Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories, Popular Education, Decembrists, Moral Tales

"I knew already what there was in men. Now I learned what was not given to men. It is not given men to know what they need for their bodies. And I smiled for the second time. I was glad because I had seen my comrade the angel, and because God had revealed the second word to me.

"But I could not understand everything. I could not understand what men lived by. And I lived and waited for God to reveal to me the last word. And in the sixth year came the twin girls with the woman, and I recognized the girls and knew how they were kept alive. I recognized them, and I thought: 'The mother begged me for the sake of the children, and I believed the mother and thought that the children could not live without father and mother, and yet a strange woman has fed them and reared them.' And when the woman was touched as she looked at the children and wept, I saw in her the living God, and I understood what men lived by. And I learned that God had revealed the third word to me and forgave me. And I smiled for the third time."

XII

And the angel's body was bared and clothed in light, so that the eye could not behold him, and he spoke louder, as though the voice were coming not from him but from heaven. And the angel said:

"I have learned that every man lives not by the care for himself, but by love.

"It was not given to the mother to know what her children needed for life. It was not given to the rich man to know what he needed for himself. And it is not given to any man to know whether before evening he will need boots for his life, or soft shoes for his death.

"I was kept alive when I was a man not by what I did for myself, but because there was love in a passer-by and in his wife, and because they pitied and loved me. The orphans were left alive not by what was done for them, but because there was love in the heart of a strange woman, and she pitied and loved them. And all men live not by what they do for themselves, but because there is love in men.

"I knew before that God gave life to men and that He wanted them to live; now I understand even something else.

"I understand that God does not want men to live apart, and so He has not revealed to them what each needs for himself, but wants them to live together, and so He has revealed to them what they all need for themselves and for all.

"I understand now that it only seems to men that they live by the care for themselves, and that they live only by love. He who has love, is in God, and God is in him, because God is love."

And the angel began to sing the praise of God, and from his voice the whole hut shook. And the ceiling expanded, and a fiery column rose from earth to heaven. And Semén and his wife and children fell to the ground. And the wings were unfolded on the angel's shoulders, and he rose to heaven.

And when Semén awoke, the hut was as before, and in the room were only his family.

THE THREE HERMITS

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. (Matt. vi. 7-8.)

A bishop was sailing in a ship from Arkhángelsk to Solóvki. On this ship there were pilgrims on their way to visit the saints. The wind was favourable, the weather clear, and the vessel did not roll. Of the pilgrims some were lying down, some eating, some sitting in groups, and some talking with each other. The bishop, too, came out on deck, and began to walk up and down on the bridge. He walked up to the prow and saw there several men sitting together. A peasant was pointing to something in the sea and talking, while the people listened to him. The bishop stopped to see what the peasant was pointing at: he could see nothing except that the sun was glistening on the water. The bishop came nearer and began to listen. When the peasant saw the bishop, he took off his cap and grew silent. And the people, too, when they saw the bishop, took off their caps and saluted him.

"Do not trouble yourselves, friends," said the bishop. "I have just come to hear what you, good man, are telling about."

"The fisherman is telling us about the hermits," said a merchant, who was a little bolder than the rest.

"What about those hermits?" asked the bishop. He walked over to the gunwale and sat down on a box. "Tell me, too, and I will listen. What were you pointing at?"

"There is an island glinting there," said the peasant, pointing forward and to the right. "On that island the hermits are living and saving their souls."

"Where is that island?" asked the bishop.

"Please to follow my hand! There is a small cloud; below it and a little to the left of it the island appears like a streak."

The bishop looked and looked, but only the water was rippling in the sun, and he could not make out anything with his unaccustomed eye.

"I do not see it," he said. "What kind of hermits are living on that island?"

"God's people," replied the peasant. "I had heard about them for a long time, and never had any chance to see them; but two summers ago I saw them myself."

The fisherman went on to tell how he went out to catch fish and was driven to that island, and did not know where he was. In the morning he walked out and came to an earth hut, and there he saw one hermit, and then two more came out. They fed him and dried him and helped him to mend his boat.

"What kind of people are they?" asked the bishop.

"One is small and stooping, a very old man, in an old cassock; he must be more than a hundred years old, the gray of his beard is turning green, and he smiles all the time, and is as bright as an angel of heaven. The second is taller; he, too, is old, and wears a ragged caftan; his broad gray beard is streaked yellow, and he is a powerful man: he turned my boat around as though it were a vat, before I had a chance to help him; he also is a cheerful man. The third man is tall; his beard falls down to his knees and is as white as snow; he is a gloomy man, and his brows hang over his eyes; he is all naked, and girded only with a piece of matting."

