Three Parables (Story). Leo Tolstoy - three parables
Parables of Leo Tolstoy - content
Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich (1828 - 1910)
Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich, prose writer, playwright, publicist. Born on September 9 (August 28, according to the old style) in the Yasnaya Polyana estate of the Tula province. By origin, he belonged to the most ancient aristocratic families of Russia. Among the ancestors of the writer on the paternal side is an associate of Peter I - P. A. Tolstoy, one of the first in Russia to receive county title. Member of the Patriotic War of 1812 was the father of the writer gr. N. I. Tolstoy. On the maternal side, Tolstoy belonged to the family of the princes Bolkonsky, related by kinship with the princes Trubetskoy, Golitsyn, Odoevsky, Lykov and other noble families. By his mother, Tolstoy was a relative of A.S. Pushkin.
Received home education and upbringing. When the boy was in his ninth year, his father took him to Moscow for the first time, the impressions of the meeting with which were vividly conveyed by the future writer in children's essay"Kremlin". The first period of young Tolstoy's life in Moscow lasted less than four years.
After the death of parents (mother died in 1830, father in 1837) future writer with three brothers and a sister, he moved to Kazan, to one of his father's sisters, P. Yushkova, who became their guardian. At the age of sixteen, Lev enters Kazan University, first at the Faculty of Philosophy in the category of Arabic-Turkish literature, then studies at the Faculty of Law (1844 - 1847). In 1847, without completing the course, he left the university and arrived in Yasnaya Polyana, which he received as property under the division of his father's inheritance.
The next four years he spends in search: he tries to reorganize the life of the peasants of Yasnaya Polyana (1847), lives social life in Moscow (1848), goes to St. Petersburg University to take exams for the degree of candidate of law (spring 1849), is determined to serve as a clerical employee in the Tula noble deputy assembly (autumn 1849).
In the last years of his life, when Tolstoy drew up his will, he found himself at the center of intrigue and strife between the Tolstoyans, on the one hand, and his wife, who defended the well-being of her family and children, on the other. Trying to bring his way of life in line with his convictions and, burdened by the lordly way of life in the estate, on November 10, 1910, Tolstoy secretly leaves Yasnaya Polyana. The health of the 82-year-old writer could not stand the trip. He caught a cold and, falling ill, died on November 20 on the way at the Astapovo station (now Leo Tolstoy) of the Ryazan-Ural railway. Lev Nikolaevich was buried in Yasnaya Polyana November 10 (23), 1910, in the forest, on the edge of a ravine, where, as a child, he and his brother were looking for a "green stick" that kept the "secret" of how to make all people happy.
"What makes people alive" L.N. Tolstoy
Albeit a little belatedly, let's remember one of the geniuses of Russian Literature.
The story is very sublime, beautiful and wise.
TO THE DAY OF MEMORY OF L.N. TOLSTOY.
November 20 marks exactly 100 years since the death of the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy.
I
A shoemaker lived with his wife and children in a peasant's apartment. He had neither his own house nor land, and he supported himself with his family by shoemaking. Bread was expensive, and work was cheap, and whatever worked, they would eat. The shoemaker had one fur coat with his wife, and even that was worn out to tatters; and for the second year the shoemaker was going to buy a sheepskin for a new fur coat.
By autumn, money had gathered at the shoemaker: three rubles a piece of paper lay with the woman in a chest, and another five rubles and twenty kopecks were for the peasants in the village.
And in the morning the shoemaker gathered in the village for a fur coat. He put on a nanke woman's jacket on wadding over his shirt, a cloth caftan on top, took a three-rouble note in his pocket, broke off a stick, and went after breakfast. I thought: I'll get five rubles from the peasants, I'll put my three, - I'll buy a sheepskin for a fur coat.
A shoemaker came to the village, went to one peasant - he was not at home, the woman promised to send her husband with money in a week, but she did not give money; went to another, - the peasant sweared that he had no money, he only gave twenty kopecks for the repair of boots. The shoemaker thought to borrow sheepskins, but the sheepskin did not believe in the debt.
- Money, - he says, - bring, then choose any, otherwise we know how to choose debts.
So the shoemaker didn't do anything, he only got twenty kopecks for the repair and took the peasant's old felt boots to be sheathed in leather.
The shoemaker strained, drank all twenty kopecks of vodka and went home without a fur coat. In the morning it seemed frosty to the shoemaker, but after drinking it was warm even without a fur coat. The shoemaker is walking along the road, with one hand he taps the frozen Kalmyks with a stick, and with the other hand he waves his boots, talking to himself.
- I, - he says, - is warm even without a fur coat. I drank the scale; it plays in all veins. And you don't need a coat. I go, forgetting grief. That's what kind of person I am! Me, what? I can live without a coat. I don't need her age. One thing - the woman is bored. Yes, and it's a shame - you work for him, and he leads you. Wait, you now: if you don’t bring money, I’ll take off my hat from you, by God, I’ll take it off. And then what is it? Gives back for two kopecks! Well, what can you do for two kopecks? Drink is one thing. Says need. Do you need, but I do not need? You have a house, and cattle, and everything, but I'm all here; you have your own bread, and I buy it - wherever you want, and give three rubles a week for one bread. I will come home - and the bread has reached; lay out one and a half rubles again. So give me mine. 
So the shoemaker approaches the chapel at the turntable, looks - behind the chapel itself, something is turning white. It was getting dark. The shoemaker looks closely, but cannot see what it is. "Stone, he thinks, there was no such thing here. Beast? It doesn't look like a beast. From the head it looks like a man, but something white. And why should a man be here?"
He came closer - it became quite visible. What a miracle: for sure, a man, whether alive or dead, sits naked, leaning against the chapel and not moving. The shoemaker was afraid; he thinks to himself: "Some man was killed, undressed, and left here. Just come, and you won't get undressed later."
And the shoemaker went by. I went behind the chapel - I couldn’t see a person. He passed the chapel, looked back, sees - the man leaned away from the chapel, moves, as if looking closely. The shoemaker became even more timid, thinking to himself: “Come up or pass by? If he doesn't strangle him, then go and get on with him. What are you going to do with him, naked? Don't take the last thing off yourself, give him the last thing. Only God can carry it!"
And the shoemaker quickened his pace. He began to pass the chapel, but his conscience began to see. And the shoemaker stopped on the road.
- What are you doing, - he says to himself, - Semyon, are you doing it? A person in trouble dies, and you become timid, you walk by. Did Ali get rich? Are you afraid that your wealth will be robbed? Ay, Sema, something's wrong! Semyon turned and went to the man.
II
Semyon comes up to the man, looks at him and sees: a young man, in strength, you can’t see beatings on his body, it’s only visible that the man is cold and scared; he sits leaning back and does not look at Semyon, as if he is weak, he cannot raise his eyes. Semyon came right up, and suddenly the man seemed to come to himself, turned his head, opened his eyes and looked at Semyon. And from this look Semyon fell in love with the man. He threw his boots on the ground, unbelted himself, put the belt on his boots, threw off his caftan.
- It will, - he says, - to interpret something! Dress it up! Come on!
Semyon took the man by the elbow and began to lift him up. A man got up. And Semyon sees - a thin, clean body, arms, legs are not broken and a touching face. Semyon threw a caftan on his shoulders - it will not fall into the sleeves. Semyon tucked his hands in, pulled on his caftan and pulled it up with a belt.
Semyon took off his torn cap, wanted to put it on naked, but his head became cold, thinking: I have a bald head all over, and his temples are curly, long. Put on again. I'd rather put on his boots.
He sat him down and put on felted boots for him.
The shoemaker dressed him and said:
- Yes, brother. Come on, warm up and warm up. And these things will be sorted out without us. Can you go?
A man is standing, looking tenderly at Semyon, but he cannot say anything.
- Why don't you say? Do not winter here. We need housing. Come on, here's my club, lean on it, if you're weak. Rock out!
And the man went. And he went easily, does not lag behind.
They go along the road, and Semyon says:
- Whose, then, will you be?
- I'm not from here.
- I know the locals. Got something, then, how here, under the chapel?
- You can't tell me.
- Must have offended people?
- Nobody offended me. God punished me.
- It is known that everything is God, but still you need to nail somewhere. Where do you need to?
- I don't care.
Simon wondered. He does not look like a mischievous person and is soft in speech, and does not speak to himself. And Semyon thinks: You never know what things happen, and he says to the man:
- Well, let's go to my house, even if you go away a little bit.
Semyon walks, the wanderer does not lag behind him, he walks beside him. The wind picked up, snatches Semyon under his shirt, and the hops began to descend from him, and began to vegetate. He walks, sniffs with his nose, wraps a woman's jacket over himself and thinks: That's the fur coat, I went for a fur coat, but without a caftan I'll come, and I'll bring naked with me. Matryona will not praise! And when she thinks about Matryona, Semyon will get bored. And as he looks at the wanderer, remembers how he looked at him behind the chapel, his heart will leap in him.
III
Semyon's wife left early. I chopped firewood, brought water, fed the children, ate it myself and thought; I thought about when to put the bread: today or tomorrow? The edge is big.
If, he thinks, Semyon dine there and doesn’t eat a lot at dinner, there will be enough bread for tomorrow
She turned, turned Matryona the edge, thinking: I won’t put bread today. Flour and then only one bread left. Let's wait until Friday..
Matryona removed the bread and sat down at the table to sew a patch on her husband's shirt. Matryona sews and thinks about her husband, how he will buy sheepskin for a fur coat.
The sheepskin would not deceive him. And that is simple very much mine. He himself will not deceive anyone, but his little child will fool him. Eight rubles is not small money. You can get a good coat. Though not tanned, but all a fur coat. Last winter, how they fought without a fur coat! No river to go, no where. And then he went out of the yard, everything fell on himself, and I have nothing to wear. Didn't go early. It's time for him. Has my falcon gone on a spree?
As soon as Matryona thought, the steps on the porch creaked, someone entered. Matryona stuck a needle in and went out into the hallway. He sees two people come in: Semyon and with him a peasant without a hat and in felt boots.
Matryona immediately sensed the spirit of wine from her husband. Well, he thinks, that's how he went on a spree. Yes, as soon as she saw that he was without a caftan, in a jacket in one and did not carry anything, but was silent, squeezed, Matryona's heart broke. He drank, he thinks, money, went on a spree with some unlucky person, and he also brought him with him.
Matryona let them into the hut, she herself entered, she sees - a stranger, young, thin, his caftan is theirs. Shirts are not visible under the caftan, there is no hat. As he entered, he became so, he does not move and does not raise his eyes. And Matryona thinks: an unkind person is afraid.
Matryona frowned, went to the stove, looking to see what would come of them.
