The Tsar was puzzled. He had never thought how wicked he was and did not know what it would be like to repent.
“How shall I repent, Mother Mir?”
“Go back to thy people, look into their houses, see how hungry and unhappy they are because of thy mercilessness; perhaps it will make thee repent.”
“But how shall I recover my city by being humble, O most Wise Woman?”
“I have told thee all thou needst to know; now go thy way and let me count my seeds, for Spring will come and I must plant these flowers throughout all the forests of the world and they all are numbered, though people think they grow wild by themselves.” Then she began counting seeds in the new bag: “One, two, three, four, five—”
The Tsar went home through the wintry forest, under the Northern Lights, still wondering what it would feel like to repent. When he returned to his people he did as the Wise Woman had told him—stopped at one house after another, and looked in at the windows.
In the first house he saw a mother who was so ill that she had to lie in bed while the father cooked the dinner and the dog was trying to mind the babies; and the dinner for them all was one woody turnip. The babies were crying, the mother was crying, the dog was crying, and the father said over his cooking-pot:
“It is all the fault of the Merciless Tsar. If he had not been so proud and haughty and turned that strange wayfarer from his door, we would not be starving now!”
The Tsar, watching through the window, felt a shiver run down his spine. “I might send them a little of my wealth,” he thought, “just to stop their crying.” Then he turned away and looked in at the next hut.