"What did they tell you?" asked the bishop.

"They did everything mostly in silence, and spoke little to one another. When one looked up, the others understood him. I asked the tall man how long they had been living there. He frowned and muttered something, as though he were angry, but the little hermit took his arm and smiled, and the tall one grew silent. All the little hermit said was: 'Have mercy on us,' and smiled."

While the peasant spoke, the ship came nearer to the island.

"Now you can see it plainly," said the merchant. "Please to look there, your Reverence!" he said, pointing to the island.

The bishop looked up and really saw a black strip, which was the island. The bishop looked at it for quite awhile, then he went away from the prow to the stern, and walked over to the helmsman.

"What island is this that we see there?"

"That is a nameless island. There are so many of them here."

"Is it true what they say, that some hermits are saving their souls there?"

"They say so, your Reverence, but I do not know whether it is so. Fishermen say that they have seen them. But they frequently speak to no purpose."

"I should like to land on that island and see the hermits," said the bishop. "How can I do it?"

"The ship cannot land there," said the helmsman. "You can get there by a boat, but you must ask the captain."

The captain was called out.

"I should like to see those hermits," said the bishop. "Can I not be taken there?"

The captain began to dissuade him.

"It can be done, but it will take much time, and, I take the liberty of informing your Reverence, it is not worth while to look at them. I have heard people say that they were foolish old men: they understand nothing and cannot speak, just like the fishes of the sea."

"I wish it," said the bishop. "I will pay you for the trouble, so take me there."

It could not be helped. The sailors shifted the sails and the helmsman turned the ship, and they sailed toward the island. A chair was brought out for the bishop and put at the prow. He sat down and looked. All the people gathered at the prow, and all kept looking at the island. Those who had sharper eyes saw the rocks on the island, and they pointed to the earth hut. And one man could make out the three hermits. The captain brought out his spy-glass and looked through it and gave it to the bishop.

"That's so," he said, "there, on the shore, a little to the right from that big rock, stand three men."

The bishop looked through the glass and turned it to the right spot. There were three men there: one tall, a second smaller, and a third a very small man. They were standing on the shore and holding each other's hands.

The captain walked over to the bishop, and said:

"Here, your Reverence, the ship has to stop. If you wish to go there by all means, you will please go from here in a boat, and we will wait here at anchor."

The hawsers were let out, the anchor dropped, the sails furled, and the vessel jerked and shook. A boat was lowered, the oarsmen jumped into it, and the bishop went down a ladder. He sat down on a bench in the boat, and the oarsmen pulled at the oars and rowed toward the island. They came near to the shore and could see clearly three men standing there: a tall man, all naked, with a mat about his loins; the next in size, in a tattered caftan; and the stooping old man, in an old cassock. There they stood holding each other's hands.

The oarsmen rowed up to the shore and caught their hook in it. The bishop stepped ashore.

The old men bowed to him. He blessed them, and they bowed lower still. Then the bishop began to talk to them:

"I have heard," he said, "that you are here, hermits of God, saving your souls and praying to Christ our God for men. I, an unworthy servant of Christ, have been called here by the mercy of God to tend His flock, and so I wanted to see you, the servants of God, and to give you some instruction, if I can do so."

The hermits kept silence, and smiled, and looked at one another.

"Tell me, how do you save yourselves and serve God?" asked the bishop.

The middle-sized hermit heaved a sigh and looked at the older, the stooping hermit. And the stooping hermit smiled, and said:

"We do not know, O servant of God, how to serve God. We only support ourselves."

"How, then, do you pray to God?"

And the stooping hermit said:

"We pray as follows: There are three of you and three of us, – have mercy on us!"

And the moment the stooping hermit had said that, all three of them raised their eyes to heaven, and all three said:

"There are three of you and three of us, – have mercy on us!"

The bishop smiled, and said:

"You have heard that about the Holy Trinity, but you do not pray the proper way. I like you, hermits of God, and I see that you want to please God, but do not know how to serve Him. I will teach you, not according to my way, but from the Gospel will I teach you as God has commanded all men to pray to Him."

And the bishop began to explain to the hermits how God had revealed Himself to men: he explained to them about God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, and said:

"God the Son came down upon earth to save men and taught them to pray as follows. Listen, and repeat after me."

And the bishop began to say, "Our Father." And one of the hermits repeated, "Our Father," and the second repeated, "Our Father," and the third repeated, "Our Father."

"Which art in heaven." The hermit repeated, "Which art in heaven." But the middle hermit got mixed in his words, and did not say it right; and the tall, naked hermit did not say it right: his moustache was all over his mouth, and he could not speak clearly; and the stooping, toothless hermit, too, lisped it indistinctly.