Semyon took off his hat and sat down on the bench like a good man.
- Well, - says, - Matryona, gather dinner, or something!
Matryona muttered something under her breath. As she stood by the stove, she didn’t move: she would look at one or the other and only shake her head. Semyon sees that the woman is out of her mind, but there is nothing to do: as if he does not notice, he takes the wanderer by the hand.
“Sit down,” he says, “brother, we’ll have dinner.”
The stranger sat down on a bench.
- What, Ali did not cook?
Evil took Matryona.
- Cooked, but not about you. You and the mind, I see, drunk. He went for a fur coat, but he came without a caftan, and he also brought some naked tramp with him. I don't have dinner about you drunkards.
- It will, Matryona, that it’s useless to chatter with your tongue! You ask first what kind of person...
- You tell me, where did you put the money?
Semyon climbed into his caftan, took out a piece of paper, and unfolded it.
- Money - here they are, but Trifonov did not give it back, he sued tomorrow.
Evil took Matryona even more: he did not buy a fur coat, but put the last caftan on some naked man and brought him to him.
She grabbed a piece of paper from the table, carried it to hide, she herself says:
- I don't have dinner. You can't feed all drunkards naked.
- Eh, Matryona, hold your tongue. First listen to what they say...
- You listen to the mind from a drunken fool. No wonder I didn’t want to marry you, drunkard. Mother gave me the canvases - you drank it away; I went to buy a fur coat - I drank it.
Semyon wants to explain to his wife that he drank only twenty kopecks, wants to say where he found a man, - Matryona does not give him a word to insert: where does everything come from, suddenly says two words. What happened ten years ago, she remembered everything.
She kept talking, talking Matryona, ran up to Semyon, grabbed him by the sleeve.
- Give me my undershirt. And then one remained, and he took that one off me and put it on himself. Come here, freckled dog, shoot and hurt you!
Semyon began to take off his kutsaveyka, twisted the sleeve, the woman pulled, and the kutsaveyka cracked at the seams. Matryona grabbed her undercoat, threw it over her head, and took hold of the door. She wanted to leave, but she stopped: and her heart diverged - she wants to rip off evil and want to find out what kind of person she is.
IV
Matryona stopped and said:
- If only a good man, he wouldn’t be naked, otherwise he doesn’t even have a shirt on. If only for good deeds go, you would say where you brought such a dandy from.
- Yes, I'm telling you: I'm going, this undressed one is sitting by the chapel, completely frozen. It's not summer, after all. God put me on him, otherwise it would be an abyss. Well, how to be? You never know what things happen! Took, dressed and brought here. Quiet your heart. Sin, Matryona. We will die.
Matryona wanted to swear, but she looked at the wanderer and fell silent. The wanderer sits - does not move, as he sat on the edge of the bench. His hands are folded on his knees, his head is lowered on his chest, he does not open his eyes and everything is grimacing, as if something is choking him. Matrena was silent. Semyon says:
- Matrona, is there no God in you ?!
Matryona heard this word, looked again at the wanderer, and suddenly her heart sank. She moved away from the door, went to the corner of the stove, and took out supper. She put the cup on the table, poured kvass, laid out the last piece of bread. She gave me a knife and spoons.
- Sip, eh, - he says.
Semyon moved the wanderer.
- Get in, - he says, - well done.
Semyon sliced bread, crumbled it, and began to have supper. And Matryona sat down on the corner of the table, propped herself up on her hand, and looked at the wanderer.
And Matryona felt sorry for the wanderer, and she fell in love with him. 
And suddenly the wanderer cheered up, stopped grimacing, raised his eyes to Matryona and smiled.
We had supper; the woman removed and began to ask the wanderer:
- Yes, whose will you be?
- I'm not from here.
- How did you get on the road?
- You can't tell me.
- Who picked you?
- God punished me.
- So naked and lying?
- And lay naked, freezing. Semyon saw me, took pity on me, took off his caftan, put it on me and ordered me to come here. And here you fed me, gave me drink, took pity on me. God save you!
Matryona got up, took Semyonov's old shirt from the window, the same one that she had paid for, and gave it to the wanderer; I found more trousers, filed.
“Well, I see you don’t even have a shirt.” Get dressed and lie down where you like - in the choirs or on the stove.
The wanderer took off his caftan, put on a shirt and trousers, and lay down on the choir stalls. Matryona put out the light, took the caftan and climbed to her husband.
Matryona covered herself with the end of the caftan, lies and does not sleep, all the wanderer does not go from her thoughts.
When she remembers that he has eaten the last piece of bread and there is no bread for tomorrow, when she remembers that she gave away her shirt and trousers, she will become so bored; but she will remember how he smiled, and her heart will leap in her.
Matryona did not sleep for a long time and hears - Semyon is not sleeping either, he is dragging his caftan over himself.
- Semyon!
- BUT!
- They ate the last bread, but I did not leave it. Tomorrow, I don't know what to do. I will ask Godfather Malanya for something.
We will live, we will be full.
The woman lay down, was silent.
- And the man, apparently, is a good one, but what does he not say about himself.
- Must not.
- Sam!
- BUT!
- We give something, but why doesn't anyone give us?
Simon didn't know what to say. Says: "Will interpret something." Turned around and fell asleep.
V
Simon woke up in the morning. The children are sleeping, the wife went to the neighbors to borrow bread. One yesterday's wanderer in old trousers and a shirt is sitting on a bench, looking up. And his face is brighter than yesterday.
And Simon says:
- Well, dear head: the belly asks for bread, and the naked body for clothes. Need to feed. What can you work?
- I can't do anything.
Semyon marveled and said:
- There would be a hunt. Everything people learn.
- People work, and I will work.
- What's your name?
- Michael.
- Well, Mikhaila, you don’t want to talk about yourself - it’s your business, but you need to feed yourself. You will work, that I will order, - I will feed.
- God save you, and I will study. Show me what to do
Semyon took the yarn, put it on his fingers and began to make the end.
- It's not tricky, look...
He looked at Mikhail, put it on his fingers, immediately took over, made an end.
Semyon showed him how to weld. Mikhail also understood immediately. The owner showed me how to stick a bristle in and how to weave it, and Mikhail immediately understood it too.
Whatever work Semyon shows him, he will immediately understand everything, and from the third day he began to work, as if sewing for a century. Works without extension, eats little; the work is interspersed - it is silent and everything looks up. He does not go out into the street, does not say too much, does not joke, does not laugh.
They only saw once how he smiled on the first evening, when the woman brought him supper.
VI
Day by day, week by week, a year has turned. Mikhaila still lives with Semyon, works. And the fame about Semyonov’s worker passed that no one could sew boots so cleanly and firmly as Semyonov’s worker Mikhail, and they began to go from the district to Semyon for boots, and Semyon’s wealth began to increase.
Semyon and Mikhaila sit once in the winter, work, drive up to the hut in a trio with cart bells. They looked out the window: the cart stopped in front of the hut, the good fellow jumped off the box, opened the door. The master gets out of the wagon in a fur coat. He got out of the wagon, went to Semyonov's house, and entered the porch. Matrena jumped out, flung the door wide open. The master bent down, entered the hut, straightened up, almost touched the ceiling with his head, captured the whole corner.
Semyon got up, bowed and marveled at the master. And he never saw such people. Semyon himself is lean and Mikhaila is thin, and Matryona is completely dry like a chip, and this one is like a person from another world: his muzzle is red, poured, his neck is like that of a bull, everything is poured out of cast iron.
The master pouted, took off his fur coat, sat down on a bench and said:
- Who is the owner of the shoemaker?
Simon came out and said:
- I, your degree.
The master shouted at his little one:
- Hey, Fedka, bring the goods here.
A small one ran in, brought in a bundle. He took the master's knot, put it on the table.
“Untie,” he says.
Unleashed the small one. The master poked the shoe goods with his finger and said to Semyon:
- Well, listen, you cobbler. Do you see the product?
- I see, - he says, - your honor.
- Do you understand what kind of product it is?
Semyon felt the goods, says:
- Good merchandise.
- That's good! You, fool, have not yet seen such a product. Goods German, twenty rubles paid.
Zarobel Semyon says:
- Where can we see it?
- Well, something. Can you sew boots on my foot from this product?
- You can, your degree.
The barin shouted at him:
- That something "can be." You understand who you are sewing on, from what product. Such boots are sewn for me so that they can be worn for a year, not crooked, not flogged. You can take it, cut the goods, but if you can't, don't take it and don't cut the goods. I tell you in advance: if your boots will tear, your boots will be twisted before the year, I will put you in jail; If they don't squint, they won't rip apart for up to a year, I'll give you ten rubles for the work. Zarobel Semyon does not know what to say. He looked at Michael. He pushed him with his elbow and whispered:
- Take it, right?
He nodded his head to Mikhail: "Take, they say, work."
Semyon obeyed Mikhail, undertook to sew such boots so that the year would not be crooked, not flogged. The gentleman shouted, ordered to remove the boot from his left foot, stretched out his leg.
- Take your measurements!
Semyon sewed a ten-inch piece of paper, smoothed it down, knelt down, wiped his hand on his apron well so as not to stain the master's stocking, and began to measure. Semyon measured the sole, measured it in the rise; I began to measure the caviar, the piece of paper did not fit. Knives in the caviar are like a thick log.
- Look, don't put a burden on the bootleg.
Semyon began to sew on a piece of paper. The gentleman sits, moves his fingers in a stocking, the people in the hut look around. I saw Michael.
- Who is it, - he says, - with you?
- And this is my master, he will sew.
“Look,” the master says to Mikhail, “remember, sew so that the year flies by.”
Semyon also looked back at Mikhaila; he sees - Mikhail does not even look at the master, but stares into the corner behind the master, as if peering at someone. He looked and looked at Mikhail, and suddenly he smiled and brightened up all over.
- What are you, a fool, baring your teeth? You better watch to be ready for the deadline.
And Michael says:
- Just in time, when necessary.
- Something.
He put on his master's boots and fur coat, wrapped himself up and went to the door. Yes, I forgot to bend down, I hit my head in the lintel. The master quarreled, rubbed his head, got into the wagon and left.
The master drove off, Semyon, and said:
- Well, flint. You won't kill this one. The jamb landed with his head, but he had little grief.
And Matrena says:
- From life such as they can not be smooth. Such a rivet and death will not take.
VII
And Semyon Mikhailo says:
- They took a job, but how would we not get into trouble. The goods are expensive, and the master is angry. No matter how wrong. Well, you, your eyes are sharper, and in your hands there is more of my skill, by the measure. Cut the goods, and I will finish the heads.
Mikhail did not disobey, he wrought the master's goods, spread them out on the table, folded them in half, took a knife and began to cut.
