What Men Live By, and Other TalesTolstoy, Leo, graf
General
What Men Live By, and Other Tales
Tolstoy, Leo, graf
Peasants -- Russia -- Fiction; Russia -- Fiction
And Simon and Matryona understood who it was that had lived with them,
and whom they had clothed and fed. And they wept with awe and with joy.
And the angel said: "I was alone in the field, naked. I had never known
human needs, cold and hunger, till I became a man. I was famished,
frozen, and did not know what to do. I saw, near the field I was in, a
shrine built for God, and I went to it hoping to find shelter. But
the shrine was locked, and I could not enter. So I sat down behind the
shrine to shelter myself at least from the wind. Evening drew on. I was
hungry, frozen, and in pain. Suddenly I heard a man coming along the
road. He carried a pair of boots, and was talking to himself. For the
first time since I became a man I saw the mortal face of a man, and his
face seemed terrible to me and I turned from it. And I heard the man
talking to himself of how to cover his body from the cold in winter, and
how to feed wife and children. And I thought: 'I am perishing of cold
and hunger, and here is a man thinking only of how to clothe himself and
his wife, and how to get bread for themselves. He cannot help me.' When
the man saw me he frowned and became still more terrible, and passed me
by on the other side. I despaired; but suddenly I heard him coming back.
I looked up, and did not recognize the same man; before, I had seen
death in his face; but now he was alive, and I recognized in him the
presence of God. He came up to me, clothed me, took me with him, and
brought me to his home. I entered the house; a woman came to meet us and
began to speak. The woman was still more terrible than the man had been;
the spirit of death came from her mouth; I could not breathe for the
stench of death that spread around her. She wished to drive me out into
the cold, and I knew that if she did so she would die. Suddenly her
husband spoke to her of God, and the woman changed at once. And when she
brought me food and looked at me, I glanced at her and saw that death no
longer dwelt in her; she had become alive, and in her, too, I saw God.
"Then I remembered the first lesson God had set me: 'Learn what dwells
in man.' And I understood that in man dwells Love! I was glad that God
had already begun to show me what He had promised, and I smiled for the
first time. But I had not yet learnt all. I did not yet know What is not
given to man, and What men live by.
"I lived with you, and a year passed. A man came to order boots that
should wear for a year without losing shape or cracking. I looked at
him, and suddenly, behind his shoulder, I saw my comrade--the angel of
death. None but me saw that angel; but I knew him, and knew that before
the sun set he would take that rich man's soul. And I thought to myself,
'The man is making preparations for a year, and does not know that he
will die before evening.' And I remembered God's second saying, 'Learn
what is not given to man.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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