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

"He resembles Eliséy," he thought. "But how can it be he? He could not have got here before me. The previous ship started a week ahead of us. He could not have been on that ship. On our ship he was not, for I saw all the pilgrims."

Just as Efím was thinking this, the old man began to pray, and made three bows: once in front of him, to God, and twice to either side, to all the Orthodox people. And as the old man turned his head to the right, Efím recognized him. Sure enough, it was Bodróv: it was his blackish, curly beard, and the gray streak on his cheeks, and his brows, his eyes, his nose, and full face, – all his. Certainly it was he, Eliséy Bodróv.

Efím was glad that he had found his companion, and he marvelled how Eliséy could have got there ahead of him.

"How in the world did Bodróv get to that place in front?" he thought. "No doubt he met a man who knew how to get him there. When all go out, I will hunt him up, and I will drop the pilgrim in the colette, and will walk with him. Maybe he will take me to the front place."

Efím kept an eye on Eliséy, so as not to lose him. When the masses were over, the people began to stir. As they went up to kiss the Sepulchre, they crowded and pushed Efím to one side. He was frightened lest his purse should be stolen. He put his hand to his purse and tried to make his way out into the open. When he got out, he walked and walked, trying to find Eliséy, both on the outside and in the church. In the church he saw many people in the cells: some ate, and drank wine, and slept there, and read their prayers. But Eliséy was not to be found. Efím returned to the hostelry, but he did not find his companion there either. On that evening the pilgrim, too, did not come back. He was gone, and had not returned the rouble to Efím. So Efím was left alone.

On the following day Efím went again to the Sepulchre of the Lord with a Tambóv peasant, with whom he had journeyed on the ship. He wanted to make his way to the front, but he was again pushed back, and so he stood at a column and prayed. He looked ahead of him, and there in front, under the lamps, at the very Sepulchre of the Lord, stood Eliséy. He had extended his hands, like a priest at the altar, and his bald spot shone over his whole head.

"Now," thought Efím, "I will not miss him."

He made his way to the front, but Eliséy was not there. Evidently he had left. On the third day he again went to the Sepulchre of the Lord, and there he saw Eliséy standing in the holiest place, in sight of everybody, and his hands were stretched out, and he looked up, as though he saw something above him. And his bald spot shone over his whole head.

"Now," thought Efím, "I will certainly not miss him; I will go and stand at the entrance, and then he cannot escape me."

Efím went out and stood there for a long time. He stood until after noon: all the people had passed out, but Eliséy was not among them.

Efím passed six weeks in Jerusalem, and visited all the places, Bethlehem, and Bethany, and the Jordan, and had a stamp put on a new shirt at the Lord's Sepulchre, to be buried in it, and filled a bottle of Jordan water, and got some earth, and candles with blessed fire, and in eight places inscribed names for the mass of the dead. He spent all his money and had just enough left to get home on, and so he started for home. He reached Jaffa, boarded a ship, landed at Odessa, and walked toward his home.

XI

Efím walked by himself the same way he had come out. As he was getting close to his village, he began to worry again about how things were going at his house without him. In a year, he thought, much water runs by. It takes a lifetime to get together a home, but it does not take long to ruin it. He wondered how his son had done without him, how the spring had opened, how the cattle had wintered, and whether the hut was well built. Efím reached the spot where the year before he had parted from Eliséy. It was not possible to recognize the people. Where the year before they had suffered want, now there was plenty. Everything grew well in the field. The people picked up again and forgot their former misery. In the evening Efím reached the very village where the year before Eliséy had fallen behind. He had just entered the village, when a little girl in a white shirt came running out of a hut.

"Grandfather, grandfather! Come to our house!"

Efím wanted to go on, but the girl would not let him. She took hold of his coat and laughed and pulled him to the hut. A woman with a boy came out on the porch, and she, too, beckoned to him:

"Come in, grandfather, and eat supper with us and stay overnight!"

