Where Love Is, God Is (Pt 2)

A Short Story for the Christmas Season

I know I said I would post this on Thursday, but given the wonderful responses of my readers I thought it unfair to make you wait a full week. So, without further ado, here is the second¹ and final section of the short story by Leo Tolstoy. Grab a cup of tea, sit in a comfortable chair, and enjoy.

And Merry Christmas! -Randy

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Avdyeitch looked up at her from the window, and saw it was a stranger, a woman poorly clad, and with a child; she was standing by the wall with her back to the wind, trying to wrap up the child, and she had nothing to wrap it up in. The woman was dressed in shabby summer clothes; and from behind the frame, Avdyeitch could hear the child crying, and the woman trying to pacify it; but she was not able to pacify it.

Avdyeitch got up, went to the door, ascended the steps, and cried:—

“My good woman. Hey! my good woman!”²

The woman heard him and turned around.

“Why are you standing in the cold with the child? Come into my room, where it is warm; you can manage it better. Here, this way!”

The woman was astonished. She saw an old, old man in an apron, with spectacles on his nose, calling her to him. She followed him. They descended the steps and entered the room; the old man led the woman to his bed.

“There,” says he, “sit down, my good woman, nearer to the stove; you can get warm, and nurse the little one.”

“I have no milk for him. I myself have not eaten anything since morning,” said the woman; but, nevertheless, she took the baby to her breast.

Avdyeitch shook his head, went to the table, brought out the bread and a dish, opened the oven door, poured into the dish some cabbage soup, took out the pot with the gruel, but it was not cooked as yet; so he filled the dish with shchi only, and put it on the table. He got the bread, took the towel down from the hook, and spread it upon the table.

“Sit down,” he says, “and eat, my good woman; and I will mind the little one. You see, I once had children of my own; I know how to handle them.”

The woman crossed herself, sat down at the table, and began to eat; while Avdyeitch took a seat on the bed near the infant. Avdyeitch kept smacking and smacking to it with his lips; but it was a poor kind of smacking, for he had no teeth. The little one kept on crying. And it occured to Avdyeitch to threaten the little one with his finger; he waved, waved his finger right before the child's mouth, and hastily withdrew it. He did not put it to its mouth, because his finger was black, and soiled with wax. And the little one looked at his finger, and became quiet; then it began to smile, and Avdyeitch also was glad. While the woman was eating, she told who she was, and whither she was going.

Said she:—

“I am a soldier's wife. It is now seven months since they sent my husband away off, and no tidings. I lived out as cook; the baby was born; no one cared to keep me with a child. This is the third month that I have been struggling along without a place. I ate up all I had. I wanted to engage as a wet-nurse—no one would take me—I am too thin, they say. I have just been to the merchant's wife, where lives a young woman I know, and so they promised to take us in. I thought that was the end of it. But she told me to come next week. And she lives a long way off. I got tired out; and it tired him, too, my heart's darling. Fortunately, our landlady takes pity on us for the sake of Christ, and gives us a room, else I don't know how I should manage to get along.”

Avdyeitch sighed, and said:

“Haven't you any warm clothes?”

“Now is the time, friend, to wear warm clothes; but yesterday I pawned my last shawl for a twenty-kopek piece.”³

The woman came to the bed, and took the child; and Avdyeitch rose, went to the partition, rummaged round, and succeeded in finding an old coat.

“Na!” says he; “It is a poor thing, yet you may turn it to some use.”

The woman looked at the coat and looked at the old man; she took the coat, and burst into tears; and Avdyeitch turned away his head; crawling under the bed, he pushed out a little trunk, rummaged in it, and sat down again opposite the woman.

And the woman said:—

“May Christ bless you, little grandfather!⁴ He must have sent me to your window. My little baby would have frozen to death. When I started out it was warm, but now it has grown cold. And He, the Batyushka, led you to look through the window and take pity on me, an unfortunate.”

Avdyeitch smiled, and said:—

“Indeed, He did that! I have been looking through the window, my good woman, for some wise reason.”

And Martuin told the soldier's wife his dream, and how he heard the voice,—how the Lord promised to come and see him that day.

“All things are possible,” said the woman. She rose, put on the coat, wrapped up her little child in it; and, as she started to take leave, she thanked Avdyeitch again.

“Take this, for Christ's sake,” said Avdyeitch, giving her a twenty-kopek piece; “redeem your shawl.”

She made the sign of the cross, and Avdyeitch made the sign of the cross and went with her to the door.

The woman went away. Avdyeitch ate some shchi,⁵ washed the dishes, and sat down again to work. While he was working he still remembered the window; when the window grew darker he immediately looked out to see who was passing by. Acquaintances passed by and strangers passed by, and there was nothing out of the ordinary.

But here Avdyeitch saw that an old apple woman had stopped in front of his window. She carried a basket with apples. Only a few were left, as she had evidently sold them nearly all out; and over her shoulder she had a bag full of chips. She must have gathered them up in some new building, and was on her way home. One could see that the bag was heavy on her shoulder; she tried to shift it to the other shoulder. So she lowered the bag on the sidewalk, stood the basket with the apples on a little post, and began to shake down the splinters in the bag. And while she was shaking her bag, a little boy in a torn cap came along, picked up an apple from the basket, and was about to make his escape; but the old woman noticed it, turned around, and caught the youngster by his sleeve. The little boy began to struggle, tried to tear himself away; but the old woman grasped him with both hands, knocked off his cap, and caught him by the hair.