Matryona came up, looked at Mikhaila cutting, and marveled at what Mikhaila was doing. Matryona, too, has become accustomed to shoemaking; she looks and sees that Mikhaila is not tailoring goods like shoemakers, but cutting them into round ones. Matrena wanted to say, but she thought to herself: “I must not understand how to sew the master’s boots; must, Mikhaila knows better, I won’t interfere.”
He tailored a pair of Mikhail, took the end and began to sew not like a shoe, in two ends, but with one end, as barefoot men sew. Matrena marveled at this too, but she also did not interfere. And Mikhaila sews everything. It was noon, Semyon got up, looked - Mikhaila had bare shoes sewn from the master's goods.
Gasped Semyon. “How is it, he thinks, Mikhail lived for a whole year, was not mistaken in anything, and now he has done such a misfortune? find."
And he says to Michael:
- What are you doing, - he says, - dear head, have you done it? You stabbed me! After all, the master ordered boots, and what did you sew?
As soon as he began to pronounce Mikhailo - a bang on the ring at the door, someone was knocking. They looked out the window: someone had arrived on horseback, the horse was being tied. Unlocked: enters the same small from the master.
- Great!
- Great. Whats up?
- Yes, the lady sent about boots.
- What about boots?
- What about boots! the master does not need boots. The master ordered to live long,
- What you!
- From you to the house did not reach, in a cart and died. A wagon drove up to the house, they went out to disembark, and he collapsed like a sack, already numb, lying dead, they forced him out of the wagon. The lady sent and said: “Tell the shoemaker that you were, they say, a master, ordered boots and left the goods, so say: you don’t need boots, but so that the bare shoes on the dead would be sewn as soon as possible from the goods. Yes, wait until they sew, and Bring bare feet with you." Here he came.
Mikhail took it from the table for cutting goods, rolled it up with a pipe, took the finished bare shoes, clicked each other, wiped them with an apron and gave them to the little one. I took small shoes.
- Farewell, masters! Good hour!
VIII
Another year passed, and two, and Mikhaila has been living with Semyon for the sixth year. Lives still. He doesn’t go anywhere, doesn’t say too much, and all the time he only smiled twice: once when the woman brought him dinner, the other time at the master. Semyon is not overjoyed at his worker. And does not ask him anymore where he is from; He is afraid of only one thing, lest Mikhail leave him.
They sit at home. The hostess puts cast iron in the oven, and the guys run around the benches, looking out the windows. Semyon is sewing at one window, and Mikhaila is stuffing his heel at the other.
The boy ran up the bench to Mikhailo, leaned on his shoulder and looked out the window.
- Uncle Mikhaila, look, the merchant's wife with the girls, no way, she's coming to us. And the girl is lame.
As soon as the boy said this, Mikhaila quit his job, turned to the window, and looked out into the street. And Simon was surprised. He never looks at Mikhail Street, but now he is leaning against the window, looking at something. Semyon also looked out the window; he sees - indeed, a woman is walking to his yard, dressed cleanly, leading by the hands of two girls in fur coats, in carpet handkerchiefs. The girls are one to one, it is impossible to find out. Only one left leg is damaged - it goes, falls.
A woman went up the porch, into the passage, felt the door, pulled the bracket, and opened it. She let two girls go ahead of her and entered the hut.
- Hello, masters!
- We beg your pardon. What do you need?
The woman sat down at the table. The girls clung to her knees, they seem to be people.
- Yes, for the girls to sew leather shoes for the spring.
- Well, you can. We did not sew such small ones, but everything is possible. Can be welted, can be reversible on canvas. Here is Michael, my master.
Semyon looked back at Mihayla and saw: Mihayla had quit his job, was sitting, his eyes fixed on the girls. And Semyon marveled at Mikhail. True, the girls are fine, he thinks: black-eyed, plump, ruddy, and the fur coats and handkerchiefs are good on them, but Semyon will not understand everything that he looks at them so closely, as if they are familiar to him.
Semyon marveled and began to talk with the woman - to dress up. Dressed up, folded the measure. 
The lame woman lifted herself on her knees and said:
- Take two measurements from this one; on a crooked leg one shoe is sewn, and on a straight one three. They have the same legs, one to one. They are twins.
Semyon took his measurements and speaks in lame:
- What happened to her? The girl is so good. Kinda, right?
- No, the mother crushed.
Matrena stood up, she wants to know whose woman and whose children she is, and says:
- Aren't you going to be their mother?
- I'm not their mother and not relatives, hostess, strangers at all - adopted children.
- Not your children, but how you pity them!
- How can I not feel sorry for them, I fed them both with my breast. She had her own brainchild, but God took care of her, she didn’t feel sorry for him as much as I feel sorry for them.
- Whose are they?
IX
Semyon approached him: what, he says, you, Mikhaila! Mikhaila got up from the bench, laid down his work, took off his apron, bowed to the owner and the hostess, and said:
- Excuse me, masters. God has forgiven me. Forgive me too.
And the owners see that the light comes from Mikhaila. And Semyon got up, bowed to Mikhail and said to him:
- I see, Mikhaila, that you are not an ordinary person, and I cannot hold you, and I cannot ask you questions. Tell me just one thing: why, when I found you and brought you into the house, were you cloudy, and when the woman served you supper, did you smile at her and since then became brighter? Then, when the master ordered boots, did you smile another time and have become even brighter since then? And now, when the woman brought the girls, you smiled for the third time and brightened up all over. Tell me, Mikhaila, why such a light from you and why did you smile three times?
And Michael said:
- Because the light from me, that I was punished, and now God has forgiven me. And I smiled three times because I had to learn three words of God. And I learned the words of God; I learned one word when your wife took pity on me, and that's why I smiled for the first time. Another word I learned when a rich man ordered boots, and another time I smiled; and now, when I saw the girls, I recognized the last, third word, and I smiled for the third time.
And Simon said:
- Tell me, Mikhaila, why God punished you and what are the words of God, so that I know.
And Michael said:
God punished me for disobeying him. I was an angel in heaven and disobeyed God. I was an angel in heaven, and the Lord sent me to take the soul out of a woman. I flew to the ground, I see: one wife is lying - she is sick, she gave birth to twins, two girls. The girls are swarming beside their mother, and their mother cannot take them to her breasts.
My wife saw me, realized that God had sent me to my soul, wept and said: “Angel of God! They just buried my husband, killed him with a tree in the forest. I have no sister, no aunt, no grandmother, there is no one to raise my orphans. you my darling, let me drink my children myself, feed them, put them on their feet! Children cannot live without a father, without a mother! And I listened to my mother, put one girl to my chest, gave the other to my mother in the hands and ascended to the Lord in heaven. I flew to the Lord and said: “I could not take the soul out of the puerperal. They killed the father with a tree, the mother gave birth to twins and begs not to take the soul from her, says: “Give me children to drink, feed, put on their feet. It is impossible for children to live without a father, without a mother. "I did not take the soul out of the puerperal."
And the Lord said: "Go take your soul out of the mother and you will learn three words: you will find out what is in people, and what is not given to people, and how people are alive. When you find out, you will return to heaven." I flew back to earth and took the soul out of the mother.
Babies dropped from breasts. A dead body fell on the bed, crushed one girl, twisted her leg. I rose above the village, I wanted to take my soul to God, the wind caught me, my wings hung down, fell off, and my soul alone went to God, and I fell on the ground by the road.
XI
I understood that God did not want people to live apart, and then he did not reveal to them what everyone needs for themselves, but wanted them to live together, and then revealed to them what they all need for themselves and for everyone.
Now I understand that it seems only to people that they live by taking care of themselves, but that they live by love alone. Whoever is in love is in God and God is in him, because God is love.
And the angel sang praises to God, and the hut shook from his voice. And the ceiling parted, and a pillar of fire rose from earth to heaven. And Semyon with his wife and children fell to the ground. And the wings of the angel behind his back blossomed, and he ascended into heaven.
And when Semyon woke up, the hut was still standing, and there was no one in the hut except the family. 
Apostle John and the Thief
After the death of Jesus Christ, his disciples dispersed different lands by deed and word preaching his doctrine. The beloved disciple of Christ, John, preached in the rich trading cities of Greece. In one city, during a sermon, he saw in the crowd young man. The young man listened and did not take his eyes off the speaker. The Apostle John, after the sermon, called him to him and spoke with him for a long time. He saw that the young man was ready with all his soul to accept the teachings of Christ, that his soul was hot, but he had no faith. “He needs a reliable friend and adviser,” thought John, “otherwise he will go astray. Bon Voyage will go after bad people." The apostle got ready to go further to preach in other places and, before leaving, he led the young man to the bishop and said to him:
- I'm leaving, and you take care of him: strengthen his faith in Christ, protect him from all evil.
The bishop promised, took the young man to his house, taught him and baptized him.
Having baptized, the bishop ceased to take care of him as he had taken care of before; “Now he has been saved by baptism from all evil,” thought the bishop. The young man made friends with bad comrades, began to get drunk with them, to debauch. Sometimes it was as if repentance attacked him, but he no longer had real faith to leave a bad life. For a wild life, money was needed. He began to get them by all sorts of lies; and he left the city, and began to live as robbery.
He soon became famous for his prowess, and the robbers chose him as their chieftain.
The apostle John returned from the sermon, came to the bishop and asked:
“Where is the treasure you took for safekeeping?”
The bishop at first did not understand what the apostle was asking; he thought that John was asking him about the money that was donated to the poor and sick.
“I am not asking you about money,” John said, “but about the soul of a brother. I left a young man with you, where is he?
“He is dead,” the bishop replied sadly.
– When did he die? What death did he die? the apostle asked.
“His soul went blind, and he became a villain, a robber, a murderer,” answered the bishop.
The apostle did not expect such news; upset to tears and said to the bishop:
Woe to him, woe to us all! You were not a reliable friend and mentor for him, otherwise he would not have left you: I know his young, hot soul. What did you do to bring him back, to save him?
The bishop was silent. John said to the people who were there:
- Give me a horse soon, show me the way to the mountains.
People began to dissuade him:
- Don't go - from the robbers there is no passage or passage for anyone there. Don't ruin yourself, teacher.
But John did not listen to them, took his horse and got ready to go. People felt ashamed to let the old man go alone; Several people volunteered to accompany him.
Go; entered the forest, began to climb the mountain. The climb was steep and the ride was difficult. We drove like this for a long time. Here it seemed ahead of several robbers. The people were frightened and rushed back, and John went to meet them. The robbers grabbed him. They were surprised that he did not defend himself, and did not ask for mercy.
“Take me to your chieftain,” John told them.