Efím stepped in.

"I can, at least, ask about Eliséy," he thought. "This is the very hut into which he went to get a drink."

Efím went inside. The woman took off his wallet, gave him water to wash himself, and seated him at the table. She fetched milk, cheese, cakes, and porridge, and placed it all on the table. Tarásych thanked her and praised the people for being hospitable to pilgrims. The woman shook her head.

"We cannot help receiving pilgrims," she said. "We received life from a pilgrim. We lived forgetting God, and God punished us in such a way that all of us were waiting for death. Last summer we came to such a point that we were all lying down sick and starved. We should certainly have died, but God sent us an old man like you. He stepped in during the daytime to get a drink; when he saw us, he took pity on us and remained at our house. He gave us to eat and to drink, and put us on our feet again. He cleared our land from debt, and bought a horse and cart and left it with us."

The old woman entered the room, and interrupted her speech:

"We do not know," she said, "whether he was a man or an angel of the Lord. He was good to us all, and pitied us, and then went away without giving his name, so that we do not know for whom to pray to God. I see it as though it happened just now: I was lying down and waiting for death to come; I looked up and saw a man come in, – just a simple, bald-headed man, – and ask for a drink. I, sinful woman, thought that he was a tramp, but see what he did! When he saw us he put down his wallet, right in this spot, and opened it."

The girl broke in.

"No, granny," she said, "first he put his wallet in the middle of the room, and only later did he put it on the bench."

And they began to dispute and to recall his words and deeds: where he had sat down, and where he had slept, and what he had done, and what he had said to each.

Toward evening the master of the house came home on a horse, and he, too, began to tell about Eliséy, and how he had stayed at their house.

"If he had not come to us," he said, "we should all of us have died in sin. We were dying in despair, and we murmured against God and men. But he put us on our feet, and through him we found out God, and began to believe in good people. May Christ save him! Before that we lived like beasts, and he has made men of us."

They gave Efím to eat and to drink, and gave him a place to sleep, and themselves went to bed.

As Efím lay down, he could not sleep, and Eliséy did not leave his mind, but he thought of how he had seen him three times in Jerusalem in the foremost place.

"So this is the way he got ahead of me," he thought. "My work may be accepted or not, but his the Lord has accepted."

In the morning Efím bade the people good-bye: they filled his wallet with cakes and went to work, while Efím started out on the road.

XII

Efím was away precisely a year. In the spring he returned home.

He reached his house in the evening. His son was not at home, – he was in the dram-shop. He returned intoxicated, and Efím began to ask him about the house. He saw by everything that the lad had got into bad ways without him. He had spent all the money, and the business he had neglected. His father scolded him, and he answered his father with rude words.

"You ought to have come back yourself," he said. "Instead, you went away and took all the money with you, and now you make me responsible."

The old man became angry and beat his son.

The next morning Efím Tarásych went to the elder to talk to him about his son. As he passed Eliséy's farm, Eliséy's wife was standing on the porch and greeting him:

"Welcome, friend!" she said. "Did you, dear man, have a successful journey?"

Efím Tarásych stopped.

"Thank God," he said, "I have been at Jerusalem, but I lost your husband on the way. I hear that he is back."

And the old woman started to talk to him, for she was fond of babbling.

"He is back, my dear; he has been back for quite awhile. He returned soon after Assumption day. We were so glad to see him back. It was lonely without him. Not that we mean his work, – for he is getting old. But he is the head, and it is jollier for us. How happy our lad was! Without him, he said, it was as without light for the eyes. It was lonely without him, my dear. We love him so much!"

"Well, is he at home now?"

"At home he is, neighbour, in the apiary, brushing in the swarms. He says it was a fine swarming season. The old man does not remember when there has been such a lot of bees. God gives us not according to our sins, he says. Come in, dear one! He will be so glad to see you."