The bishop repeated it a second time, and the hermits repeated it after him. And the bishop sat down on a stone, and the hermits stood around him and looked into his mouth and repeated after him so long as he spoke. And the bishop worked with them all day; he repeated one word ten, and twenty, and a hundred times, and the hermits repeated after him. They blundered, and he corrected them, and made them repeat from the beginning.

The bishop did not leave the hermits until he taught them the whole Lord's prayer. They said it with him and by themselves. The middle-sized hermit was the first to learn it, and he repeated it all by himself. The bishop made him say it over and over again, and both the others said the prayer, too.

It was beginning to grow dark, and the moon rose from the sea, when the bishop got up to go back to the ship. The bishop bade the hermits good-bye, and they bowed to the ground before him. He raised each of them, and kissed them, and told them to pray as he had taught them, and entered the boat, and was rowed back to the ship.

And as the boat was rowed toward the ship, the bishop heard the hermits loudly repeating the Lord's prayer in three voices. The boat came nearer to the ship, and the voices of the hermits could no longer be heard, but in the moonlight they could be seen standing on the shore, in the spot where they had been left: the smallest of them was in the middle, the tallest on the right, and the middle-sized man on the left. The bishop reached the ship and climbed up to the deck. The anchors were weighed, the sails unfurled, and the wind blew and drove the ship, and on they sailed. The bishop went to the prow and sat down there and looked at the island. At first the hermits could be seen, then they disappeared from view, and only the island could be seen; then the island, too, disappeared, and only the sea glittered in the moonlight.

The pilgrims lay down to sleep, and everything grew quiet on the deck. But the bishop did not feel like sleeping. He sat by himself at the prow and looked out to sea to where the island had disappeared, and thought of the good hermits. He thought of how glad they had been to learn the prayer, and thanked God for having taken him there to help the God's people, – to teach them the word of God.

The bishop was sitting and thinking and looking out to sea to where the island had disappeared. There was something unsteady in his eyes: now a light quivered in one place on the waves, and now in another. Suddenly he saw something white and shining in the moonlight, – either a bird, a gull, or a white sail on a boat. The bishop watched it closely.

"A sailboat is following after us," he thought. "It will soon overtake us. It was far, far away, but now it is very near. It is evidently not a boat, for there seems to be no sail. Still it is flying behind us and coming up close to us."

The bishop could not make out what it was: a boat, no, it was not a boat; a bird, no, not a bird; a fish, no, not a fish! It was like a man, but too large for that, and then, how was a man to be in the middle of the ocean? The bishop got up and walked over to the helmsman.

"See there, what is it?"

"What is it, my friend? What is it?" asked the bishop, but he saw himself that those were the hermits running over the sea. Their beards shone white, and, as though the ship were standing still, they came up to it.

The helmsman looked around and was frightened. He dropped the helm, and called out in a loud voice:

"O Lord! The hermits are running after us on the sea as though it were dry land!"

The people heard him, and rushed to the helm. All saw the hermits running and holding each other's hands. Those at the ends waved their hands, asking the ship to be stopped. All three were running over the water as though it were dry land, without moving their feet.

Before the ship could be stopped, the hermits came abreast with the ship. They came up to the gunwale, raised their heads, and spoke in one voice:

"O servant of God, we have forgotten your lesson. So long as we repeated it, we remembered it; but when we stopped for an hour, one word leaped out, and then the rest scattered. We do not remember a thing, so teach us again."

The bishop made the sign of the cross, bent down to the hermits, and said:

"Even your prayer, hermits of God, reaches the Lord. It is not for me to teach you. Pray for us sinful men!"

And the bishop made a low obeisance to the hermits. And the hermits stopped, turned around, and walked back over the sea. And up to morning a light could be seen on the side where the hermits had departed.

NEGLECT THE FIRE

And You Cannot Put It Out

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?

Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants.

And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents.

But forasmuch as he had not to pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife, and children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.

The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.

Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.

But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellowservants, which owed him an hundred pence: and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest.

And his fellowservant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all.

And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he should pay the debt.

So when his fellowservants saw what was done, they were very sorry, and came and told unto their lord all that was done.

Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me:

Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?

And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.

So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses. (Matt. xviii. 21-35.)

There lived in a village a peasant, by the name of Iván Shcherbakóv. He lived well; he was himself in full strength, the first worker in the village, and he had three sons, – all of them on their legs: one was married, the second about to marry, and the third a grown-up lad who drove horses and was beginning to plough. Iván's wife was a clever woman and a good housekeeper, and his daughter-in-law turned out to be a quiet person and a good worker. There was no reason why Iván should not have led a good life with his family. The only idle mouth on the farm was his old, ailing father (he had been lying on the oven for seven years, sick with the asthma).