The robbers led the old man to their camp. The ataman saw that his comrades were returning, went out to meet them. As soon as he looked at the bound man, he now recognized John: he turned pale, trembled and rushed to run. John began to call him:
- My son, stop, listen to me!
But the robber did not turn around and went further and further into the forest. The robbers retreated from John, stopped holding him and could not understand how this weak, unarmed old man could so frighten their chieftain.
John went after the robber. The old apostle was so exhausted from the long journey that he could hardly walk, but the young robber did not stop. From fatigue and anxiety, John's legs began to give way. He stopped, gathered his strength and last time shouted to the robber in a trembling voice:
The robber stopped, turned to John and began to wait for him. John approached him, moving his legs with difficulty, and the robber stood, waiting for him, and looked at the ground. Here John came up, and the robber still stood with his head bowed.
The apostle silently put his hand on his shoulder. The robber trembled, dropped the weapon from his hands and, sobbing, embraced the teacher, pressing his face against his chest.
“I have come for you, my son,” John told him quietly. - Come with me to the city to the brothers.
“I won’t go,” answered the robber, “leave me; I am a lost person. Cursed am I both by God and by men; I have nowhere to go. I can't live longer, as I lived; the only thing left to do is lay hands on yourself.
“My son, don’t do it, don’t say that!” Our life in the flesh is the will of God; to kill one's flesh means to go against the will of God - to tempt him. Do you remember I told you about the thief who repented on the cross? AT last minute life he was blissful.
“People will not forgive me, they will not believe that I have repented, and they will not accept me.
- Do not be afraid, my son, people will forgive, when God has forgiven, I will beg them not to do you any harm, you will again begin an honest, working life and with love for them you will atone for your previous crimes. Don't delay, decide quickly!
So John persuaded his disciple, and the robber believed, and his soul softened.
- Let's go, teacher! he exclaimed. - With you, I am not afraid of the most cruel punishment; take me wherever you want, soothe my tormented soul!
The weary old man leaned on the hand of the young robber, and they went to the camp.
The ataman said goodbye to his comrades, told them about his past life, about John, persuaded them to leave the robbery.
John returned to the city with the robber and led him to the church. The apostle put it next to him and said:
“Brothers, here is the one you thought was dead. Rejoice: our brother has returned to us.
And John urged the brethren to accept the repentant, and concluded his speech with the words of a parable told by the Savior: “Bring a fatted calf and slaughter it; let us eat and be merry, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” (Luke 15:23, 24)
Tramp ne'er-do-well
From the city came the rumble and the copper trembling of a large hunter's bell across the water. The coachman, who was standing beside Nekhlyudov, and all the carters, one by one, took off their hats and crossed themselves. Closest to all, standing by the railing, was a short, shaggy old man whom Nekhlyudov did not notice at first, did not cross himself, but, raising his head, stared at Nekhlyudov. This old man was dressed in a patched ozyam, cloth trousers, and worn, patched waders. Over his shoulders was a small bag, on his head was a high, worn fur hat.
- Why don't you pray, old man? said the non-Khludov driver, putting on and straightening his hat. - Al unbaptized?
- Who do you pray to? - resolutely, offensively and quickly pronouncing syllable by syllable, said the shaggy old man.
“God knows who,” said the coachman ironically.
“Will you show me where he is?” God something?
There was something so serious and firm in the old man's expression that the coachman, sensing that he was dealing with a strong man, was somewhat embarrassed, but did not show it and, trying not to be silent and not to be ashamed in front of the listening public, quickly answered:
- And where? It is known - in the sky.
– Have you been there?
- Was - was not, but everyone knows that it is necessary to pray to God.
No one has seen God anywhere. The only-begotten son, who exists in the depths of his father, he revealed, - the old man said with a stern frown, in the same patter.
- You, apparently, are not a Christ, a holer. You’re praying for a hole,” said the driver, thrusting the whip into his belt and adjusting his harness on the harness.
Someone laughed.
- And what kind of faith are you, grandfather? - asked a middle-aged man, standing with a cart at the edge of the ferry.
“I don't have any faith. That’s why I don’t trust anyone, except myself,” the old man answered just as quickly and decisively.
- How can you trust yourself? said Nekhludoff, entering into the conversation. - You can be wrong.
“Not in life,” the old man answered decisively, shaking his head.
Why are there different faiths? asked Nekhlyudov.
- That's why there are different faiths, that people believe, but they do not believe themselves. And I believed people and fornicated, as in the taiga; so entangled that he did not want to get out. And the Old Believers, and the New Believers, and the Subbotniks, and the whips, and the priests, and the bespopovtsy, and the Austrians, and the Molokans, and the eunuchs. Every faith praises itself alone. That's all and crawled like blind kutyaty. There are many faiths, but one spirit. And in you, and in me, and in him. So, believe everyone in your spirit, and behold, all will be united. Be every man to himself, and all will be one.
The old man spoke loudly and kept looking around, obviously wanting to more people heard him.
“Well, have you been confessing like this for a long time?” Nekhludoff asked him.
- I something? It's been a long time. They've been driving me for the twenty-third year.
- How are they driven?
– Just as they persecuted Christ, so they persecute me. They seize and according to the courts, according to the priests - according to the scribes, according to the Pharisees and lead; put in a lunatic asylum. Yes, I can’t do anything, because I’m free. "What do they say your name is?" They think I'll take the title. Yes, I don't take any. I have renounced everything: I have no name, no place, no fatherland, nothing. I'm on my own. What's your name? Human. "And how many years?" I, I say, do not count, and it is impossible to count, because I have always been, always will be. “What, they say, are you a father, mother?” No, I say, I have neither father nor mother, besides God and the Earth. God is the father, Earth is the mother. “And the king, they say, you recognize?” Why not acknowledge? He is his own king, and I am my own king. "Well, they say to talk to you." I say: I'm not asking you to talk to me. So they hurt.
– Where are you going now? asked Nekhlyudov.
Where will God lead? I work, but there is no work - I ask, - the old man finished, noticing that the ferry was approaching the other side, and looked triumphantly at all who listened to him.
Nekhlyudov took out his purse and offered the old man money. The old man refused.
- I don't take it. I take bread, he said.
- Well, goodbye.
- Nothing to forgive. You didn't offend me. And you can’t offend me, ”the old man said and began to put on his shoulder the removed bag.
“And you want to talk, sir,” said the coachman to Nekhlyudov, when he, having tipped the mighty ferrymen, climbed onto the cart. - Yes, a vagrant vagrant.
In one of the cells of the exiles, Nekhlyudov, to his surprise, saw the same strange old man whom he had seen on the ferry that morning. This old man, shaggy and all wrinkled, in one dirty, ashen-colored shirt torn at the shoulder, the same pants, barefoot, was sitting on the floor near the bunk and looked sternly inquiringly at the newcomers. His emaciated body, visible through the holes in his dirty shirt, was pitiful and weak, but his face was even more concentrated and seriously animated than on the ferry. All the prisoners, as in other cells, jumped up and stretched out at the entrance of the authorities: the old man continued to sit. His eyes sparkled and his brows furrowed in anger.
- Get up! the caretaker yelled at him.
The old man did not move and only smiled contemptuously.
“Your servants are standing in front of you. And I'm not your servant. You have a seal on you…” the old man said, pointing to the caretaker’s forehead.
- What-o-o? the caretaker said menacingly, advancing on him.
"I know this man," Nekhlyudov hastened to tell the superintendent. - Why did they take him?
- The police sent for lack of writing. We ask them not to send them, but they send everything,” said the caretaker, looking angrily at the old man.
- And you, apparently, are also the troops of the Antichrist? the old man turned to Nekhlyudov.
"No, I'm a visitor," said Nekhlyudov.
“Well, have you come to marvel at how the Antichrist torments people?” Here, look. He took the people, locked the whole army in a cage. People must eat bread in the sweat of their brows, but he locked them up; like pigs, feeds without work, so that they become brutalized.
- What he says? asked the Englishman.
Nekhlyudov said that the old man condemned the superintendent for keeping people in captivity.
- What, you ask, in his opinion, should be dealt with those who do not comply with the law? said the Englishman.
Nekhlyudov translated the question. The old man laughed strangely, baring his solid teeth.
- Law! he repeated contemptuously. “He first robbed everyone, all the land, took all the wealth from people, picked it up for himself, beat everyone who went against him, and then he wrote a law so that they would not rob and not kill. He would have written this law before.
Nekhlyudov translated. The Englishman smiled.
- Well, after all, what to do now with thieves and murderers, ask him.
Nekhlyudov translated the question again. The old man frowned severely.
“Tell him to remove the antichrist seal from himself, then he will have neither thieves nor murderers. So tell him.
- Not is crazy (He is crazy (English), - said the Englishman, when Nekhlyudov translated the words of the old man to him, and, shrugging his shoulders, left the cell.
You do your thing and leave them. Everyone to himself. God knows whom to execute, whom to pardon, but we do not know,” said the old man. “Be your own boss, then you don’t need bosses. Go, go," he added, frowning angrily and gleaming at Nekhlyudov, who was loitering in the cell. “I have seen enough of how the servants of Antichrist feed lice to people. Get up, get up!
Galchonok
The hermit once saw a falcon in the forest. The falcon brought a piece of meat to the nest, tore the meat into small pieces and began to feed the jackdaw.
The hermit was surprised how the falcon feeds the jackdaw like that, and thought: “The jackdaw, and that one will not disappear from God, and God taught this falcon to feed someone else's orphan. It can be seen that God feeds all creatures, and we all think about ourselves. I will stop taking care of myself, I will not store food for myself. God does not leave all creatures, and he will not leave me.”
And so he did: he sat down in the forest and did not get up from his place, but only prayed to God. For three days and three nights he remained without food or drink. On the third day the hermit became so weak that he could no longer raise his arms. He fell asleep from weakness. And he dreamed of an old man. The elder seemed to come up to him and say:
Why don't you stock up on food? You think to please God, but you sin. God arranged the world in such a way that each creature would get what it needs. God told the falcon to feed the jackdaw, because the jackdaw would be lost without the falcon; and you can work on your own. You want to test God, and that's a sin. Wake up and keep working.
The hermit woke up and began to live as before.
Proud deer
The deer went to the river to get drunk, saw himself in the water and began to rejoice at his horns, that they are large and forked, and looked at his legs and said:
- Only my legs are bad and thin.
Suddenly a lion jumped out and rushed at a deer. The deer started galloping across the open field. He was leaving, but as he came into the forest, his horns got entangled in the branches, and the lion grabbed him.
