the curious giraffe. But the keeper of the palace-gate was afraid to let them in, so the only ones who saw her were the ostrich and the giraffe, because they could look over the wall and watch her feed her gold-fish in the fountain.
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Most of all she was beloved by the Prince of all Orient Land, Selim Pasha the Proud (a Pasha is a very mighty kind of Prince, who wears a turban of heavenly blue and carries a curved sword in his golden belt). Selim Pasha rode through the gates of the Palace every morning at sunrise, on a snow-white horse, followed by a hundred soldiers on foot; on his shoulder he always carried a bird of paradise, who made sweet music for Princess Zarashne, and in his pocket he brought his pet white mouse to dance for her. All day long he walked with her in the garden and told her stories about the world outside the wall, where great rivers flowed, and palm-trees grew, and the yellow desert sand stretched from one end of Orient Land to the other. The only thing he did not tell her about was the terrible magician, who lived among the desert sands; he did not want to tell her anything that would give her bad dreams.
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The magician was a very mighty and ancient man, called Bulbo. By his strange, black magic he had built himself an impregnable castle and had tamed a great river, and made it surround his castle with a deep, impassable moat. No army could ever pass these waters, or scale his ramparts of yellow sand; if he himself wanted to go out, he rode on the back of a big brown bat. All the creatures of Night, the bats and owls and toads and many wicked faery sprites, dwelt with him in his castle and were his body-guard.
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Now it happened that Bulbo the Magician had left his castle and was riding through the air high over Orient Land, in the night-time, as was his wont. He was unusually far from home; in fact, the first light of dawn surprised him just as his bat was fluttering over the royal gardens. The nightingale had stopped singing, and the birds of day had begun, the pansies and daisies and dreamy lotos-flowers were just waking up. Then he saw what seemed to him the loveliest flower of all—it was Princess Zarashne sitting alone beside the gold-fish fountain, waiting for Selim Pasha.
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Bulbo spurred his bat, and swooped down among the rose-bushes like a swift, black shadow. Before Princess Zarashne knew what had happened, he had seized her and placed her before him in the saddle between the fluttering wings of the bat, and they were rising up, up, up into the blue morning air!
But just at this moment, the palace-gates swung open, and with a flourish of trumpets and a shout of greeting, Selim Pasha and his soldiers appeared. Great was their horror and dismay when they found the garden empty, and heard Princess Zarashne cry “Help, help!” far above their heads! Selim Pasha bared his sword and tried to reach the bat as it rose, but in vain—in the twinkling of an eye, the sorcerer had flown a thousand miles away.
“Bore her away to his castle in the desert”
“Bore her away to his castle in the desert”
In Bulbo’s palace, Princess Zarashne found herself a prisoner. She was not cruelly treated, for Bulbo liked her and made her queen of his household. She had nothing to do but water the dark poppies and nightshade and beautiful poisonous berry-bushes that grew in his garden, and make necklaces of the pearls and shells that the river laid at her feet on the yellow sands. But she was very unhappy, for her only companion was a monkey who followed her about as her servant, carrying her tea-cup and her shawls and never saying a word; and she wept to think of the days when Selim Pasha had walked with her by the gold-fish fountain, while the white mouse danced and the bird of paradise sang to her—for she never hoped to see the Prince of all Orient Land again.
Meanwhile, Selim Pasha the Proud was inconsolable without his beloved Princess. His soldiers could not help him against Bulbo’s power, and no prophet, no wise man, no general could tell him how to get Princess Zarashne back. So he put on a black cloak, and put black ashes on his turban, and would not be comforted. When his people saw him in the street, and shouted: “Hail, Selim Pasha the Proud!” he would hide his face in his cloak and say:
“Nay, do not call me the Proud—I am only Poor Selim Pasha!”
Then the people were very sad, and even the animals outside the gates felt mournful. The crocodiles in the rivers wept bitter tears, and the lions and tigers howled in the desert, and when the giraffes and ostriches saw that the garden was empty, they lost their appetites.
