Leo Tolstoy Archive
Written: 1904
Source: "Fables for Children," by Leo Tolstoy, translated from the original Russian and edited by leo Wiener, assistant Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University, published by Dana Estese Company, Boston, Edition De Luxe, limited to one thousand copies of which this is no. 411, copyright 1904, electrotyped and printed by C. H. Simonds and Co., Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
In the village of Nikólskoe, the people went on a holiday to mass. In the manor yard were left the cow-tender, the elder, and the groom. The cow-tender went to the well for water. The well was in the yard itself. She pulled out the bucket, but could not hold it. The bucket pulled away from her, struck the side of the well, and tore the rope. The cow-tender returned to the hut and said to the elder:
"Aleksándr! Climb down into the well,—I have dropped the bucket into it."
Aleksándr said:
"You have dropped it, so climb down yourself."
The cow-tender said that she did not mind fetching it herself, if he would let her down.
The elder laughed at her, and said:
"Well, let us go! You have an empty stomach now, so I shall be able to hold you up, for after dinner I could not do it."
The elder tied a stick to a rope, and the woman sat astride it, took hold of the rope, and began to climb down into the well, while the elder turned the well-wheel. The well was about twenty feet deep, and there was less than three feet of water in it. The elder let her down slowly, and kept asking:
"A little more?"
And the cow-tender cried from below:
"Just a little more!"
Suddenly the elder felt the rope give way: he called the cow-tender, but she did not answer. The elder looked into the well, and saw the cow-tender lying with her head in the water, and with her feet in the air. The elder called for help, but there was nobody near by; only the groom came. The elder told him to hold the wheel, and he himself pulled out the rope, sat down on the stick, and went down into the well.
The moment the groom let the elder down to the water, the same thing happened to the elder. He let go of the rope and fell head foremost upon the woman. The groom began to cry, and ran to church to call the people. Mass was over, and people were walking home. All the men and women rushed to the well. They gathered around it, and everybody holloaed, but nobody knew what to do. The young carpenter Iván made his way through the crowd, took hold of the rope, sat down on the stick, and told them to let him down. Iván tied himself to the rope with his belt. Two men let him down, and the rest looked into the well, to see what would become of Iván. Just as he was getting near the water, he dropped his hands from the rope, and would have fallen down head foremost, if the belt had not held him. All shouted, "Pull him out!" and Iván was pulled out.
He hung like dead down from the belt, and his head was drooping and beating against the sides of the well. His face was livid. They took him off the rope and put him down on the ground. They thought that he was dead; but he suddenly drew a deep breath, began to rattle, and soon revived.
Others wanted to climb down, but an old peasant said that they could not go down because there was bad air in the well, and that that bad air killed people. Then the peasants ran for hooks and began to pull out the elder and the woman. The elder's mother and wife cried at the well, and others tried to quiet them; in the meantime the peasants put down the hooks and tried to get out the dead people. Twice they got the elder half-way up by his clothes; but he was heavy, and his clothes tore and he fell down. Finally they stuck two hooks into him and pulled him out. Then they pulled out the cow-tender. Both were dead and did not revive.
Then, when they examined the well, they found that indeed there was bad air down in the well.
This air is so heavy that neither man nor any animal can live in it. They let down a cat into the well, and the moment she reached the place where the bad air was, she died. Not only can no animal live there, even no candle will burn in it. They let down a candle, and the moment it reached that spot, it went out.
There are places underground where that air gathers, and when a person gets into one of those places, he dies at once. For this purpose they have lamps in the mines, and before a man goes down to such a place, they let down the lamp. If it goes out, no man can go there; then they let down fresh air until the lamp will burn.
Near the city of Naples there is one such cave. There is always about three feet of bad air in it on the ground, but above it the air is good. A man can walk through the cave, and nothing will happen to him, but a dog will die the moment it enters.
Where does this bad air come from? It is made of the same good air that we breathe. If you gather a lot of people in one place, and close all the doors and windows, so that no fresh air can get in, you will get the same kind of an air as in the well, and people will die.
One hundred years ago, during a war, the Hindus captured 146 Englishmen and shut them up in a cave underground, where the air could not get in.
After the captured Englishmen had been there a few hours they began to die, and toward the end of the night 123 had died, and the rest came out more dead than alive, and ailing. At first the air had been good in the cave; but when the captives had inhaled all the good air, and no fresh air came in, it became bad, just like what was in the well, and they died.
Why does the good air become bad when many people come together?
Because, when people breathe, they take in good air and breathe out bad air.