Efím walked through the vestibule and through the yard to the apiary, to see Eliséy. When he came inside the apiary, he saw Eliséy standing without a net, without gloves, in a gray caftan, under a birch-tree, extending his arms and looking up, and his bald spot shone over his whole head, just as he had stood in Jerusalem at the Lord's Sepulchre, and above him, through the birch-tree, the sun glowed, and above his head the golden bees circled in the form of a wreath, and did not sting him. Efím stopped.

Eliséy's wife called out to her husband:

"Your friend is here."

Eliséy looked around. He was happy, and walked over toward his friend, softly brushing the bees out of his beard.

"Welcome, friend, welcome, dear man! Did you have a successful journey?"

"My feet took me there, and I have brought you some water from the river Jordan. Come and get it! But whether the Lord has received my work – "

"Thank God! Christ save you!"

Efím was silent.

"I was there with my feet, but in spirit you were there, or somebody else – "

"It is God's work, my friend, God's work."

"On my way home I stopped at the hut where I lost you."

Eliséy was frightened, and he hastened to say:

"It is God's work, my friend, God's work. Well, won't you step in? I will bring some honey."

And Eliséy changed the subject, and began to speak of home matters.

Efím heaved a sigh. He did not mention the people of the hut to Eliséy, nor what he had seen in Jerusalem. And he understood that God has enjoined that each man shall before his death carry out his vow – with love and good deeds.

WHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD IS ALSO

Shoemaker Martýn Avdyéich lived in the city. He lived in a basement, in a room with one window. The window looked out on the street. Through it the people could be seen as they passed by: though only the feet were visible, Martýn Avdyéich could tell the men by their boots. He had lived for a long time in one place and had many acquaintances. It was a rare pair of boots in the neighbourhood that had not gone once or twice through his hands. Some he had resoled; on others he had put patches, or fixed the seams, or even put on new uppers. Frequently he saw his own work through the window. He had much to do, for he did honest work, put in strong material, took no more than was fair, and kept his word. If he could get a piece of work done by a certain time he undertook to do it, and if not, he would not cheat, but said so in advance. Everybody knew Avdyéich, and his work never stopped.

Avdyéich had always been a good man, but in his old age he thought more of his soul and came near unto God. Even while Martýn had been living with a master, his wife had died, and he had been left with a boy three years of age. Their children did not live long. All the elder children had died before. At first Martýn had intended sending his son to his sister in a village, but then he felt sorry for the little lad, and thought: "It will be hard for my Kapitóshka to grow up in somebody else's family, and so I will keep him."

Avdyéich left his master, and took up quarters with his son. But God did not grant Avdyéich any luck with his children. No sooner had the boy grown up so as to be a help to his father and a joy to him, than a disease fell upon him and he lay down and had a fever for a week and died. Martýn buried his son, and was in despair. He despaired so much that he began to murmur against God. He was so downhearted that more than once he asked God to let him die, and rebuked God for having taken his beloved only son, and not him. He even stopped going to church.

One day an old man, a countryman of Avdyéich's, returning from Tróitsa, – he had been a pilgrim for eight years, – came to see him. Avdyéich talked with him and began to complain of his sorrow:

"I have even no desire to live any longer, godly man. If I could only die. That is all I am praying God for. I am a man without any hope."

And the old man said to him:

"You do not say well, Martýn. We cannot judge God's works. Not by our reason, but by God's judgment do we live. God has determined that your son should die, and you live. Evidently it is better so. The reason you are in despair is that you want to live for your own enjoyment."

"What else shall we live for?" asked Martýn.

And the old man said:

"We must live for God, Martýn. He gives us life, and for Him must we live. When you shall live for Him and shall not worry about anything, life will be lighter for you."

Martýn was silent, and he said:

"How shall we live for God?"

And the old man said:

"Christ has shown us how to live for God. Do you know how to read? If so, buy yourself a Gospel and read it, and you will learn from it how to live for God. It tells all about it."