One day Selim Pasha met an old man who was selling bowls and vases of glass at the palace gate. Because the prince was wrapped in black and walked unattended, the old man did not recognize him, and thought he was just a humble citizen.
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“Good day to you,” said the old man.
The prince stopped and bowed, for it pleased his sorrowful fancy to be taken for an ordinary man.
“Would you not like to buy some of my beautiful vases and bowls?” the old man continued. “I have brought them many hundreds of miles across the desert. Look at them, and you will not feel so sad!”
But the prince shook his head.
“I do not want vases of glass,” he replied, “what I seek is magic knowledge!”
The old man sat down and set his vases and bowls in a dazzling row upon the pavement. They shone in all colors, like the feathers of a peacock, and reminded the prince of Zarashne’s silken gowns.
“I am old and wise,” said the vendor. “I have more knowledge of magic than any man on earth—more even than Bulbo, who lives in the yellow desert. But if you would have a little—ever so little—of it, you must pay the price I ask.”
“Anything, anything you desire,” cried the prince, “though you ask all the treasures of Orient Land!”
“I will have none of your treasures. All I ask is your service. I need an apprentice in my workshop, many hundreds of miles away across the desert, and if you will come and blow glass for me for seven years, you shall have the secret knowledge for your reward.”
The prince thought deeply for a moment. What would his people say if they ever found out that their ruler had become a glass-maker’s apprentice? But then, was not Princess Zarashne’s return worth any sacrifice?
“I will go with you and be your apprentice,” said Selim Pasha the Proud, Prince of Orient Land, “but wait until I get a bundle of clothes, and tell the head-cook not to expect me for dinner, and ask the Lord Chamberlain to feed my white mouse and my bird of Paradise until I come back!”
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That same day they mounted camels and set out on their long journey across the desert. They passed the castle of Bulbo, but the rivers that surrounded it were so wide and the ramparts of yellow sand so high that Selim Pasha could not see over them, though he stood on tip-toe on his camel’s hump. Sadly he rode by and followed the old glass-maker to his city, many hundreds of miles away.
When they reached the city, the old man led him to a dingy little house made of bricks and mud. It was very dark inside, for there were no windows.
“Stand very still, my lad, till I light the lamp, or you will break some precious glass!” said the old man. Then he struck a light, and Selim Pasha beheld a most wonderful sight. All about him were vases and bowls and cups of iridescent glass standing on shelves of crystal, and there were delicate flowers made of glass and glittering prisms that caught the lamplight and threw back a thousand brilliant hues.
“Here you shall work for seven years,” said the old man, “and I will teach you how to make all these things, but you will have to sleep on a mat upon the floor, and eat from the bowl after I have eaten, because you are an apprentice.”
“I will do as you say,” replied Selim Pasha the Proud.
So the Prince of Orient Land made glass for seven years, and slept on a mat upon the floor, and ate from the bowl after his master had eaten. When the seven years were over, his master said to him:
“Selim Pasha, I have taught you all there is to know about glass-making; now make me a bowl of rainbow-colored glass, so large that a man can sit within it; so bright that no one can see through the glass because of its beautiful colors; and so light that the littlest breeze may carry it away.”
“And when I have made the bowl,” said the prince, “shall I then have my reward?”
“When you have made the bowl, we will talk about your reward.”
So Selim Pasha sat up three days and three nights with the glass-blower’s lamps between his knees, and the glass-blower’s rod in his mouth. Finally he made a bowl so large that he himself could hide within it, so bright that no one could see through it because of its beautiful colors and so light that the littlest breeze could carry it away. Then he noticed that the edge of the glass was not smooth, so he dipped his finger in water and ran it around and around.
