Read the book: «Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories, Popular Education, Decembrists, Moral Tales», page 20

WHAT MEN LIVE BY

We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. (First Ep. of John, iii. 14.)

But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth, up his heart from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? (Ib. iii. 17.)

My children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth. (Ib. iii. 18.)

Love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. (Ib. iv. 7.)

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. (Ib. iv. 8.)

No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us. (Ib. iv. 12.)

God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. (Ib. iv. 16.)

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen. (Ib. iv. 20.)

I

A shoemaker was lodging with his wife and children at the house of a peasant. He had no house, no land of his own, and supported his family by his shoemaker's trade. Bread was dear, but work was cheap, and he spent everything he made. The shoemaker and his wife had one fur coat between them, and even that was all worn to tatters; this was the second year that the shoemaker had been meaning to buy a sheepskin for a new fur coat.

Toward fall the shoemaker had saved some money: three roubles in paper lay in his wife's coffer, and five roubles and twenty kopeks were outstanding in the village.

In the morning the shoemaker went to the village to get him that fur coat. He put on his wife's wadded nankeen jacket over his shirt, and over it his cloth caftan; he put the three-rouble bill into his pocket, broke off a stick, and started after breakfast. He thought:

"I shall get the five roubles from the peasant, will add my own three, and with that will buy me a sheepskin for the fur coat."

The shoemaker came to the village, and called on the peasant: he was not at home, and his wife promised to send her husband with the money, but gave him none herself. He went to another peasant, but the peasant swore that he had no money, and gave him only twenty kopeks for mending a pair of boots. The shoemaker made up his mind to take the sheepskin on credit, but the furrier would not give it to him.

"Bring me the money," he said, "and then you can choose any you please; we know what it means to collect debts."

Thus the shoemaker accomplished nothing. All he got was the twenty kopeks for the boots he had mended, and a peasant gave him a pair of felt boots to patch with leather.

The shoemaker was grieved, spent all the twenty kopeks on vódka, and started home without the fur coat. In the morning it had seemed frosty to him, but now that he had drunk a little he felt warm even without the fur coat. The shoemaker walked along, with one hand striking the stick against the frozen mud clumps, and swinging the felt boots in the other, and talking to himself.

"I am warm even without a fur coat," he said. "I have drunk a cup, and the vódka is coursing through all my veins. I do not need a sheepskin. I have forgotten my woe. That's the kind of a man I am! What do I care! I can get along without a fur coat: I do not need it all the time. The only trouble is the old woman will be sorry. It is a shame indeed: I work for him, and he leads me by the nose. Just wait! If you do not bring the money, I'll take away your cap, upon my word, I will! How is this? He pays me back two dimes at a time! What can you do with two dimes? Take a drink, that is all. He says he suffers want. You suffer want, and am I not suffering? You have a house, and cattle, and everything, and here is all I possess; you have your own grain, and I have to buy it. I may do as I please, but I have to spend three roubles a week on bread. I come home, and the bread is gone: again lay out a rouble and a half! So give me what is mine!"

Thus the shoemaker came up to a chapel at the turn of the road, and there he saw something that looked white, right near the chapel. It was growing dusk, and the shoemaker strained his eyes, but could not make out what it was.

"There was no stone here," he thought. "A cow? It does not look like a cow. It looks like the head of a man, and there is something white besides. And what should a man be doing there?"

He came nearer, and he could see plainly. What marvel was that? It was really a man, either alive or dead, sitting there all naked, leaning against the chapel, and not stirring in the least. The shoemaker was frightened, and thought to himself:

"Somebody must have killed a man, and stripped him of his clothes, and thrown him away there. If I go up to him, I shall never clear myself."

And the shoemaker went past. He walked around the chapel, and the man was no longer to be seen. He went past the chapel, and looked back, and saw the man leaning away from the building and moving, as though watching him. The shoemaker was frightened even more than before, and he thought to himself:

"Shall I go up to him, or not? If I go up, something bad may happen. Who knows what kind of a man he is? He did not get there for anything good. If I go up, he will spring at me and choke me, and I shall not get away from him; and if he does not choke me, I may have trouble with him all the same. What can I do with him, since he is naked? Certainly I cannot take off the last from me and give it to him! May God save me!"