These words fell deep into Avdyéich's heart. And he went that very day and bought himself a New Testament in large letters, and began to read.

Avdyéich had meant to read it on holidays only, but when he began to read it, his heart was so rejoiced that he read it every day. Many a time he buried himself so much in reading that all the kerosene would be spent in the lamp, but he could not tear himself away from the book. And Avdyéich read in it every evening, and the more he read, the clearer it became to him what God wanted of him, and how he should live for God; and his heart grew lighter and lighter. Formerly, when he lay down to sleep, he used to groan and sob and think of his Kapitóshka, but now he only muttered:

"Glory be to Thee, glory to Thee, O Lord! Thy will be done!"

Since then Avdyéich's life had been changed. Formerly, he used on a holiday to frequent the tavern, to drink tea, and would not decline a drink of vódka. He would drink a glass with an acquaintance and, though he would not be drunk, he would come out of the tavern in a happier mood, and then he would speak foolish things, and would scold, or slander a man. Now all that passed away from him. His life came to be calm and happy. In the morning he sat down to work, and when he got through, he took the lamp from the hook, put it down on the table, fetched the book from the shelf, opened it, and began to read it. And the more he read, the better he understood it, and his mind was clearer and his heart lighter.

One evening Martýn read late into the night. He had before him the Gospel of St. Luke. He read the sixth chapter and the verses: "And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise."

And he read also the other verses, where the Lord says: "And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: he is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great."

When Avdyéich read these words, there was joy in his heart. He took off his glasses, put them on the book, leaned his arms on the table, and fell to musing. And he began to apply these words to his life, and he thought:

"Is my house on a rock, or on the sand? It is well if it is founded on a rock: it is so easy to sit alone, – it seems to me that I am doing everything which God has commanded; but if I dissipate, I shall sin again. I will just proceed as at present. It is so nice! Help me, God!"

This he thought, and he wanted to go to sleep, but he was loath to tear himself away from the book. And he began to read the seventh chapter. He read about the centurion, about the widow's son, about the answer to John's disciples, and he reached the passage where the rich Pharisee invited the Lord to be his guest, and where the sinning woman anointed His feet and washed them with her tears, and he justified her. And he reached the 44th verse, and read: "And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment."

When he had read these verses, he thought:

"He gave no water for His feet; he gave no kiss; he did not anoint His head with oil."

And again Avdyéich took off his glasses and placed them on the book, and fell to musing.

"Evidently he was just such a Pharisee as I am. He, no doubt, thought only of himself: how to drink tea, and be warm, and in comfort, but he did not think of the guest. About himself he thought, but no care did he have for the guest. And who was the guest? – The Lord Himself. Would I have done so, if He had come to me?"

And Avdyéich leaned his head on both his arms and did not notice how he fell asleep.

"Martýn!" suddenly something seemed to breathe over his very ear.

Martýn shuddered in his sleep: "Who is that?"

He turned around and looked at the door, but there was nobody there. He bent down again, to go to sleep. Suddenly he heard distinctly:

"Martýn, oh, Martýn, remember, to-morrow I will come to the street."

Martýn awoke, rose from his chair, and began to rub his eyes. He did not know himself whether he had heard these words in his dream or in waking. He put out the light and went to sleep.

Avdyéich got up in the morning before daybreak, said his prayers, made a fire, put the beet soup and porridge on the stove, started the samovár, tied on his apron, and sat down at the window to work. And, as he sat there at work, he kept thinking of what had happened the night before. His thoughts were divided: now he thought that it had only seemed so to him, and now again he thought he had actually heard the voice.

"Well," he thought, "such things happen."