Iván had plenty of everything, three horses and a colt, a cow and a yearling calf, and fifteen sheep. The women made the shoes and the clothes for the men and worked in the field; the men worked on their farms.

They had enough grain until the next crop. From the oats they paid their taxes and met all their obligations. An easy life, indeed, might Iván have led with his children. But next door to him he had a neighbour, Gavrílo the Lame, Gordyéy Ivánov's son. And there was an enmity between him and Iván.

So long as old man Gordyéy was alive, and Iván's father ran the farm, the peasants lived in neighbourly fashion. If the women needed a sieve or a vat, or the men had to get another axle or wheel for a time, they sent from one farm to another, and helped each other out in a neighbourly way. If a calf ran into the yard of the threshing-floor, they drove it out and only said: "Don't let it out, for the heap has not yet been put away." And it was not their custom to put it away and lock it up in the threshing-floor or in a shed, or to revile each other.

Thus they lived so long as the old men were alive. But when the young people began to farm, things went quite differently.

The whole thing began from a mere nothing. A hen of Iván's daughter-in-law started laying early. The young woman gathered the eggs for Passion week. Every day she went to the shed to pick up an egg from the wagon-box. But, it seems, the boys scared away the hen, and she flew across the wicker fence to the neighbour's yard, and laid an egg there. The young woman heard the hen cackle, so she thought:

"I have no time now, I must get the hut in order for the holiday; I will go there later to get it."

In the evening she went to the wagon-box under the shed, to fetch the egg, but it was not there. The young woman asked her mother-in-law and her brother-in-law if they had taken it; but Taráska, her youngest brother-in-law, said:

"Your hen laid an egg in the neighbour's yard, for she cackled there and flew out from that yard."

The young woman went to look at her hen, and found her sitting with the cock on the perch; she had closed her eyes and was getting ready to sleep. The woman would have liked to ask her where she laid the egg, but she would not have given her any answer. Then the young woman went to her neighbour. The old woman met her.

"What do you want, young woman?"

"Granny, my hen has been in your yard to-day, – did she not lay an egg there?"

"I have not set eyes on her. We have hens of our own, thank God, and they have been laying for quite awhile. We have gathered our own eggs, and we do not need other people's eggs. Young woman, we do not go to other people's yards to gather eggs."

The young woman was offended. She said a word too much, the neighbour answered with two, and the women began to scold. Iván's wife was carrying water, and she, too, took a hand in it. Gavrílo's wife jumped out, and began to rebuke her neighbour. She reminded her of things that had happened, and mentioned things that had not happened at all. And the tongue-lashing began. All yelled together, trying to say two words at the same time. And they used bad words.

"You are such and such a one; you are a thief, a sneak; you are simply starving your father-in-law; you are a tramp."

"And you are a beggar: you have torn my sieve; and you have our shoulder-yoke. Give me back the yoke!"

They grabbed the yoke, spilled the water, tore off their kerchiefs, and began to fight. Gavrílo drove up from the field, and he took his wife's part. Iván jumped out with his son, and they all fell in a heap. Iván was a sturdy peasant, and he scattered them all. He yanked out a piece of Gavrílo's beard. People ran up to them, and they were with difficulty pulled apart.

That's the way it began.

Gavrílo wrapped the piece of his beard in a petition and went to the township court to enter a complaint.

"I did not raise a beard for freckled Iván to pull it out."

In the meantime his wife bragged to the neighbours that they would now get Iván sentenced and would have him sent to Siberia, and the feud began.

The old man on the oven tried to persuade them to stop the first day they started to quarrel, but the young people paid no attention to him. He said to them:

"Children, you are doing a foolish thing, and for a foolish thing have you started a feud. Think of it, – the whole affair began from an egg. The children picked up the egg, – well, God be with them! There is no profit in one egg. With God's aid there will be enough for everybody. Well, you have said a bad word, so correct it, show her how to use better words! Well, you have had a fight, – you are sinful people. That, too, happens. Well, go and make peace, and let there be an end to it! If you keep it up, it will only be worse."

The young people did not obey the old man; they thought that he was not using sense, but just babbling in old man's fashion.

Iván did not give in to his neighbour.

"I did not pull his beard," he said. "He jerked it out himself; but his son has yanked off my shirt-button and has torn my whole shirt. Here it is."

And Iván, too, took the matter to court. The case was heard before a justice of the peace, and in the township court. While they were suing each other, Gavrílo lost a coupling-pin out of his cart. The women in Gavrílo's house accused Iván's son of having taken it.