Suddenly the bowl began to sing, as glasses do when you rub around the edge—and he could understand quite plainly, what it sang! The fairies that lived in the rainbow colors were singing together:
“Over the yellow desert sands,Prince of all the Orient Lands,Come, we will bear thee now!O come away in thy crystal shipAnd watch the ancient river slipUnder thy glassy prow!”
“Over the yellow desert sands,
Prince of all the Orient Lands,
Come, we will bear thee now!
O come away in thy crystal ship
And watch the ancient river slip
Under thy glassy prow!”
Then he knew that in this glass was the magic that he had worked for seven years to learn. Carefully he took the great bowl out of doors. It was very early in the morning, and his master was still asleep, so he wrote “goodbye” and “thank you” on the door, and making no sound, climbed into the bowl that was blazing with color in the sunlight.
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No sooner was he settled than a little breeze crept down the street, picked up the beautiful bubble, and wafted it high into the air! He floated over the roofs of the town, and he could smell the breakfasts cooking, which made him very hungry. Then he passed over the green meadows that surrounded the town, and could see cows and oxen below him that looked no bigger than Noah’s-ark animals. At last he came to the desert and by sunset he had reached the river that had flowed around Bulbo’s castle. Then he felt the glass bubble sinking, down, down, down, until it rested like a ship on the river, and he saw the dim green waters gliding under him.
Finally the great bowl drifted ashore. Princess Zarashne was near the river gathering pearls and shells, and when she saw the beautiful crystal sphere, she ran swiftly and called to Bulbo:
“O Bulbo, Bulbo, come and see what the river has brought to you!”
Bulbo came, and looked in amazement at the huge bowl. Fortunately he was a little man and doubled up with age so that he could not see over the edge of the bowl, and of course he could not see through it, because of its beautiful colors. Only Princess Zarashne could look over the edge, and when she saw who was inside, she could not suppress a little scream, though Selim Pasha had made her a sign to be quiet.
“What is it?” asked Bulbo, when he heard her scream.
“I saw a spider,” she replied quickly.
Bulbo called six of his black sprites to take the bowl on their shoulders and carry it to his flower garden. When they had set it down among the roses and pansies and dreamy lotos-flowers, Bulbo went indoors for his supper, but Zarashne stayed outside and looked into the glimmering depths of the bowl.
“O Zarashne, beautiful Zarashne,” whispered Selim Pasha, “I have come to set you free!” And all the evening they whispered together, while the garden went to sleep and the moon rose and the nightingales began to sing. Then Bulbo came to the window with a candle, and called:
“Zarashne! It is time for you to go to bed!”
But Zarashne did not heed him, and at last he came out into the garden.
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“Why do you lean over that bowl and look into it all the time, Zarashne? I have called you seven times and you have not answered me!” he said in great anger.
“I see the reflection of my face,” replied Princess Zarashne, and continued to gaze down and whisper to Selim Pasha.
“If you do not come into the house,” cried Bulbo, “I will break the bowl!”
Then Zarashne was frightened and would have followed him, but she could not tear herself from her lover, who was saying:
“Goodnight, goodnight, most beautiful flower of Allah’s garden! Goodnight, my princess!” So she lingered just another moment and then another, till Bulbo was too angry to call her any more.
“You are a vain, vain woman,” he exclaimed, “to gaze so long at your own image, and I will put an end to it.” He tore a big branch from the nearest pomegranate tree, and before she could prevent it, he struck the beautiful bowl with all his might. It flew into a thousand glittering fragments; but in the midst of it stood Selim Pasha the Proud, Prince of Orient Land, his sword bared and shining in the moonlight.
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“Treason,” screamed the little sorcerer, “treason!” and fell on his knees before the Prince. Then Bulbo’s servants, his bats and sprites, came running to help him. But when Bulbo had broken the crystal bowl, the rainbow fairies who had been imprisoned in the glass, were all set free, and they took splinters of the glass for swords, and fought a dreadful battle with Bulbo’s sprites, among the poppies and nightshade and the lovely poison berry-bushes. At last the rainbow fairies were victorious, and Selim Pasha sheathed his terrible sword.
