on my conscience. Thus it is better now whilst I am still strong and I bear pain on this earth; for when I shall become very old then it will be all the worse for me to suffer anything."
So he got up and he went up into the Bryánski Woods, and he went up to the aspen, and saw there the nosebag was hanging very high, shaking in the winds to all sides. "Oh, you Death," he says, "are you still alive?"
A faint voice came out of the nosebag: "Yes, father, I am alive."
So the soldier took the nosebag, opened it, and he let out Death.
And he himself lay down on his bed, bade farewell to his wife and son, and he begged Death that he might die. And she[1] ran outside the door with all the strength in her feet. "Go!" she cried. "It is the devils who shall slay you—I shall not slay you!"
So the soldier remained alive and healthy. And he thought: "Shall I go straight into the burning pitch, for then the devils will throw me into the seething sulphur until such time as my sins shall have been melted from off me." And he bade farewell from all, and he went with the knapsack in his hand straight into the burning pitch.
And he went on: may-be near, may-be far, may-be downhill, may-be uphill, may-be short, may-be long; and he at last arrived in the abyss, and he looked, and all round the burning cauldron there stood watchmen. As soon as he stopped at the gate a devil asked who was coming.
"A guilty soul to be tortured."
"Why do you come? What are you carrying with you?"
"Oh, a nosebag."
And the devil shrieked out of his full throat and made
- ↑ Death is feminine in Russian.