The little boy was screaming, the old woman was scolding. Avdyeitch lost no time in putting away his awl; he threw it upon the floor, sprang to the door,—he even stumbled on the stairs, and dropped his spectacles,—and rushed out into the street.

The old woman was pulling the youngster by his hair, and was scolding and threatening to take him to the policeman; the youngster was defending himself, and denying the charge.

“I did not take it,” he said; “What are you licking me for? Let me go!”

Avdyeitch tried to separate them. He took the boy by his arm, and said:—

“Let him go, babushka; forgive him, for Christ's sake.”

“I will forgive him so that he won't forget it till the new broom grows. I am going to take the little villain to the police.”

Avdyeitch began to entreat the old woman:—

“Let him go, babushka,” he said, “he will never do it again. Let him go, for Christ's sake.”

The old woman let him loose; the boy started to run, but Avdyeitch kept him back.

“Ask the babushka's forgiveness,” he said, “and don't you ever do it again; I saw you take the apple.”

The boy burst into tears, and began to ask forgiveness.

“There now! that's right; and here's an apple for you.”

And Avdyeitch took an apple from the basket, and gave it to the boy.

“I will pay you for it, babushka,” he said to the old woman.

“You ruin them that way, the good-for-nothings,” said the old woman. “He ought to be treated so that he would remember it for a whole week.”

“Eh, babushka, babushka,” said Avdyeitch, “that is right according to our judgment, but not according to God's. If he is to be whipped for an apple, then what ought to be done to us for our sins?”

The old woman was silent.

And Avdyeitch told her the parable of the master who forgave a debtor all that he owed him, and how the debtor went and began to choke one who owed him.

The old woman listened, and the boy stood listening.

“God has commanded us to forgive,” said Avdyeitch, “else we, too, may not be forgiven. All should be forgiven, and the thoughtless especially.”

The old woman shook her head, and sighed.

“That's so,” said she; “but the trouble is that they are very much spoiled.”

“Then we who are older must teach them,” said Avdyeitch.

“That's just what I say,” remarked the old woman. “I myself have had seven of them,—only one daughter is left.”

And the old woman began to relate where and how she lived with her daughter, and how many grandchildren she had. “Here,” she says, “my strength is only so-so, and yet I have to work. I pity the youngsters—my grandchildren—but what nice children they are! No one gives me such a welcome as they do. Aksintka won't go to anyone but me. ‘Babushka, dear babushka, lovliest.’”

And the old woman grew quite sentimental.

“Of course, it is a childish trick. God be with him,” said she, pointing to the boy.

The woman was just about to lift the bag up on her shoulder, when the boy ran up, and said:—

“Let me carry it, babushka; it is on my way.”

The old woman nodded her head, and put the bag on the boy's back.

And side by side they passed along the street.

And the old woman even forgot to ask Avdyeitch to pay for the apple. Avdyeitch stood motionless, and kept gazing after them; and he heard them talking all the time as they walked away. After Avdyeitch saw them disappear, he returned to his room; he found his eye-glasses on the stairs,—they were not broken; he picked up his awl, and sat down to work again.

After working a little while, it grew darker, so that he could not see to sew; he saw the lamplighter passing by to light the street-lamps.

“It must be time to make a light,” he said to himself; so he got his little lamp ready, hung it up, and he took himself again to his work. He had one boot already finished; he turned it around, looked at it: “Well done.” He put away his tools, swept off the cuttings, cleared off the bristles and ends, took the lamp, set it on the table, and took down the Gospels from the shelf. He intended to open the book at the very place where he had yesterday put a piece of leather as a mark, but it happened to open at another place; and the moment Avdyeitch opened the Testament, he recollected his last night's dream. And as soon as he remembered it, it seemed as if he heard someone stepping about behind him. Avdyeitch looked around, and saw—there, in the dark corner, it seemed as if people were standing; he was at a loss to know who they were. And a voice whispered in his ear:—

“Martuin—ah, Martuin! did you not recognize me?”

“Who?” exclaimed Avdyeitch.

“Me,” repeated the voice. “It was I;” and Stepanuitch stepped forth from the dark corner; he smiled, and like a little cloud faded away, and soon vanished.

“And it was I,” said the voice.

From the dark corner stepped forth the woman with her child; the woman smiled, the child laughed, and they also vanished,

“And it was I,” continued the voice; both the old woman and the boy with the apple stepped forward; both smiled and vanished.

Avdyeitch's soul rejoiced; he crossed himself, put on his spectacles, and began to read the Evangelists where it happened to open. On the upper part of the page he read:—

“For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in.”

And on the lower part of the page he read this:—

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”—St. Matthew, Chap. xxv.

And Avdyeitch understood that his dream had not deceived him; that the Saviour really called on him that day, and that he really received Him.⁶

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1. Find part one of the story here.

2. Umnitsa aumnitsa! literally, clever one.

3. Dvagrivennui, silver, worth sixteen cents.

4. Diedushka.

5. Cabbage soup.

6. Project Gutenberg's Where Love Is There God Is Also, by Lyof N. Tolstoi. Translated from the Russian by Nathan Haskell Dole. New York, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., Copyright 1887. This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org