“I will not kill you, Bulbo, because you are small and old,” said the magnanimous prince. “But you shall be banished.”
Then the prince gathered up the fragments of his bowl, which looked like common window glass now, for the rainbow fairies had taken all of the beautiful colors with them, and taking his glass-blower’s lamp, he blew the pieces into a perfect sphere all around old Bulbo. Then he drew a great breath—poof! and the globe rose into the air, higher and higher among the clouds, till the winds wafted it thousands of miles away. People who saw it and the little man inside, thought it was the moon. Where it came down was never known, but old Bulbo had vanished forever from Orient Land.
“But now we are in Bulbo’s palace,” said Princess Zarashne, “and your crystal ship is gone; how shall we get across the river?”
“Have no fear,” replied the prince, “the fairies will help us.” Then he called them all together, and they went down to the yellow sands, where they spread their shining wings and made a rainbow bridge over which Selim Pasha the Proud led his princess back to Orient Land.
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His people were overjoyed to see him again, for they had long thought him dead. His soldiers had forgotten how to march, for they had been idle so long, and when they tried to blow the trumpets, they found them all rusty and useless. The Lord Chamberlain was discovered hiding under the throne, for he had forgotten to feed the white mouse and the bird of Paradise, who would have starved if the head-cook had not taken pity on them every day. But Selim Pasha pretended not to notice anything that was wrong; he invited everybody to his marriage-feast, for the lovely Princess Zarashne became his queen, and they spread a banquet-table three miles long so even the humblest beggar could partake. There was another table, too, for the animals who had not eaten with a real appetite for seven years, and were awfully hungry now. And at this great banquet Selim Pasha told the story of his adventures. Some believed his tale and others did not, but they all rejoiced to have him back, and he and Queen Zarashne lived together in peace and happiness and ruled their people wisely for the rest of their lives.
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Far, far away, on a strange northern shore by the White Sea, there was once a rich and royal city. The streets were paved with silver, the walls were shining marble, and the church steeples were topped with gold so they gleamed at night in the starlight like big bright moons. The city belonged to a strong and splendid monarch whom people called The Merciless Tsar. He lived in a palace of black marble and ivory with terraces of turquoise mosaic, windows of pure crystal and heavy curtains of silver cloth brocaded with brilliant designs. The Tsar had no pity for the poor and humble; he wrapped himself in a mantle of pride, and made subject kings and princes wait on him at table, and help him into his coat when he went out to drive in his golden chariot behind twelve black horses. If a poor beggar was bold and foolish enough to cry out to him: “Alms, alms, for the love of St. Peter, O most wealthy and wonderful!” he would order the driver to crack his whip over the beggar’s stooping shoulders and drive the unhappy wretch before his chariot for miles and miles. When people cheered him as he passed, he pretended not to hear because he thought he was too great to listen to them.
One day in winter he was driving by the frozen shore of the White Sea, when he saw a ragged young lad fishing through a big hole in the ice.
“Who is that hideous rag-bag catching fish through the ice?” he asked his chancellor who sat on the front seat beside the driver.
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“O most wealthy and wonderful, it is the humblest of your citizens, Hanka the Fool,” replied the chancellor.
“Take him by the collar,” ordered the Merciless Tsar, “and plunge him through his hole in the ice. I want to see his face when he comes up again!”
So the chancellor commanded one coachman to descend and dip poor Hanka into the freezing water, and of course the coachman had to obey or else have his head cut off. He grabbed The Fool by his collar and gave him a kick from behind, and Hanka fell screaming through his hole in the thick white ice. The Tsar declared he had never seen anything so funny in all his life.
“Do it again,” he cried, “do it again!” Poor Hanka the Fool was nearly frozen to death before the Tsar grew tired of him and let him go. He had a cold for weeks after, and if his mother had not given him hot tea and put him to bed with warm flat-irons at his feet as soon as he got home, he probably would have died.