When the time came for the deer to die, he said:
- I'm stupid! About whom I thought that they were bad and liquid, they saved me, and for whom I rejoiced, I disappeared from those.
wooden feeder
Once lived very an old man. His eyes were blind, his hearing dulled, his knees trembled. He could hardly hold a spoon in his hands and while eating he often spilled soup on the tablecloth, and sometimes some of the food fell out of his mouth. The son and his wife looked with disgust at the old man and, while eating, began to put him in a corner behind the stove, and the food was served to him in an old saucer. From there, he looked sadly at the table, and his eyes became moist. Once his hands were shaking so much that he could not hold a saucer of food. It fell to the floor and broke. The young mistress began to scold the old man, but he did not say a word, but only sighed heavily. Then they bought him a wooden bowl. Now he had to eat from it.
Once, when the parents were sitting at the table, their four-year-old son entered the room with a piece of wood in his hands.
- What do you want to do? the father asked.
“Wooden feeder,” answered the kid. Mom and dad will eat from it when I grow up.
L. N. Tolstoy borrowed the plot of this parable from the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm “ old grandfather and granddaughters."
How the devil redeemed the edge
The poor peasant went out to plow without breakfast, and took a piece of bread with him from the house. The peasant turned the plow over, untied the scum, put it under a bush; immediately put down a piece of bread and covered it with a caftan. The horse got tired, and the peasant got hungry. The peasant stuck a plow in, repulsed the horse, let it feed, and he himself went to the caftan to have lunch. The peasant raised his caftan - there is no edge; searched, searched, turned the caftan, shook it - there was no edge. The man was surprised. “Wonderful,” he thinks. “I didn’t see anyone, but someone took away a piece of bread.” And this little devil, while the peasant was plowing, dragged off the piece of bread and sat down behind a bush to listen to how the peasant would swear and commemorate him, the devil.
The man pushed.
- Well, yes, - he says, - I will not die of hunger! Apparently, the one who took it away needed it. Let's eat for health!
And the peasant went to the well, drank water, rested, caught the horse, harnessed it and began to plow again.
The imp was embarrassed that he did not lead the peasant to sin, and went to tell the greater devil. He came to the big one and told how he had taken a piece of bread from the peasant, and the peasant, instead of cursing, said: “To your health!” The biggest devil got angry.
- If, - he says, - the peasant has the upper hand over you in this matter, you yourself are to blame for this: you didn’t know how. If, - he says, - the peasants, and after them the women, take such a habit, we will have nothing to do with it and will begin to live. You can't leave this thing like this! Go, - he says, - again to the peasant, deserve this piece of land. If you don't get the better of the peasant in three years, I'll bathe you in holy water!
The imp was frightened, ran to the ground, began to figure out how to deserve his guilt. Thought and thought and thought. The imp turned into a kind man and went to work for the poor peasant. And he taught a peasant in a dry summer to sow bread in a swamp. The man of the worker obeyed, sowed in the swamp. Other peasants had everything burnt by the sun, but the poor peasant grew thick, tall, spikey bread. The muzhik fed himself to novi, and there was still a lot of bread left. For the summer, a worker taught a peasant to sow bread on the mountains. And it's been a rainy summer. The people's bread fell down, trampled, and the grain did not pour, but the muzhik on the mountains gave birth to broken bread. The peasant had even more extra bread left. And the man does not know what to do with him.
And the worker taught the peasant how to grind bread and smoke wine. The man smoked wine, began to drink himself and to give water to others. The devil came to the bigger one and began to boast that he deserved a piece of bread. Went to see more.
He came to the peasant, he sees - the peasant called the rich, treats them with wine. The hostess brings wine to the guests. She just started to walk around, caught on the table, spilled a glass. The man got angry and scolded his wife.
“Look,” he says, “a damned fool!” Is it slop that you, clubfoot, are pouring such good on the ground?
He pushed the little imp with his elbow:
- Note, - he says, - how he will not regret the edge now.
The owner scolded his wife, began to bring himself. A poor peasant comes home from work, uninvited; greeted, sat down, sees - people drink wine; he also wanted to drink some wine when he was tired. He sat, sat, swallowed, swallowed saliva, - the owner did not bring him; he only muttered to himself: “Do you have enough wine for all of you!”
I liked it and that's the biggest thing. And the devil boasts:
- Wait, there will be more.
The rich men drank, and the owner also drank. They all began to indulge each other: to praise each other and speak oily, slanderous speeches.
He listened, listened to the greatest, - he praised for this:
- If, - he says, - from this drink they will so fox and deceive each other, they will all be in our hands.
The peasants drank another glass each, and their speech became louder and coarser. Instead of oily speeches, they began to swear, began to get angry with each other, grappled with each other, and beat each other's noses. The owner also got into a fight, they beat him too.
He looked at the largest one, and he liked it too.
“That,” he says, “is good.
And the devil says:
- Wait, there will be more! Let them have a third drink. Now they have gone berserk like wolves, but give it time, they will drink on the third, now they will become like pigs.
The men drank on the third. Completely deflated. They mumble, they shout, they don’t know that they don’t listen to each other. They went to disperse - some separately, some in twos, some in threes - everyone was lying around the streets. The owner came out to see off the guests, fell with his nose into a puddle, got smeared all over, lies like a boar, grunts.
The one who liked it even more.
- Well, - he says, - you invented a good drink, you deserved a piece. Tell me, he says, how did you make this drink? It was not otherwise that you did, as you first poured fox blood into it: from it, a muzhik cunning, like a fox, became. And then - wolf blood: from it he got angry, like a wolf. And in the end you let in, apparently, pig's blood: from it he became a pig.
“No,” says the imp, “I didn’t do that. All I did to him was that I gave birth to extra bread. She, this animal blood, always lives in him, but she has no move when bread is born from need. Then he did not spare even the last piece of bread, and as soon as the surpluses from bread began to remain, he began to think out how to amuse himself. And I taught him fun - drinking wine. How did he become God's gift to smoke in wine for his own amusement, fox's, and wolf's, and pig's blood rose in it. Now if only he drank wine, he would always be a beast.
He praised the biggest imp, forgave him for a loaf of bread and put him in his seniors.
Pandu, a wealthy jeweler of the Brahmin caste, was traveling with his servant to Benares. On the way he caught up with a respectable-looking monk who was walking in the same direction, he thought to himself: “This monk has a noble and holy look. Associating with kind people brings happiness; if he also goes to Benares, I will invite him to ride with me in my chariot.” And bowing to the monk, he asked him where he was going, and learning that the monk, whose name was Narada, was also going to Benares, he invited him into his chariot.
“Thank you for your kindness,” the monk said to the brahmin, “I am really exhausted from the long journey. Without property, I cannot reward you with money, but it may happen that I will be able to reward you with some spiritual treasure from the wealth of knowledge that I have acquired by following the teachings of Shakyamuni, the blessed great Buddha, Teacher of mankind.
They rode together in a chariot, and Pandu listened with pleasure to the instructive speeches of Narada. After driving for one hour, they came to a bridge where the road was washed out on both sides and a farmer's cart with a broken wheel blocked the way.
Devala, the owner of the cart, was on his way to Benares to sell his rice and was in a hurry to get there before dawn the next morning. If he had been late in the afternoon, the rice buyers might have already left the city, having bought the amount of rice they needed.
When the goldsmith saw that he could not continue his journey if the farmer's cart was not moved, he got angry and ordered Magaduta, his servant, to move the cart to the side so that the chariot could pass. The farmer resisted, because his wagon lay so close to the cliff that it could crumble if touched, but the brahmin did not want to listen to the farmer and ordered his servant to dump the wagon with rice. Magaduta, extraordinary strong man, who took pleasure in insulting the people, obeyed before the monk could intervene and dropped the wagon. When Pandu passed and wanted to continue on his way, the monk jumped out of his chariot and said:
“Excuse me, sir, for leaving you. Thank you for your kindness in allowing me to ride for one hour in your chariot. I was exhausted when you put me in, but now, thanks to your kindness, I have rested. Recognizing in this farmer the incarnation of one of your ancestors, I can do nothing better to reward you for your kindness than by helping him in his misfortune.
The brahmin looked in surprise at the monk.
“You say that this farmer is the incarnation of one of my ancestors; this cannot be.
“I know,” replied the monk, “that you do not know the complex and significant connections that connect you with the fate of this farmer. But a blind man cannot be expected to see, and therefore I am sorry that you harm yourself, and I will try to protect you from the wounds that you are about to inflict on yourself.
The rich merchant was not accustomed to being reproached; sensing that the monk's words, although spoken with great kindness, contained a caustic reproach, he ordered his servant to go on at once.
The monk greeted Devala the farmer and began to help him mend his cart and pick up the spilled rice. Things moved quickly, and Devala thought, “This monk must be a holy man, as if he were being assisted by invisible spirits. I will ask him what I have done to deserve the cruel treatment of me by a proud Brahmin.
And he said:
- Revered sir! Can you tell me why I suffered injustice from a man to whom I never did anything wrong?
Monk said:
“My dear friend, you did not suffer injustice, but only suffered in your present existence what you did to this Brahmin in a previous life. And I will not be mistaken in saying that even now you would do to a Brahmin the same thing that he did to you if you were in his place and had such a strong servant.
The farmer confessed that, if he had the power, he would not repent, having dealt with another person who blocked his path, just as the Brahmin had dealt with him.
The rice was put into the cart, and the monk and the farmer were already approaching Benares, when the horse suddenly shied away.
- Snake, snake! exclaimed the farmer.
But the monk, looking intently at the object that frightened the horse, jumped off the cart and saw that it was a purse full of gold. “No one but a rich jeweler could lose this purse,” he thought, and taking the purse, he handed it to the farmer, saying:
- Take this purse and when you are in Benares, drive up to the hotel that I will indicate to you, ask for Brahmin Pandu and give the purse. He will apologize to you for the rudeness of his act, but you tell him that you have forgiven him and wish him success in all his undertakings, because, believe me, the more he succeeds, the better it will be for you. Your fate largely depends on his fate. If Pandu asked you for an explanation, then send him to the monastery, where he will always find me ready to help him with advice, if he needs advice.
Pandu meanwhile arrived in Benares and met Malmeka, his trading friend, a wealthy banker.
“I am dead,” said Malmeka, “and I cannot do anything unless I buy a cartload of the best rice for the royal kitchen today.” There is my enemy banker in Benares, who, having learned that I had made a condition with the royal butler that I would deliver a load of rice to him this morning, wishing to destroy me, bought up all the rice in Benares. The royal butler will not release me from the condition, and tomorrow I am lost if Krishna does not send me an angel from heaven.
