After that, the Fiddler began to talk to the sons of the rich moujik, and said:
“Your father bids you dig up the money—one potful is buried at the gate and the other in the corn-kiln—and distribute the whole of it among the poor.”
Well, they dug up both the pots, and began to distribute the money among the poor. But the more they gave away the money, the more did it increase. Then they carried out the pots to a crossway. Every one who passed by took out of them as much money as his hand could grasp, and yet the money wouldn’t come to an end. Then they presented a petition to the Emperor, and he ordained as follows. There was a certain town, the road to which was a very roundabout one. It was some fifty versts long, whereas if it had been made in a straight line it would not have been more than five. And so the Emperor ordained that a bridge should be made the whole way. Well, they built a bridge five versts long, and this piece of work cleared out both the pots.
About that time a certain maid bore a son and deserted him in his infancy. The child neither ate nor drank for three years and an angel of God always went about with him. Well, this child came to the bridge, and cried:
“Ah! what a glorious bridge! God grant the kingdom of heaven to him at whose cost it was built!”
The Lord heard this prayer, and ordered his angels to release the rich moujik from the depths of hell.[395]
With the bridge-building episode in this “legend” may be compared the opening of another Russian story. In it a merchant is described as having much money but no children. So he and his wife “began to pray to God, entreating him to give them a child—for solace in their youth, for support in their old age, for soul-remembrance[396] after death. And they took to feeding the poor and distributing alms. Besides all this, they resolved to build, for the use of all the faithful, a long bridge across swamps and where no man could find a footing. Much wealth did the merchant expend, but he built the bridge, and when the work was completed he sent his manager Fedor, saying—
“‘Go and sit under the bridge, and listen to what folks say about me—whether they bless me or revile me.’
“Fedor set off, sat under the bridge, and listened. Presently three Holy Elders went over the bridge, and said one to another—
“‘How ought the man who built this bridge to be rewarded?’ ‘Let there be born to him a fortunate son. Whatsoever that son says—it shall be done: whatsoever he desires—that will the Lord bestow!’”[397]