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A few days later, while the Tsar was sitting in state upon his throne, feeling bored and cross and merciless, a stranger came to the city from the distant North, driving over the frozen sea. He drove all alone in a sleigh with three white horses whose trappings were hung with icicles that tinkled like bells. His hair was long and flaxen, his blue eyes were clear as stars, and he wore a flowing white cape that looked like feathery, newly fallen snow. Of course everyone thought he would stop at the inn near the city gate, but he drove up the highway through all the town, and did not stop till he came to the palace of the Tsar. Then he reined in his horses, stood up in his sleigh and called with all his might.
“Hi, Brother Tsar! Give me a lodging for the night, for I am weary of wayfaring. Give me a bed and a place at thy board, and fodder for my horses, that we may rest!”
The Tsar thought the stranger must be a madman, and sent out a slave to drive him away. But the wayfarer would not go.
“Brother Tsar!” he cried again, “Brother Tsar!” Then the Tsar jumped up from his throne in a rage, snatched a whip from one of his coachmen, and stepped out, in all his pride and glory, upon the terraces of turquoise mosaic.
“Away!” he cried, “Away, or I will have thee bound and tortured!”
“What, thou wilt not grant me even a night’s lodging under thy roof?” exclaimed the wayfarer.
The Tsar cracked his whip.
“Begone, thou mad intruder!” he shouted.
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“Yes, I will be gone,” returned the stranger, seizing the reins and jerking up his horses in great anger. “But henceforth there shall be war between thee and me. I will sack thy city and send thee begging, O merciless Tsar, for the affront thou hast offered me today. Know that I am the Strength of the Storm and Ruler of the Great Ice, King Winter!”
The Tsar turned pale when he heard these words, but before he could make any excuses, the chariot with the three white horses and the tinkling icicles had turned about and was flying far, far away to Northward, over the boundless stretches of the Great Ice. So the Merciless Tsar went back into the throne-chamber and said to his chancellor, “Bah! How could King Winter sack my city, anyway? I’d like to see him try!”
That very day it began to snow so hard that the children all through the city could not go to school. The boys went out and shovelled the silver pavements, but soon they had thrown so much snow into the middles of the streets that even the strongest sleigh could not get through any more, and the streets looked like thick, white walls between the side walks. And still it snowed and snowed and snowed. Soon the piles in the street became so high that the boys and even the men could not throw any more snow on top. Then the sidewalks were all snowed up, and the steps of the houses were covered, and the snow rose in walls against the first-story windows.
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Round the palace the piles were so great that the turquoise terraces could no longer be shovelled, and they snowed up just like the streets. The Tsar grew very angry when he saw the white walls rising outside his windows, making his rooms all dark and chilly. He sent out his entire household to shovel and sweep; from the cook to the Lord High Chancellor, even the ladies in waiting had to go out with brooms. There were not enough snow shovels, but he made them use coal shovels and dust-pans, and the youngest kitchen-boy kept the window-sills cleared with the pancake turner. But still the snow came down and down, till there was no place to shovel it to, because it was everywhere. It rose to the second stories and blocked all the windows of all the houses. People in the town lived in the garrets, and even the Tsar, fuming with anger, had to move into one of the high towers of his palace. All the stables and barns were snowed up and people had to let the horses live with them in their sitting rooms and put the sleighs into the halls and spare-rooms. But the snow fell faster and faster till it was level with the roofs and threatened to block even the dormer windows. Then they knew that there was only one thing they could do; they had to leave the city.