While Malmeka complained about his misfortune, Pandu missed his purse. Having searched his chariot and not finding him, he suspected his slave Magaduta and called the policemen, accused him and, ordering him to be tied, severely tortured him in order to force a confession from him. The slave cried out in pain:
- I'm innocent, let me go! I can't bear these torments! I am completely innocent of this crime and suffer for the sins of others! Oh, that I could beg forgiveness from that farmer, whom I did wrong for the sake of my master! These torments, it is true, serve as a punishment for my cruelty.
While the police were still beating the slave, the farmer drove up to the hotel and, to the great surprise of everyone, handed over the purse. The slave was immediately released from the hands of his tormentors, but, being dissatisfied with his master, he ran away from him and joined a gang of robbers who lived in the mountains. When Malmeka heard that the farmer could sell himself better rice fit for the royal table, he immediately bought the whole cart for a triple price, and Pandu, rejoicing in his heart at the return of the money, immediately hurried to the monastery to receive from the monk the explanations that he had promised him.
Narada said:
“I could give you an explanation, but knowing that you are incapable of understanding spiritual truth, I prefer silence. However, I will give you general advice: Treat every person you meet as you would treat yourself, serve him as you wish to be served. In this way you will sow the seed of good deeds, and the rich harvest of them will not pass you by.
- Oh, monk! give me an explanation,” said Pandu, and it will be easier for me to follow your advice.
And the monk said:
- Listen, I will give you the key to the secret: if you do not understand it, believe what I tell you. To regard oneself as a separate being is a deceit, and he who directs his mind to do the will of this separate being is following false advice that will lead him into the abyss of sin. That we think of ourselves as separate beings is because the veil of Maya blinds our eyes and prevents us from seeing. inseparable bond with our neighbors, prevents us from tracing our unity with the souls of other beings. Few know this truth. Let the following words be your talisman:
“He who harms others does harm to himself. He who helps others does good to himself. Stop considering yourself a separate being - and you will enter the path of Truth. To one whose vision is clouded by the veil of Maya, the whole world appears to be cut into innumerable personalities. And such a person cannot understand the meaning of all-encompassing love for all living things.”
Pandu replied:
“Your words, venerable sir, have deep meaning, and I will remember them. I did a small good, which cost me nothing, for a poor monk during my trip to Benares, and this is how beneficial the results were. I owe you a great deal, because without you I would not only have lost my purse, but I would not have been able to do in Benares those trades that greatly increased my fortune. In addition, your solicitude and the arrival of the rice-load contributed to the well-being of my friend Malmeka. If all people knew the truth of your rules, how much better our world would be, how the evil in it would decrease and the general well-being would rise! I would like the Truth of the Buddha to be understood by everyone, and therefore I want to establish a monastery in my homeland, Kolshambi, and I invite you to visit me so that I can dedicate this place for the brotherhood of the disciples of the Buddha.
Years passed, and the Kolshambi monastery founded by Pandu became a meeting place for wise monks and became known as a center of enlightenment for the people.
At this time, the neighboring king, having heard of the beauty of the precious ornaments prepared by Pandu, sent his treasurer to him to order a crown of pure gold, adorned with the most precious stones of India.
When Pandu finished this work, he went to the king's capital and, hoping to do business there, took with him a large store of gold. The caravan carrying his jewels was guarded by armed people, but when he reached the mountains, the robbers, with Magaduta, who became their chieftain, at the head, attacked him, beat the guards and captured everything. gems and gold. Pandu himself barely escaped. This misfortune was a great blow to the well-being of Pandu: his wealth was significantly reduced.
Pandu was very distressed, but bore his personal misfortunes without grumbling; he thought, “I deserved this loss by the sins I committed in my past life. I was cruel to the people in my youth; and if I am now reaping the fruits of my evil deeds, then I must not complain.”
Since he became much kinder to all beings, his misfortunes only served to purify his heart.
Years passed again, and it happened that Pantaka, a young monk and disciple of Narada, while traveling in the mountains of Kolshambi, fell into the hands of robbers. Since he did not have any property, the ataman of the robbers beat him hard and let him go.
The next morning, Pantaka, walking through the forest, heard the noise of the battle and, having come to this noise, he saw many robbers who furiously attacked their ataman Magaduta.
Magaduta, like a lion surrounded by dogs, fought them off and killed many of the attackers. But his enemies were too many, and in the end he was defeated and fell to the ground dead, covered with wounds.
As soon as the robbers left, the young monk approached those who were lying, wanting to help the wounded. But all the robbers were already dead, only a little life remained in their leader. The monk immediately went to a stream that ran not far away, brought fresh water in his jug and served it to the dying man.
Magaduta opened his eyes and, gritting his teeth, said:
“Where are these ungrateful dogs that I have led so many times to victory and success?” Without me, they will soon die like jackals hunted down by a hunter.
“Do not think about your comrades and participants in your sinful life,” Pantaka said, “but think about your soul and take advantage of the opportunity of salvation that is presented to you in the last hour. Here is water for you to drink, let me bandage your wounds. Maybe I can save your life.
- It is useless, - answered Magaduta, - I am sentenced; the villains mortally wounded me. Ungrateful scoundrels! They hit me with the punches I taught them.
“You reap what you sow,” the monk continued. - If you taught your comrades deeds of good, you would receive good deeds from them. But you taught them to kill, and therefore you are killed by their hand through your deeds.
“Your truth,” answered the ataman of the robbers, “I deserved my fate, but how heavy is my lot because I must reap the fruit of all my bad deeds in future existences. Teach me, holy father, what can I do to ease my life from the sins that weigh on me like a rock piled on my chest.
And Pantaka said:
- Eradicate your sinful desires, destroy evil passions and fill your soul with kindness to all beings.
Ataman said:
“I did a lot of evil and did no good. How can I extricate myself from this web of grief that I have tied from the evil desires of my heart? My karma will take me to Hell, I will never be able to enter the path of salvation.
And the monk said:
– Yes, your karma will reap in future incarnations the fruits of those seeds that you have sown. For the doer of evil deeds, there is no escape from the consequences of his evil deeds. But do not despair: every person can be saved, but only on the condition that he uproot the delusion of personality from himself. As an example of this, I will tell you the story of the great robber Kandata, who died unrepentant and was reborn as a devil in Hell, where he suffered the most terrible sufferings for his evil deeds. He had already been in Hell for many years and could not get rid of his plight when the Buddha appeared on earth and achieved the blissful state of enlightenment. At this memorable time, a ray of light also fell into Hell, arousing life and hope in all the demons, and the robber Kandata loudly shouted: “O blessed Buddha, have pity on me! I suffer terribly; and though I have done evil, I now desire to walk in the path of righteousness. But I can't get out of the web of grief; help me, Lord, have pity on me!" The law of karma is such that evil deeds lead to death.
When the Buddha heard the request of a demon suffering in Hell, he sent a spider on a web to him, and the spider said: "Grab hold of my web and crawl out of Hell on it." When the spider disappeared from view, Kandata grabbed the web and began to climb out of it. The web was so strong that it did not break, and he climbed higher and higher along it.
Suddenly he felt that the thread began to tremble and oscillate, because other sufferers began to climb along the web behind him. Kandata was frightened; he saw the thinness of the web and saw that it was stretching from the increased weight. But the web still held him. Before that, Kandata looked only up, but now he looked down and saw that a countless crowd of inhabitants of Hell was climbing along the web behind him. “How can this thin thread bear the weight of all these people,” he thought, and, frightened, shouted loudly: “Let go of the web, it is mine!” And suddenly the web broke, and Kandata fell back into Hell. The delusion of personality still lived in Kandata. He did not know the miraculous power of sincere striving upward in order to embark on the path of righteousness. This aspiration is as thin as a web, but it will lift millions of people, and the more people climb the web, the easier it will be for each of them. But as soon as the thought arises in the heart of a person that this web is mine, that the goodness of righteousness belongs to me alone and that no one should share it with me, then the thread breaks, and you fall back into your former state of separate personality; individuality is a curse, and unity is a blessing. What is Hell? Hell is nothing but selfishness, and nirvana is a common life...
“Let me grab onto the web,” said the dying ataman of the Magadut robbers, when the monk finished his story, “and I will get out of the abyss of Hell.”
Magaduta spent several minutes in silence, collecting his thoughts, then he continued:
- Listen to me, I confess to you. I was a servant of Pandu, a goldsmith from Kolshambi. But after he had unjustly tortured me, I ran away from him and became chieftain of the robbers. Some time ago, I learned from my scouts that he was passing through the mountains, and I robbed him, took from him most of his fortune. Go now to him and tell him that I have forgiven him from the bottom of my heart for the insult he unjustly inflicted on me, and I ask him to forgive me for having robbed him. When I lived with him, his heart was hard as a stone, and I learned selfishness from him. I have heard that he has now become good-natured, and that he is pointed to as a model of kindness and justice. I don't want to be indebted to him; so tell him that I have kept the golden crown he made for the king and all his treasures and hidden them in the dungeon. Only two robbers knew this place, and now they are both dead; let Pandu take armed men with him and come to this place and take back the property of which I have deprived him.
After that, Magaduta told where the dungeon was, and died in the arms of Pantaka.
As soon as the young monk Pantaka returned to Kolshambi, he went to the jeweler and told him all that had happened in the forest.
And Pandu went with armed men to the dungeon, and took from it all the treasures that the chieftain had hidden in it. And they buried the ataman and his slain comrades with honor, and Pantaka over the grave, talking about the words of the Buddha, said the following:
“The personality does evil, and the personality suffers from it. The personality abstains from evil, and the personality is purified. Purity and impurity belong to the individual: no one can purify another. The man himself must make the effort; Buddhas are only preachers."
“Our karma,” said the monk Pantaka, “is not the product of Shivara, or Brahma, or Indra, or any of the gods, our karma is the consequence of our actions.
My activity is the womb that bears me, is the inheritance that comes to me, is the curse of my evil deeds and the blessing of my righteousness. My activity is the only means of my salvation.”
Pandu brought back all his treasures to Kolshambi, and, using his so unexpectedly returned wealth with moderation, he lived the rest of his life calmly and happily, and when he died, already in old age, and all his sons, daughters and grandsons gathered around him, he said to them:
“Dear children, do not judge others for your failures. Look for the causes of your troubles in yourself. And if you are not blinded by vanity, you will find it, and if you find it, you will be able to get rid of evil. The cure for your troubles is in yourself. May your mental gaze never be covered with Maya... Remember those words that were the talisman of my life:
“He who hurts another hurts himself. He who helps another, helps himself. Let the deception of personality disappear and you will enter the path of righteousness.