And the shoemaker increased his steps. He was already a distance away from the chapel, when his conscience began to smite him.

And the shoemaker stopped on the road.

"What are you doing, Semén?" he said to himself. "A man is dying in misery, and you go past him and lose your courage. Have you suddenly grown so rich? Are you afraid that they will rob you of your wealth? Oh, Semén, it is not right!"

Semén turned back, and went up to the man.

II

Semén walked over to the man, and looked at him; and saw that it was a young man, in the prime of his strength, with no bruises on his body, but evidently frozen and frightened: he was leaning back and did not look at Semén, as though he were weakened and could not raise his eyes. Semén went up close to him, and the man suddenly seemed to wake up. He turned his head, opened his eyes, and looked at Semén. And this one glance made Semén think well of the man. He threw down the felt boots, ungirt himself, put his belt on the boots, and took off his caftan.

"What is the use of talking?" he said. "Put it on! Come now!"

Semén took the man by his elbows and began to raise him. The man got up. And Semén saw that his body was soft and clean, his hands and feet not calloused, and his face gentle. Semén threw his caftan over the man's shoulders. He could not find his way into the sleeves. So Semén put them in, pulled the caftan on him, wrapped him in it, and girded it with the belt.

Semén took off his torn cap, intending to put it on the naked man, but his head grew cold, and so he thought: "My whole head is bald, while he has long, curly hair." He put it on again. "I had better put the boots on him."

He seated himself and put the felt boots on him.

The shoemaker addressed him and said:

"That's the way, my friend! Now move about and get warmed up. This business will be looked into without us. Can you walk?"

The man stood, looking meekly at Semén, but could not say a word.

"Why don't you speak? You can't stay here through the winter. We must make for a living place. Here, take my stick, lean on it, if you are weak. Tramp along!"

And the man went. And he walked lightly, and did not fall behind.

As they were walking along, Semén said to him:

"Who are you, please?"

"I am a stranger."

"I know all the people here about. How did you get near that chapel?"

"I cannot tell."

"Have people insulted you?"

"No one has. God has punished me."

"Of course, God does everything, but still you must be making for some place. Whither are you bound?"

"It makes no difference to me."

Semén was surprised. He did not resemble an evil-doer, and was gentle of speech, and yet did not say anything about himself. And Semén thought that all kinds of things happen, and so he said to the man:

"Well, come to my house and warm yourself a little."

Semén walked up to the farm, and the stranger did not fall behind, but walked beside him. A wind rose and blew into Semén's shirt, and his intoxication went away, and he began to feel cold. He walked along, sniffling, and wrapping himself in his wife's jacket, and he thought:

"There is your fur coat: I went to get myself a fur coat, and I am coming back without a caftan, and am even bringing a naked man with me. Matréna will not praise me for it!"

And as Semén thought of Matréna, he felt sorry; and as he looked at the stranger and recalled how he had looked at him at the chapel, his blood began to play in his heart.

III

Semén's wife got things done early. She chopped the wood, brought the water, fed the children, herself took a bite of something, and fell to musing. She was thinking about when to set the bread, whether to-day or to-morrow. There was a big slice of it left.

"If Semén has his dinner there," she thought, "and does not eat much for supper, the bread will last until to-morrow."

Matréna turned the slice around and a second time, and thought:

"I will not set any bread to-day. I have enough meal for just one setting. We shall somehow hold out until Friday."

Matréna put the bread away, and seated herself at the table to put a patch in her husband's shirt. She was sewing and thinking of how he would buy a sheepskin for a fur coat.

"If only the furrier does not cheat him, for my man is too simple for anything. He himself will not cheat a soul, but a little child can deceive him. Eight roubles is no small sum. One can pickup a good fur coat for it. It will not be tanned, still it will be a fur coat. How we suffered last winter without a fur coat! We could not get down to the river, or anywhere. And there he has gone out, putting everything on him, and I have nothing to dress in. He went away early; it is time for him to be back. If only my dear one has not gone on a spree!"