The Tsar ordered everybody to pack up as many things as the sleighs could carry, food and clothes and cook-pots and the children’s school-books, money and jewels, tool-chests and linen-chests, cups and saucers, bed-clothes and brushes and tooth-powder, and flee from the city before the snow should bury them all alive. He himself headed the procession with ten golden sleighs, each drawn by twelve black horses. Thus the whole population of the rich and royal city climbed out of dormer windows or broken roofs, and drove through the snowstorm toward the South, where the great dark forests were. When they looked back for the last time, the snow had already covered the roofs, till only the golden tops of the church-steeples showed above it, and a few hours later even these disappeared. King Winter had sacked the city of the Merciless Tsar.
Three days and nights the Tsar and his people had to drive, before they came to a place where the snow was light enough so they could shovel it and really reach the solid brown earth underneath. That was in the great forests, where owls hooted, wolves howled, and foxes barked all night, and big bears sat up on their haunches to watch the newcomers with doubt and curiosity. The people took saws and axes, hammers and nails out of their tool-chest and began to cut down big trees and build rude log-cabins to live in.
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“Build mine first,” said the Tsar, sitting in his sleigh and jiggling his feet to keep warm.
So they all labored together and made him a wooden palace, with stables for his horses and quarters for the coachmen and a big wooden terrace for his Majesty to walk on after dinner. Then they made their own houses close around, and a wall of brushwood, thorns and vines about the whole settlement, to keep the wolves and bears away.
Thus they lived for months and months in great misery. Soon all their food was eaten up, and the men had to go hunting, but they could not kill enough game to feed such a large population. Then the Tsar became quite terrified, for he knew that he must starve very soon if they found no help. Several times he sent messengers to the distant shore of the White Sea, to find out whether the snow had not melted and his city reappeared; but everyone who came back said no, the city was not to be found; you could not even tell where it had been.
At last ... he saw a tiny square of window light behind some thick holly bushes
At last ... he saw a tiny square of window light behind some thick holly bushes
“Oh, will no one tell me how I may recover my city?” cried the Tsar in despair.
“Perhaps the Wise Woman in the forest could tell you,” replied the Lord Chancellor. “She is King Winter’s mother—in fact they say she is the mother of all the kings in the world. And she is said to know everything. But it is hard to find her. You must come to her hut all alone, some cold night under the Northern Lights, and knock three times upon her door, calling, ‘Mother Mir! Mother Mir!’ Then perhaps she will answer you—and perhaps she won’t.”
So the Tsar waited for a cold, bright night, when the Northern Lights played across the starlit sky, and on that night he went out all alone into the deep forest. He wrapped himself in his richest purple cape, set his crown upon his head and put white ermine boots on his feet. As he walked unattended over the frosted snow, under the great pine branches, he looked so royal that the wolves in the forest stood at a respectful distance and did not dare to eat him, though he was all alone. He walked for an hour or more and wondered whether he had gone in the wrong direction to find the Wise Woman’s hut. At last, just when he was ready to give up the search, he saw a tiny square of window-light behind some thick holly-bushes, and following that, he came upon the hut.
It was low and covered with heavy moss, patched with snow and edged with black pine cones. The little window pane was a sheet of ice. (In summer it melted away, but then the Wise Woman would not need a window pane, for the air coming in would not be cold.) The door was made of rough bark and had a big, twisted root tied to it for a knocker. The Tsar picked up the root and let it fall three times: Thump! Thump! Thump!
“Mother Mir!” he called, and his voice sounded very big in the still, black forest, “Mother Mir! Mother Mir!”
At first he thought she was not going to open, but by and by the door swung back, all by itself, and he stooped and went into the little room. There was a fire on the hearth; near it on a pile of leaves sat the brown old woman, counting lily-seeds. She had hands like gnarled wood, and long grey hair that swept the floor. But her eyes were keen and clear and her lips were red.
“A million and three, a million and four,” she counted, dropping the seeds into a bag. “A million and five, and six, and seven, and eight; a million and nine red lily seeds.” Then she tied up one bag, pushed it into a corner, and opened another with seeds of a different kind.
“Good evening to you, Mother Mir,” said the Tsar.
“Good evening, Tsar; have thy people sent thee to me?”
