"This," said old Peter, "is a story against
wanting more than enough."
Long ago, near the shore of the blue sea, an old man lived
with his old woman in a little old hut made of earth and moss and logs. They
never had a rouble to spend. A rouble! they never had a kopeck. They just lived
there in the little hut, and the old man caught fish out of the sea in his old
net, and the old woman cooked the fish; and so they lived, poorly enough in
summer and worse in winter. Sometimes they had a few fish to sell, but not
often. In the summer evenings they sat outside their hut on a broken old bench,
and the old man mended the holes in his ragged old net. There were holes in it
a hare could jump through with his ears standing, let alone one of those little
fishes that live in the sea. The old woman sat on the bench beside him, and
patched his trousers and complained.
Well, one day the old man went fishing, as he always did.
All day long he fished, and caught nothing. And then in the evening, when he
was thinking he might as well give up and go home, he threw his net for the
last time, and when he came to pull it in he began to think he had caught an
island instead of a haul of fish, and a strong and lively island at that--the
net was so heavy and pulled so hard against his feeble old arms.
"This time," says he, "I have caught a
hundred fish at least."
Not a bit of it. The net came in as heavy as if it were
full of fighting fish, but empty --.
"Empty?" said Maroosia.
"Well, not quite empty," said old Peter, and went
on with his tale.
Not quite empty, for when the last of the net came ashore
there was something glittering in it--a golden fish, not very big and not very
little, caught in the meshes. And it was this single golden fish which had made
the net so heavy.
The old fisherman took the golden fish in his hands.
"At least it will be enough for supper," said he.
But the golden fish lay still in his hands, and looked at
him with wise eyes, and spoke--yes, my dears, it spoke, just as if it were you
or I.
"Old man," says the fish, "do not kill me. I
beg you throw me back into the blue waters. Someday I may be able to be of use
to you."
"What?" says the old fisherman; "and do you
talk with a human voice?"
"I do," says the fish. "And my fish's heart
feels pain like yours. It would be as bitter to me to die as it would be to
yourself."
"And is that so?" says the old fisherman.
"Well, you shall not die this time." And he threw the golden fish
back into the sea.
You would have thought the golden fish would have splashed
with his tail, and turned head downwards, and swum away into the blue depths of
the sea. Not a bit of it. It stayed there with its tail slowly flapping in the
water so as to keep its head up, and it looked at the fisherman with its wise
eyes, and it spoke again.
"You have given me my life," says the golden
fish. "Now ask anything you wish from me, and you shall have it."
The old fisherman stood there on the shore, combing his
beard with his old fingers, and thinking. Think as he would, he could not call
to mind a single thing he wanted.
"No, fish," he said at last; "I think I have
everything I need,"
"Well, if ever you do want anything, come and ask for
it," says the fish, and turns over, flashing gold, and goes down into the
blue sea.
The old fisherman went back to his hut, where his wife was
waiting for him.
"What!" she screamed out; "you haven't
caught so much as one little fish for our supper?"
"I caught one fish, mother," says the old man:
"a golden fish it was, and it spoke to me; and I let it go, and it told me
to ask for anything I wanted."
"And what did you ask for? Show me."
"I couldn't think of anything to ask for; so I did not
ask for anything at all."
"Fool," says his wife, "and dolt, and us
with no food to put in our mouths. Go back at once, and ask for some
bread."
Well, the poor old fisherman got down his net, and tramped
back to the seashore. And he stood on the shore of the wide blue sea, and he
called out,--
"Head in air and tail in
sea,
Fish, fish, listen to me."
Fish, fish, listen to me."
And in a moment there was the golden fish with his head out
of the water, flapping his tail below him in the water, and looking at the
fisherman with his wise eyes.
"What is it?" said the fish.
"Be so kind," says the fisherman; "be so
kind. We have no bread in the house."
"Go home," says the fish, and turned over and
went down into the sea.
"God be good to me," says the old fisherman;
"but what shall I say to my wife, going home like this without the
bread?" And he went home very wretchedly, and slower than he came.
As soon as he came within sight of his hut he saw his wife,
and she was waving her arms and shouting.
"Stir your old bones," she screamed out.
"It's as fine a loaf as ever I've seen."
And he hurried along, and found his old wife cutting up a
huge loaf of white bread, mind you, not black--a huge loaf of white bread, nearly
as big as Maroosia.
"You did not do so badly after all," said his old
wife as they sat there with the samovar on the table between them, dipping
their bread in the hot tea.
But that night, as they lay sleeping on the stove, the old
woman poked the old man in the ribs with her bony elbow. He groaned and woke
up.
"I've been thinking," says his wife, "your
fish might have given us a trough to keep the bread in while he was about it.
There is a lot left over, and without a trough it will go bad, and not be fit
for anything. And our old trough is broken; besides, it's too small. First
thing in the morning off you go, and ask your fish to give us a new trough to
put the bread in."
-------------------------
From OLD
PETER’S RUSSAIN TALES
ISBN: 978-1-907256-40-0
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