Part 75 (1/2)

”How can we fools know? We labour mostly with our hands and with our backs.”

”That is so, because you are fools. I will teach you,” he said, ”how to work with your heads. You will see that with your heads you can work faster than with your hands.”

Ivan marvelled.

”Indeed,” he said, ”we are called fools for good reason.”

And the old devil said:

”But it is not easy to work with the head. You do not give me anything to eat because I have no calluses on my hands, and you do not know that it is a hundred times harder to work with the head. At times it just makes the head burst.”

Ivan fell to musing.

”But why do you torture yourself so much, my dear? It is no small matter to have your head burst. You had better do some easy work,--with your hands and back.”

And the devil said:

”The reason I torture myself is because I pity you fools. If I did not torture myself, you would remain fools to the end of your days. I have worked with my head, and now I will teach you, too.”

Ivan marvelled.

”Teach us,” he said, ”for now and then the hands get tired, and it would be nice to use the head instead.”

The devil promised to teach him.

And Ivan proclaimed throughout his kingdom that a clean-looking man had appeared who would teach people how to work with their heads, that they could work more with their heads than with their hands, and that they should come and learn.

In Ivan's kingdom there was a high tower, and a straight staircase led up to it, and at the top there was a spy-room. Ivan took the gentleman there so that he might see better.

The gentleman stood up on the tower and began to speak from it. The fools gathered around to look at him. The fools thought that he would show them in fact how to work with the head instead of the hands. But the old devil taught them only in words how to live without working.

The fools did not understand a word. They looked and looked and went away, each to his work.