“Idiot!” he shouted (that is what peasants are usually called in Russia), “you should take a full load of your wood pieces and then climb back up on top of the church; that would be a lot simpler.”

The peasant, who just at that moment was on the ground, stopped where he was, put his hand up above his eyes, and replied: “You’ll have to leave that to me, Czar Ivan Vassilievitch; each person understands his own craft the best. In the meantime, since you happen to be riding by, I’ll tell you the answers to the three riddles that you’ll need to know when you get to the white stone, which is not at all far from here.” And he drilled him in the three answers, one after the other. The czar was so astounded he could hardly thank him.

“What should I give you as a reward?” he finally asked.

“Not a thing,” said the peasant, and he started to climb back up his ladder.

“Stop!” the czar commanded. “That is unacceptable; you have to tell me your wish.”

“Well, little father, if you command it, give me one of the twelve casks of gold that you will receive from the princes in the east.”

“Fine,” the czar agreed. “I’ll give you a cask of gold.” Then he rode off in haste so he would not forget the answers.

Later, when the czar came back from the east with his twelve casks of gold, he shut himself up in Moscow in his palace, in the very heart of the five-towered Kremlin, and poured out one cask after the other over the shining tiles of the hall, making a veritable mountain of gold, which cast a big black shadow over the floor. In his forgetfulness, the czar had also emptied the twelfth cask. He was about to fill it back up, but it was painful for him to have to take away so much gold from the magnificent pile. In the night, he went down into the courtyard, scooped fine sand into the cask until it was three-quarters full, crept stealthily back into the palace, and covered the sand with gold. The next morning he sent the cask with a messenger to the region of great Russia where the peasant was building his church.

When the peasant saw the messenger coming, he climbed down from the roof and cried, “You must come no closer, my friend. Go back and take your cask with you. Its contents are three-quarters sand and barely a quarter gold. I don’t need it. Tell your master that until now there’s been no treachery in Russia. But he himself is to blame if he should look around him now and see that there’s no one he can trust. For he has just illustrated how one man betrays another, and century after century, his example will be emulated by many people throughout Russia. I don’t need his gold; I can live without gold. It wasn’t gold I was looking to him for, but truth and righteousness. But he cheated me. Tell that to your master, the terrible czar Ivan Vassilievitch, who resides in his white city of Moscow with a bad conscience and a golden robe.”