Penitent
A man lived in the world for 70 years, and he lived his whole life in sins. And this man fell ill, and did not repent. And when death came, at the last hour he wept and said: “Lord! like a thief on the cross, forgive me!” I just managed to say - the soul came out. And the soul of the sinner God loved, and believed in His mercy, and came to the doors of paradise. And the sinner began to knock and ask for the kingdom of heaven. And he heard a voice from behind the door:
What kind of person knocks on the doors of heaven? And what deeds did this man do in his life?
- Sinners cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Get out of here.
- I am Peter the Apostle.
And the sinner said:
– Have pity on me, Peter the Apostle, remember the weakness of man and the mercy of God. Were you not a disciple of Christ, were you not from His very mouth heard His teaching and saw the example of His life? And remember when He yearned and grieved in soul and three times asked you not to sleep, but to pray. And you were sleeping, because your eyes were heavy, and three times He found you sleeping. So do I. And remember also how you promised Himself not to deny Him until death, and how you denied Him three times when they led Him to Caiaphas. So do I. And remember also how the rooster crowed and you went out and wept bitterly. So do I. You can't let me in.
– Who is this person? And how did he live in the world?
- Get out of here: such sinners cannot live with us together in paradise.
“I am King and Prophet David.
And the sinner did not despair, did not depart from the door of paradise and began to say:
- Have pity on me, King David, and remember the weakness of man and the mercy of God. God loved you and exalted you before people. You had everything: the kingdom, and glory, and wealth, and wives, and children, and you saw from the roof the wife of a poor man, and sin entered into you, and you took the wife of Uriah, and killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. You, the rich man, took the last sheep from the poor and ruined him. I did the same. And then remember how you repented and said: "I acknowledge my guilt and repent of my sin." So do I. You can't let me in.
– Who is this person? And how did he live in the world?
- Get out of here: sinners cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
– I am John the Theologian, beloved disciple of Christ.
And the sinner rejoiced and said:
"Now you can't let me in!" Peter and David will let me in because they know the weakness of man and the mercy of God. And you let me in because you have a lot of love. Didn't you, John the Theologian, write in your book that God is love, and that whoever does not love does not know God? Didn't you say one word to people in old age: "Brothers, love one another!" How can you now hate and drive me away? Either renounce what you yourself said, or love me and let me into the kingdom of heaven.
And the gates of paradise were opened, and John embraced the penitent sinner and let him into the kingdom of heaven.
Lost pearl
A man dropped an expensive pearl into the sea and, in order to get it, began to draw water with a ladle. The sea spirit came out and asked:
Will you stop soon?
The man said:
“When I have dredged the sea and got the pearl.”
Then the sea spirit brought him a pearl.
Equal Inheritance
One merchant had two sons. The eldest was his father's favorite, and his father wanted to give him all his inheritance. The mother felt sorry for the younger son and asked her husband not to announce to the sons until the time they were divided: she wanted to somehow equalize the two sons. The merchant listened to her and did not announce his decision.
Once the mother sat at the window and wept; a stranger came up to the window and asked what she was crying about? She said:
- How can I not cry: both sons are equal to me, and the father wants to give everything to one son, and nothing to the other. I asked my husband not to announce my decision to my sons until I figured out how to help the smaller one. But I don't have any money of my own, and I don't know how to help my grief.
The Stranger said:
- Your grief is easy to help; go and announce to your sons that the elder will get all the wealth, and the younger nothing; and they will be equal.
The younger son, as he found out that he would have nothing, went to foreign countries and learned skills and sciences, and the older one lived with his father and did not study anything, because he knew that he would be rich.
When his father died, the elder did not know how to do anything, lived out all his estate, and the younger learned to make money on a foreign side and became rich.
Destroying hell and restoring it
It was at a time when Christ revealed his teaching to people.
This teaching was so clear and following it so easily and so obviously delivered people from evil that it was impossible not to accept it, and nothing could stop its spread throughout the world. And Beelzebub, the father and master of all devils, was alarmed. He clearly saw that his power over people would end forever, unless Christ renounced his preaching. He was alarmed, but did not lose heart, and incited the Pharisees and scribes who were obedient to him to offend and torment Christ as much as possible, and advised Christ's disciples to flee and leave him alone. He hoped that the sentence to a shameful execution, reproach, abandonment by all his disciples, and, finally, the very suffering and execution would make Christ renounce his teaching at the last minute. And renunciation will destroy all the power of the teaching.
The matter was decided on the cross. And when Christ exclaimed: “My God, my God, why did you leave me,” Beelzebub rejoiced. He seized the fetters prepared for Christ and, putting them on his feet, adjusted them so that they could not be broken when they were put on Christ.
But suddenly the words were heard from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” and after that Christ proclaimed: “It is finished!”, and expired.
Beelzebub realized that everything was lost for him. He wanted to remove the chains from his legs and run, but he could not move. The fetters boiled over him and held his legs. He wanted to rise on his wings, but he could not spread them. And Beelzebub saw how Christ in a bright radiance stopped at the gates of hell, saw how sinners from Adam to Judas came out of hell, saw how all the devils fled, saw how the very walls of hell silently disintegrated into all four sides. He could no longer endure this and, with a piercing squeal, fell through the cracked floor of hell into the underworld.
It's been 100 years, 200, 300 years.
Beelzebub did not count the time. He lay motionless in black darkness and dead silence and tried not to think about what had happened, and yet he thought and powerlessly hated the culprit of his death.
But suddenly - he did not remember and did not know how many hundreds of years had passed since then - he heard sounds above him, similar to the stamping of feet, groans, screams, gnashing of teeth. Beelzebub raised his head and began to listen.
That hell could be restored after the victory of Christ, Beelzebub could not believe, but meanwhile the clatter, groans, screams and gnashing of teeth became clearer and clearer.
Beelzebub raised his torso, picked up his shaggy legs with overgrown hooves under him (the shackles, to his surprise, jumped off them themselves) and, fluttering his freely opened wings, whistled with that invocative whistle with which he called his servants and assistants to him in former times.
Before he could catch his breath, a hole opened up above his head, a flash of red fire and a crowd of devils, crushing each other, poured out of the hole into the underworld and, like ravens around carrion, sat around Beelzebub.
The devils were big and small, both fat and thin, and long and short tails, and with sharp, straight and crooked horns.
One of the devils, in a cloak thrown over his shoulders, all naked and glossy black, with a round, beardless, beardless face and a huge sagging belly, squatted in front of Beelzebub's very face and, now rolling, then again rolling out his fiery eyes, did not stop smiling , evenly from side to side waving a long, thin tail.
What does this noise mean? asked Beelzebub, pointing up. – What is there?
“Everything is the same as it has always been,” answered the glossy devil in a cape.
- Are there sinners? asked Beelzebub.
“A lot,” answered the glossy one.
“But what about the teachings of someone I don’t want to name?” Beelzebub asked.
The devil in the cloak grinned so that his sharp teeth were revealed, and restrained laughter was heard among all the devils.
– This teaching does not interfere with us. They don't believe in him, said the cloaked devil.
“But this teaching obviously saves them from us, and he testified to it with his death,” Beelzebub said.
“I remade it,” said the cloaked devil, quickly flicking his tail across the floor.
- How did you change it?
“He altered it so that people believe not in his teaching, but in mine, which they call by his name.
- How did you do that? Beelzebub asked.
- It happened by itself. I only helped.
“Tell me briefly,” said Beelzebub.
The devil in the cloak, lowering his head, paused, as if thinking, slowly, and then began to tell:
“When that terrible thing happened that hell was destroyed and our father and ruler left us,” he said, “I went to those places where the very doctrine was preached, which almost destroyed us. I wanted to see how people who perform it live. And I saw that people who lived according to this teaching were completely happy and inaccessible to us. They did not get angry with each other, did not indulge in female charms, and either did not marry, or, having married, had one wife, did not have property, they considered everything a common property, did not defend themselves by force from attackers and paid good for evil. And their life was so good that other people were more and more attracted to them. Seeing this, I thought that everything was lost, and I wanted to leave already. But then a circumstance happened, in itself insignificant, but it seemed to me worthy of attention, and I stayed. What happened among these people was that some believed that everyone should be circumcised and that it was not necessary to eat anything offered to idols, while others believed that this was not necessary and that it was possible not to be circumcised and eat everything. And I began to inspire both of them that this disagreement is very important and that neither one nor the other side should in any way yield, since the matter concerns the service of God. And they believed me, and the controversy became fierce. Both of them began to get angry with each other, and then I began to inspire both of them that they could prove the truth of their teaching by miracles. No matter how obvious it was that miracles could not prove the truth of the doctrine, they wanted to be right so much that they believed me, and I arranged miracles for them. It was not difficult to arrange it. They believed everything, which confirmed their desire to be one in truth.
Some said that fiery tongues descended on them, others said that they saw the dead teacher himself and much more. They invented things that never happened, and they lied in the name of the one who called us liars, no worse than us, without noticing it themselves. Some said about others: your miracles are not real - ours are real, and they said about these: no, yours are not real, ours are real.
Things were going well, but I was afraid that they would see too obvious deception, and then I invented the church. And when they believed in the church, I calmed down: I understood that we were saved and hell was restored.
– What is a church? Beelzebub asked sternly, not wanting to believe that his servants were smarter than him.
- And the church is that when people lie and feel that they are not believed, they always, referring to God, say: by God, what I say is true. This, in fact, is the church, but only with the peculiarity that people who recognize themselves as the church are convinced that they can no longer be mistaken, and therefore, no matter how stupid they say, they can no longer renounce it. The church does this: people assure themselves and others that their teacher, God, in order to prevent the law revealed to them from being falsely reinterpreted, chose special people who alone they, or those to whom they transfer this power, can correctly interpret his teaching. So people who call themselves a church believe that they are in the truth, not because what they preach is the truth, but because they consider themselves the only legitimate successors of the disciples of the disciples of the disciples and, finally, the disciples of the teacher-God himself. Although there was the same inconvenience in this method as in miracles, namely, that people at the same time could each say to themselves that they were members of the one true church (which always happened), but the advantage of this method is that, as soon people said to themselves that they were a church, and on this statement they built their teaching, then they can no longer recant what they said, no matter how absurd it was said and no matter what other people said.
– But why did the churches reinterpret the teaching in our favor? Beelzebub asked.
“And they did this because,” continued the devil in a cape, “because, having recognized themselves as the only interpreters of the law of God and convincing others of this, these people became the highest deciders of the fate of people and therefore received the highest power over them. Having received this power, they naturally became proud and for the most part corrupted and thereby aroused the indignation and enmity of people against themselves. In order to fight their enemies, they, having no other weapon than violence, began to persecute, execute, burn all those who did not recognize their power. So, by their very position, they were forced to reinterpret the doctrine in such a way that it would justify both their bad life and the cruelties that they used against their enemies. They did just that.