Just as Matréna was thinking this, the steps creaked on the porch, and somebody entered. Matréna stuck the needle in the cloth, and went out into the vestibule. She saw two coming in: Semén, and with him a man without a cap and in felt boots.

Matréna at once smelt the liquor in her husband's breath. "Well," she thought, "so it is: he has been on a spree." And when she saw that he was without his caftan, in nothing but the jacket, and that he was not bringing anything, but only keeping silent and crouching, something broke in Matréna's heart. "He has spent all the money in drinks," she thought, "and has been on a spree with some tramp, and has even brought him along."

Matréna let them pass into the hut, and then stepped in herself. She saw the lean young man, and he had on him their caftan. No shirt was to be seen under the caftan, and he had no hat on his head. When he entered, he stood still, and did not stir, and did not raise his eyes. And Matréna thought: "He is not a good man, – he is afraid."

Matréna scowled and went to the oven, waiting to see what would happen.

Semén took off his cap and sat down on the bench like a good man.

"Well, Matréna, will you let us have something for supper, will you?" he said.

Matréna growled something under her breath. She stood at the oven, and did not stir: she looked now at the one, and now at the other, and shook her head. Semén saw that his wife was not in a good humour, but there was nothing to be done, and he acted as though he did not see it. He took the stranger by the arm:

"Sit down, my friend," he said, "we shall have our supper."

The stranger sat down on the bench.

"Well, have you not cooked anything?"

That simply roiled Matréna.

"I have cooked, but not for you. You seem to have drunk away your senses, I see. You went to get a fur coat, and come back without your caftan, and have even brought some kind of a naked tramp with you. I have no supper for you drunkards."

"Stop, Matréna! What is the use of wagging your tongue without any sense? First ask what kind of a man it is – "

"Tell me what you did with the money."

Semén stuck his hand into the caftan, took out the bill, and opened it before her.

"Here is the money. Trifónov has not paid me, – he promised to give it to me to-morrow."

That enraged Matréna even more: he had bought no fur coat, and the only caftan they had he had put on a naked fellow, and had even brought him along.

She grabbed the bill from the table, and ran to put it away, and said:

"I have no supper. One cannot feed all the drunkards."

"Oh, Matréna, hold your tongue. First hear what I have to say – "

"Much sense shall I hear from a drunken fool. With good reason did I object to marrying you, a drunkard. My mother gave me some linen, and you spent it on drinks; you went to buy a fur coat, and spent that, too."

Semén wanted to explain to his wife that he had spent twenty kopeks only, and wanted to tell her that he had found the man; but Matréna began to break in with anything she could think of, and to speak two words at once. Even what had happened ten years before, she brought up to him now.

Matréna talked and talked, and jumped at Semén, and grabbed him by the sleeve.

"Give me my jacket. That is all I have left, and you have taken it from me and put it on yourself. Give it to me, you freckled dog, – may the apoplexy strike you!"

Semén began to take off the bodice; as he turned back his arm, his wife gave the bodice a jerk, and it ripped at the seam. Matréna grabbed the jacket, threw it over her head, and made for the door. She wanted to go out, but stopped: her heart was doubled, for she wanted to have her revenge, and also to find out what kind of a man he was.

IV

Matréna stopped and said:

"If he were a good man, he would not be naked; but, as it is, he has not even a shirt on him. If he meant anything good, you would tell me where you found that dandy."

"I am telling you: as I was walking along, I saw him sitting at the chapel, without any clothes, and almost frozen. It is not summer, and he was all naked. God sent me to him, or he would have perished. Well, what had I to do? All kinds of things happen! I picked him up and dressed him, and brought him here. Calm yourself! It is a sin, Matréna. We shall all die."

Matréna wanted to go on scolding, but she looked at the stranger and kept silence. The stranger sat without moving, just as he had seated himself on the edge of the bench. His hands were folded on his knees, his head drooped on his breast, his eyes were not opened, and he frowned as though something were choking him. Matréna grew silent. And Semén said:

"Matréna, have you no God?"