“Sent me!” he cried, drawing himself up so he bumped his crown on the ceiling. “Sent me, indeed! I am the most wealthy and wonderful Tsar and no one could keep me or send me.”
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“Except King Winter,” the Wise Woman corrected him.
The Tsar flushed with anger and pride.
“That’s why I came to thee, Mother Mir. What shall I do to recover my buried city?”
“What thou must do, is very simple, O merciless Tsar. But if thou art not willing to do it thou shalt never see thy city again. Thou must repent of thy mercilessness, and become as humble as Hanka the Fool. Thou must give all thy wealth away; and let thy last gift be to a poor wayfarer, to atone for thy sin, that thou didst refuse a wayfarer shelter and food in thy palace.”
The Tsar was puzzled. He had never thought how wicked he was and did not know what it would be like to repent.
“How shall I repent, Mother Mir?”
“Go back to thy people, look into their houses, see how hungry and unhappy they are because of thy mercilessness; perhaps it will make thee repent.”
“But how shall I recover my city by being humble, O most Wise Woman?”
“I have told thee all thou needst to know; now go thy way and let me count my seeds, for Spring will come and I must plant these flowers throughout all the forests of the world and they all are numbered, though people think they grow wild by themselves.” Then she began counting seeds in the new bag: “One, two, three, four, five—”
The Tsar went home through the wintry forest, under the Northern Lights, still wondering what it would feel like to repent. When he returned to his people he did as the Wise Woman had told him—stopped at one house after another, and looked in at the windows.
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In the first house he saw a mother who was so ill that she had to lie in bed while the father cooked the dinner and the dog was trying to mind the babies; and the dinner for them all was one woody turnip. The babies were crying, the mother was crying, the dog was crying, and the father said over his cooking-pot:
“It is all the fault of the Merciless Tsar. If he had not been so proud and haughty and turned that strange wayfarer from his door, we would not be starving now!”
The Tsar, watching through the window, felt a shiver run down his spine. “I might send them a little of my wealth,” he thought, “just to stop their crying.” Then he turned away and looked in at the next hut.
Here he saw an old man on his knees praying to St. Peter.
“O dear St. Peter,” he said, “please take me to heaven soon, for I have such awful back-aches that I don’t want to live any more. I got them from being whipped when I begged the Merciless Tsar for a penny!”
The Tsar felt his conscience twinge him a little. “I will send him a doctor to rub his back,” he said. And he turned away again and went to the third house.
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Here sat a young girl, all alone, spinning thin cotton thread with frozen fingers. All the time as she spun, the tears were running down her face. The Tsar took off his crown, turned his cloak inside out so one could not see the rich purple velvet, but only the lining, left his boots outside, and went into the hut.
“I am a stranger,” he said. “Let me sit down a moment and get warm. And tell me why thou art crying.”
“Because my lover is dead,” replied the girl, setting a chair for the stranger. “He had his head cut off for contradicting the Tsar. And now even if we should return to our city, even if I should be rich and care-free, I can never, never be happy again.” And she cried harder than ever.
“Now what could I do to help her?” thought the Tsar. But suddenly it occurred to him that there was nothing in the world he could do that would bring her lover back or even make her any happier again. Then he felt so sorry that the tears ran down his cheeks, too, and he went outside and threw himself down upon the snow for unhappiness.
“Oh, I have been so wicked!” he cried. “I have been so merciless that I have made all my people miserable. And I can’t help the poor girl, and it’s all my fault—I have been so awfully, awfully wicked!”
All night long, he lay in the snow, even after all the window-lights had gone out, and no one knew he was there. When morning came and people opened their doors to see what the weather was like, they saw their most wealthy and wonderful Tsar, without boots or crown and with his coat turned inside out, lying face down, on the ground. They called the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chamberlain and many other lords from the wooden palace, and ran to pick him up, for they thought he must be dead or at least fainted. But when they touched him he sat up all by himself and looked at their surprised faces.
