APPENDIX 173 



trast with the terrible moral decline of old Europe 

 in all domains of spiritual endeavour, art, music, litera- 

 ture, which was so prophetic of the present war. In 

 many ways I feel that Russia and America are very 

 close. " 



A RUSSIAN FAIRY STORY 



Count Tolstoy has written a fairy story about the 

 green little stick, a story which his father heard, one 

 which concerns the woods where his father is buried. 

 The story is all about the one all-important word 

 love. 



"My story has no setting in time or space," said 

 the Count today. "It was long ago when mills were 

 on the spot and men dug ore from the depths of the 

 earth. Ages passed. The soil became black, mixed 

 with slag. Two boys roamed through the woods tell- 

 ing each other stories. They were talking of love, 

 how all men will some day become brothers. Niko- 

 lenka wrote a word on a green little stick, and said 

 that before men could become brothers this word must 

 be known. That was ages ago, when the stick was 

 buried, and the boy said that whoever found the stick 

 would make all men happy. 



"After the passage of time peasants came to the 

 slope and dug a three-yard grave at the summit and 

 the next day when a multitude of people gathered, 

 they lowered the corpse of a gray, robust, old man. 

 Behind the slope a hare builds his lair. 



'Then night comes. The whole western horizon 

 is purple-red with fire. The sky is bathed in blood. 