When Matréna heard these words, she glanced at the stranger, and suddenly her heart became softened. She went away from the door, walked over to the oven corner, and got the supper ready. She placed a bowl on the table, filled it with kvas, and put down the last slice of bread. She handed them a knife and spoons.

"Eat, if you please," she said.

Semén touched the stranger.

"Creep through here, good fellow!" he said.

Semén cut up the bread and crumbled it into the kvas, and they began to eat. And Matréna sat down at the corner of the table, and leaned on her arm, and kept looking at the stranger.

And Matréna pitied the stranger, and took a liking for him. And suddenly the stranger grew merry, stopped frowning, raised his eyes on Matréna, and smiled.

They got through with their supper. The woman cleared the table, and began to ask the stranger:

"Who are you?"

"I am a stranger."

"How did you get on the road?"

"I cannot tell."

"Has somebody robbed you?"

"God has punished me."

"And you were lying there naked?"

"Yes, I was lying naked, and freezing. Semén saw me, took pity on me, pulled off his caftan, put it on me, and told me to come here. And you have given me to eat and to drink, and have pitied me. The Lord will save you!"

Matréna got up, took from the window Semén's old shirt, the same that she had been patching, and gave it to the stranger; and she found a pair of trousers, and gave them to him.

"Here, take it! I see that you have no shirt. Put it on, and lie down wherever it pleases you, – on the hanging bed or on the oven."

The stranger took off the caftan, put on the shirt, and lay down on the hanging bed. Matréna put out the light, took the caftan, and climbed to where her husband was.

Matréna covered herself with the corner of the caftan, and she lay and could not sleep: the stranger would not leave her mind.

As she thought how he had eaten the last slice of bread and how there would be no bread for the morrow; as she thought how she had given him a shirt and a pair of trousers, she felt pretty bad; but when she thought of how he smiled, her heart was gladdened.

Matréna could not sleep for a long time, and she heard that Semén, too, was not sleeping; he kept pulling the caftan on himself.

"Semén!"

"What is it?"

"We have eaten up the last bread, and I have not set any. I do not know what to do for to-morrow. Maybe I had better ask Gossip Malánya for some."

"If we are alive we shall find something to eat."

The woman lay awhile and kept silence.

"He must be a good man. But why does he not tell about himself?"

"I suppose he cannot."

"Semén!"

"What?"

"We give, but why does nobody give to us?"

Semén did not know what to say. He only said, "Stop talking!" and turned over, and fell asleep.

V

In the morning Semén awoke. The children were asleep; his wife had gone to the neighbours to borrow some bread. The stranger of last night, in the old trousers and shirt, was alone, sitting on the bench and looking upward. And his face was brighter than on the day before.

And Semén said:

"Well, dear man, the belly begs for bread, and the naked body for clothes. We must earn our living. Can you work?"

"I do not know anything."

Semén wondered at him, and said:

"If only you are willing: people can learn anything."

"People work, and I, too, will work."

"What is your name?"

"Michael."

"Well, Mikháyla, you do not want to talk about yourself, – that is your business; but a man has to live. If you work as I order you, I will feed you."

"God save you, and I will learn. Show me what to do!"

Semén took the flax, put it on his fingers and began to make an end.

"It is not a hard thing to do, you see."

Mikháyla watched him, himself put the flax on his fingers, and made a thread end, as Semén had taught him.

Semén showed him how to wax it. Mikháyla again learned the way at once. The master showed him how to weld the bristle, and how to whet, and Mikháyla learned it all at once.

No matter what work Semén showed to him, he grasped it at once, and on the third day he began to sew as though he had done nothing else in all his life. He worked without unbending himself, ate little, between the periods of work kept silence, and all the time looked toward the sky. He did not go into the street, spoke no superfluous word, and did not jest or laugh.

Only once was he seen to smile, and that was the first evening, when the woman gave him a supper.