“Your wonderful highness, what has happened?” they cried.
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“I have repented!” replied the Tsar.
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Henceforth he became so humble and mild that people called him the Merciful Tsar. He took a basket of food and carried it to the poor people who had only one woody turnip to eat, and he went to the lame old man with a bottle of liniment and rubbed his back till it got well, and every day he sent some gift, a jewel or a gold-piece or a silver thimble, or something of the sort, to comfort the girl whose lover had been beheaded for contradicting him. He gave his wooden palace to his lords and ladies, and moved into a tiny brown hut, moss-covered and patched and without window-panes, way at the end of the village. No beggar ever went empty-handed from his door; and if a little boy cut his finger or bumped his knee, the other boys would say:
“Go to the Tsar, Aliushka, he will put a rag with ointment on it and make it well!”
Soon he had given away so much of his wealth that he was quite the poorest man in the village. One day just as he sat down to eat his last piece of dry bread, a very weary old woman came to his door and said:
“Alms, alms, for the love of St. Peter, O most Merciful Tsar!”
“I have nothing but this piece of bread, but you may have it,” he replied, and gave her his frugal dinner. The old woman sank down upon the block of wood that was his only chair.
“Ah, but you don’t know how weary I am!” she sighed, nibbling the bread with her toothless gums. “I have no hut to live in, no place to lay my head, no roof to shelter me from the icy winter.”
“Thou art sleepy,” he said. “Lie down on the bed.”
As soon as she had lain down and fallen asleep, he took a piece of charcoal from the fire place and wrote on the table, where she would surely see it when she woke up:
“Take my hut, and my bed, and everything I own. I have moved out. There is another piece of bread in the kitchen drawer, but it is mouldy.” Then he left the hut, shut the door carefully so the snow should not blow in and went to the village gate, where there was a public bench; there he sat down.
Presently he heard a great commotion in the village; a lot of people were coming toward the gate where he sat. In their midst walked Hanka, the Fool, with big boots on his feet, an axe in his belt, and a fishing-rod over his shoulder. Everybody was shouting to him:
“Good luck on thy way! Good luck, Hanka! Good luck to thee, brave wayfarer, may all the Saints help thee against the wolves in the forest!”
“Where art thou going, Hanka?” asked the Tsar.
“Far away to the White Sea,” replied the Fool. “We are all starving in the village, so I am going to chop a hole through the ice and catch fish.”
“Alas!” replied the Tsar, suddenly remembering what the Wise Mother Mir had told him. “Thou art a wayfarer now, Hanka, and I should give thee my last gift to atone for my old cruelty to the wayfarer who came to my palace-gate. But I have nothing, nothing left to give, not even a safety-pin!”
“Give me thy blessing, O most Merciful Tsar,” said Hanka the Fool. “Surely with a Tsar’s blessing I could go safely in my long and arduous way. It would keep off the wolves and bears and robbers that attack poor wayfarers in the forest.”
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“Yes, I will give thee my blessing,” agreed the Tsar.
So Hanka knelt down in the snow, and the Tsar gave him a blessing for the journey.
Hanka travelled for many days through deep and drifted snow. Over his head the black crows flew from tree to tree, and all night when he crouched by his brushwood fire he heard the wolves howling and the foxes barking in the great forest. But no beast or bird or prowling robber ever tried to hurt him; that was because he traveled with the Tsar’s blessing on his head.
At last he came to a great field of ice and snow that he supposed was the White Sea. He took his axe and began to chop the frozen floor, because he was a fool and did not know that there was really solid land under his feet. Suddenly his axe struck on something that cracked like wood.
“What’s this?” cried Hanka, jumping back and dropping his axe. “It can’t be ice, for it isn’t clear; it isn’t wood, for it’s too white; it isn’t stone, for it’s too brittle; I know!” and he jumped up and down with pleasure because he knew. “It’s ivory!”