Martýn was sitting at the window and not so much working as looking out into the street, and if somebody passed in unfamiliar boots, he bent over to look out of the window, in order to see not merely the boots, but also the face. A janitor passed by in new felt boots; then a water-carrier went past; then an old soldier of the days of Nicholas, in patched old felt boots, holding a shovel in his hands, came in a line with the window. Avdyéich recognized him by his felt boots. The old man's name was Stepánych, and he was living with a neighbouring merchant for charity's sake. It was his duty to help the janitor. Stepánych began to clear away the snow opposite Avdyéich's window. Avdyéich cast a glance at him and went back to his work.

"Evidently I am losing my senses in my old age," Avdyéich laughed to himself. "Stepánych is clearing away the snow, and I thought that Christ was coming to see me. I, old fool, am losing my senses." But before he had made a dozen stitches, something drew him again toward the window. He looked out, and there he saw Stepánych leaning his shovel against the wall and either warming or resting himself.

He was an old, broken-down man, and evidently shovelling snow was above his strength. Avdyéich thought: "I ought to give him some tea; fortunately the samovár is just boiling." He stuck the awl into the wood, got up, placed the samovár on the table, put some tea in the teapot, and tapped with his finger at the window. Stepánych turned around and walked over to the window. Avdyéich beckoned to him and went to open the door.

"Come in and get warmed up!" he said. "I suppose you are feeling cold."

"Christ save you! I have a breaking in my bones," said Stepánych.

He came in, shook off the snow and wiped his boots so as not to track the floor, but he was tottering all the time.

"Don't take the trouble to rub your boots. I will clean up, – that is my business. Come and sit down!" said Avdyéich. "Here, drink a glass of tea!"

Avdyéich filled two glasses and moved one of them up to his guest, and himself poured his glass into the saucer and began to blow at it.

Stepánych drank his glass; then he turned it upside down, put the lump of sugar on top of it, and began to express his thanks; but it was evident that he wanted another glass.

"Have some more," said Avdyéich; and he poured out a glass for his guest and one for himself. Avdyéich drank his tea, but something kept drawing his attention to the window.

"Are you waiting for anybody?" asked the guest.

"Am I waiting for anybody? It is really a shame to say for whom I am waiting: no, I am not exactly waiting, but a certain word has fallen deep into my heart: I do not know myself whether it is a vision, or what. You see, my friend, I read the Gospel yesterday about Father Christ and how He suffered and walked the earth. I suppose you have heard of it?"

"Yes, I have," replied Stepánych, "but we are ignorant people, – we do not know how to read."

"Well, so I read about how He walked the earth. I read, you know, about how He came to the Pharisee, and the Pharisee did not give Him a good reception. Well, my friend, as I was reading last night about that very thing, I wondered how he could have failed to honour Father Christ. If He should have happened to come to me, for example, I should have done everything to receive Him. But he did not receive Him well. As I was thinking of it, I fell asleep. And as I dozed off I heard some one calling me by name: I got up and it was as though somebody were whispering to me: 'Wait,' he said: 'I will come to-morrow.' This he repeated twice. Would you believe it, – it has been running through my head, – I blame myself for it, – and I am, as it were, waiting for Father Christ."

Stepánych shook his head and said nothing. He finished his glass and put it sidewise, but Avdyéich took it again and filled it with tea.

"Drink, and may it do you good! I suppose when He, the Father, walked the earth, He did not neglect anybody, and kept the company mostly of simple folk. He visited mostly simple folk, and chose His disciples mostly from people of our class, labouring men, like ourselves the sinners. He who raises himself up, He said, shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be raised. You call me Lord, He said, but I will wash your feet. He who wants to be the first, He said, let him be everybody's servant; because, He said, blessed are the poor, the meek the humble, and the merciful."

Stepánych forgot his tea. He was an old man and easily moved to tears. He sat there and listened, and tears flowed down his cheeks.

"Take another glass!" said Avdyéich.

But Stepánych made the sign of the cross, thanked him for the tea, pushed the glass away from him, and got up.

"Thank you, Martýn Avdyéich," he said. "You were hospitable to me, and have given food to my body and my soul."