VI

Day was added to day, week to week, and the circle of a year went by. Mikháyla was living as before with Semén, and working. And the report spread about Semén's workman that nobody sewed a boot so neatly and so strongly as he. And people from all the surrounding country began to come to Semén for boots, and Semén's income began to grow.

One time, in the winter, Semén was sitting with Mikháyla and working, when a tróyka with bells stopped at the door. They looked through the window: the carriage had stopped opposite the hut, and a fine lad jumped down from the box and opened the carriage door. Out of the carriage stepped a gentleman in a fur coat. He came out of the carriage, walked toward Semén's house, and went on the porch. Up jumped Matréna and opened the door wide. The gentleman bent his head and entered the hut; he straightened himself up, almost struck the ceiling with his head, and took up a whole corner.

Semén got up, bowed to the gentleman, and wondered what he wanted. He had not seen such men. Semén himself was spare-ribbed, and Mikháyla was lean, and Matréna was as dry as a chip, while this one was like a man from another world: his face was red and blood-filled, his neck like a bull's, and altogether he looked as though cast in iron.

The gentleman puffed, took off his fur coat, seated himself on a bench, and said:

"Who is the master shoemaker?"

Semén stepped forward, and said:

"I, your Excellency."

The gentleman shouted to his lad:

"Oh, Fédka, let me have the material!"

The lad came running in and brought a bundle. The gentleman took it and put it on the table.

"Open it!" he said.

The lad opened it. The gentleman pointed to the material, and said to Semén:

"Listen now, shoemaker! Do you see the material?"

"I do," he said, "your Honour."

"Do you understand what kind of material this is?"

Semén felt of it, and said:

"It is good material."

"I should say it is! You, fool, have never seen such before. It is German material: it costs twenty roubles."

Semén was frightened, and he said:

"How could we have seen such?"

"That's it. Can you make me boots to fit my feet from this material?"

"I can, your Honour."

The gentleman shouted at him:

"That's it: you can. You must understand for whom you are working, and what material you have to work on. Make me a pair of boots that will wear a year without running down or ripping. If you can, undertake it and cut the material; if you cannot, do not undertake it and do not cut the material. I tell you in advance: if the boots wear off or rip before the year is over, I will put you into jail; if they do not wear off or rip for a year, I will give you ten roubles for the work."

Semén was frightened and did not know what to say. He looked at Mikháyla. He nudged him with his elbow, and said:

"Friend, what do you say?"

Mikháyla nodded to him: "Take the work!"

Semén took Mikháyla's advice and undertook to make a pair of boots that would not wear down or rip.

The gentleman shouted at his lad, told him to pull off the boot from his left foot, and stretched out his leg.

"Take the measure!"

Semén sewed together a piece of paper, ten inches in length, smoothed it out, knelt down, carefully wiped his hand on his apron so as not to soil the gentleman's stocking, and began to measure. He measured the sole, then the instep, and then the calf, but there the paper was not long enough. His leg at the calf was as thick as a log.

"Be sure and do not make them too tight in the boot-leg!"

Semén sewed up another piece to the strip. The gentleman sat and moved his toes in his stocking, and watched the people in the room. He caught sight of Mikháyla.

"Who is that man there?" he asked.

"That is my master workman, – he will make those boots."

"Remember," said the gentleman to Mikháyla, "remember! Make them so that they will wear a year."

Semén, too, looked at Mikháyla, and he saw that Mikháyla was not looking at the gentleman, but gazed at the corner, as though he saw some one there. Mikháyla looked and looked, suddenly smiled and shone bright.

"What makes you show your teeth, fool? You had better be sure and get the boots in time."

And Mikháyla said:

"They will be done in time."

"Exactly."

The gentleman put on his boot and his fur coat, and wrapped himself up, and went to the door. He forgot to bow down, and hit his head against the lintel.

The gentleman cursed awhile, and rubbed his head, and seated himself in the carriage, and drove away.

When the gentleman was gone, Semén said:

"He is mighty flinty! You can't kill him with a club. He has knocked out the lintel, but he himself took little harm."

And Matréna said:

"How can he help being smooth, with the life he leads? Even death will not touch such a sledge-hammer!"