Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories, Popular Education, Decembrists, Moral TalesTolstoy, Leo, graf
General
Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories, Popular Education, Decembrists, Moral Tales
Tolstoy, Leo, graf
Russian literature -- Translations into English
"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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account