“But the teaching was so simple and clear,” Beelzebub said, still not wanting to believe that his servants would do what he did not think to do, “that it was impossible to reinterpret it. "Do to others as you would like to be treated." How to reinterpret this?
- And for this they, on my advice, used various ways, said the devil in the cloak. - People have a fairy tale about how a good magician, saving a person from an evil one, turns him into a grain of millet, and how evil wizard, having turned into a rooster, was ready to peck at this grain, but the good wizard poured out a measure of grains on the grain. And the evil wizard could not eat all the grains and could not find the one he needed. They did the same, on my advice, with the teaching of the one who taught that the whole law is to do to another what you want to be done to you, they recognized 49 books as the sacred exposition of the law of God, and in these books they recognized every word the product of God, the Holy Spirit. They piled on a simple, understandable truth such a heap of imaginary sacred truths that it became impossible to accept them all, nor to find in them the one that people need alone. This is their first way. The second method, which they have used with success for more than a thousand years, is that they simply kill, burn all those who want to discover the truth. Now this method is already falling into disuse, but they do not abandon it, and although they no longer burn people who are trying to discover the truth, they slander them so much, they poison their life so much that only very few dare to denounce them. This is the second way. The third way is that, recognizing themselves as the Church, therefore, infallible, they directly teach, when they need it, the opposite of what is said in Scripture, leaving their students to extricate themselves from these contradictions as they want and know how. So, for example, it is said in Scripture: “You have one teacher, Christ, and do not call anyone on earth your father, for you have one father who is in heaven, and do not be called teachers, for you have one teacher - Christ,” and they say: "We are one fathers and we are one teachers of people." Or it is said: “If you want to pray, then pray alone in secret, and God will hear you,” and they teach that everyone should pray in churches together, to songs and music. Or it is said in the Scripture: “Do not swear in any way,” and they teach that everyone must swear unquestioning obedience to the authorities, no matter what these authorities demand. Or it is said: “Thou shalt not kill,” but they teach that one can and must kill in war and in court. Or it is also said: "My teaching is spirit and life, eat it like bread." And they teach that if you put pieces of bread in wine and say over these pieces famous words then bread becomes the body, and wine the blood, and that eating this bread and drinking this wine is very beneficial for the salvation of the soul. People believe in this and diligently eat this stew and then, when they get to us, they are very surprised that this stew did not help them, - the devil in a cape finished, rolled his eyes and grinned to his ears.
– This is very good, – Beelzebub said and smiled. And all the devils burst into loud laughter.
- Are you really fornicators, robbers, murderers in the old way? – already cheerfully asked Beelzebub.
The devils, also having fun, all of a sudden started talking, wanting to show themselves to Beelzebub.
“Not in the old way, but more than before,” one shouted.
"Fornicators don't fit in the old compartments," squealed another.
“The robbers of today are angrier than before,” a third shouted.
“Let's not prepare fuel for the killers,” a fourth roared.
Don't say all of a sudden. And let the one who I will ask answer. Whoever is in charge of fornication, come out and tell how you are doing it now with the disciples of the one who forbade changing wives and said that one should not look at a woman with lust. Who is in charge of fornication?
“I,” answered, crawling on his back closer to Beelzebub, an effeminate brown devil with a flabby face and a drooling, chewing mouth.
This devil crawled forward from a number of others, sat down on his haunches, bowed his head to one side and, sticking his tail with a tassel between his legs, began, waving it, in a singsong voice, saying this:
“We do this both according to the old method used by you, our father and master, who still in paradise and betrayed the entire human race into our power, and according to the new church method. According to the new church way, we do this: we assure people that real marriage does not consist in what it really consists in, in the union of a man with a woman, but in dressing up in the best dresses, going to a large, arranged for this building and there, putting on special hats prepared for this, to the sounds of different songs, go around the table three times. We inspire people that only this is a real marriage. And people, convinced of this, naturally consider that any connection between a man and a woman outside these conditions is a simple, non-binding pleasure or satisfaction of a hygienic need, and therefore, without hesitation, indulge in this pleasure.
The effeminate devil bowed his flabby head to the other side and was silent, as if waiting for the effect of his words on Beelzebub. Beelzebub nodded his head in approval, and the effeminate devil continued like this:
“In this way, without leaving at the same time the former method of the forbidden fruit and curiosity used in paradise,” he continued, obviously wanting to flatter Beelzebub, “we achieve the most best success. Imagining that they can arrange for themselves an honest church marriage even after union with many women, people change hundreds of wives and become so accustomed to debauchery that they do the same after a church marriage. If, for some reason, some of the requirements associated with this church marriage seem embarrassing to them, then they arrange it so that a second walk around the table is made, while the first is considered invalid.
The effeminate devil fell silent and, having wiped the drool that filled his mouth with the tip of his tail, tilted his head to the other side and silently stared at Beelzebub.
– Simple and good, – said Beelzebub. - I approve. Who is in charge of the robbers?
“I,” answered, speaking, a large devil with large crooked horns, with a mustache bent upwards, and huge, crookedly placed paws.
This devil, crawling out, like the previous ones, forward and straightening his mustache with both paws in a military manner, waited for the question.
“The one who destroyed hell,” said Beelzebub, “taught people to live like birds of the sky, and ordered to give the caftan to the one who asks and wants to take a shirt, and said that in order to be saved, one must give away the estate. How do you involve in the robbery people who heard it?
“And we do it,” said the devil with a mustache, majestically throwing his head back, “just like our father and ruler did when Saul was elected king.” Just as it was inspired then, we inspire people that instead of stopping them from robbing each other, it is more profitable for them to allow themselves to be robbed by one person, giving him full power over everything. What is new in our method is that in order to assert the right of robbery of this one person, we take this person to the temple, put on him a special hat, put him on a high chair, give him a stick and a ball in his hands, smear with vegetable oil and in the name of God and his son, we proclaim the person of this oil-anointed person as sacred. So the robbery carried out by this special person, who is considered sacred, can no longer be limited by anything. And sacred persons, and their assistants, and assistants of assistants - all without ceasing, calmly and safely rob the people. At the same time, such laws and procedures are usually established under which, even without anointing, an idle minority can always rob the working majority with impunity. So in recent times in some states, robbery continues without the anointed, just as it does where they are. As our father and master sees, in essence, the way we use is the old way. The only new thing about it is that we have made this method more general, more hidden, more widespread in space and time, and more durable.
We made this method more general by the fact that people previously obeyed of their own will to those whom they elected, but we made it so that now, completely independently of their desire, they obey not those whom they elect, but just anyone. We made this method more hidden by the fact that now those already robbed, thanks to the arrangement of special, indirect taxes, do not see their robbers. This method is more widespread in space in that the so-called Christian peoples, not content with plundering their own, plunder under various, the most strange pretexts, mainly under the pretext of spreading Christianity, and all those peoples alien to them who have something to rob. By the time new way this one is more widespread than before, thanks to the organization of loans, public and state: now not only living, but also future generations are robbed. We made this method more durable by the fact that the main robbers are considered sacred persons, and people do not dare to oppose them. It is only necessary for the main robber to have time to anoint himself with oil, and he can already calmly rob whom and how much he wants. So, at one time in Russia, for the sake of experience, I planted in the kingdom one after another the most vile women, stupid, illiterate and dissolute, and having, according to their own laws, no rights. The latter, not only a whore, but a criminal who killed her husband and legitimate heir. And people, just because she was anointed, did not tear out her nostrils and did not flog her with a whip, as they did with all the murderers of men, but for thirty years they slavishly submitted to her, leaving her and her countless lovers to rob not only their property, but also people's freedom. So in our time, open robberies, that is, the taking by force of a purse, a horse, clothes, make up hardly one millionth of all those legal robberies that are constantly committed by people who have the opportunity to do this. In our time, robberies unpunished, hidden, and in general a readiness for robbery has been established among people such that the main objective life of almost all people is a robbery, moderated only by the struggle of the robbers among themselves.
“Well, that’s good,” said Beelzebub. But the murders? Who is in charge of the killing?
- I, - answered, speaking out of the crowd, a red, blood-colored devil with fangs sticking out of his mouth, sharp horns and a thick, motionless tail raised upwards.
– How do you force the disciples to be murderers who said: “Do not repay evil for evil, love your enemies?” How do you make these people killers?
“We do it in the old way,” answered the red devil in a deafening, crackling voice, “by arousing self-interest, enthusiasm, hatred, revenge, pride in people. And in the same way, according to the old method, we inspire the teachers of people that the best remedy to wean people from killing is to have the teachers themselves publicly kill those who have killed. This method does not so much give us killers as prepares them for us. A greater number has given and is giving us a new teaching about the infallibility of the Church, about Christian marriage and about Christian equality. The doctrine of the infallibility of the church gave us in former times the largest number of murderers. People who recognized themselves as members of an infallible church believed that it was a crime to allow false interpreters of the doctrine to corrupt people, and that therefore the killing of such people was a deed pleasing to God. And they killed entire populations and executed, burned hundreds of thousands of people. At the same time, it is ridiculous that those who executed and burned people who were beginning to understand the true teaching, considered these most dangerous people for us to be our servants, that is, servants of the devils. Themselves who executed and burned at the stake, who really were our obedient servants, considered themselves holy executors of the will of God. So it was in the old days. In our time, a very large number of murderers gives us the teaching of Christian marriage and equality. The doctrine of marriage gives us, firstly, the murder of spouses by each other and by the mothers of children. Husbands and wives kill each other when some of the requirements of the law and custom of church marriage seem embarrassing to them. Mothers, on the other hand, kill children for the most part when the combinations from which the children originated are not recognized as marriage. Such killings are committed constantly and evenly. The murders, caused by the Christian doctrine of equality, are committed periodically, but when they are committed, they are committed in a very in large numbers. According to this teaching, people are inspired that they are all equal before the law. The people who have been robbed feel that this is not true. They see that this equality before the law consists only in the fact that it is convenient for robbers to continue to rob, but it is inconvenient for them to do this, and they are indignant and attack their robbers. And then mutual murders begin, which sometimes give us tens of thousands of murderers at once.
But killings in war? How do you bring to them the disciples of the one who recognized all people as sons of one father and commanded to love enemies?
The red devil bared his teeth, releasing a jet of fire and smoke from his mouth, and joyfully hit his back with his thick tail.
- We do this: we inspire every people that he, this people, is the best of all in the world. Deutschland uber alles (Germany is above all (German), France, England, Russia uber alles, and that this people (name) should rule over all other peoples. And since we instilled the same thing in all peoples, they constantly feeling in danger from their neighbors, they are always preparing for defense and embittered at each other.And the more one side prepares for defense and is angry at its neighbors for it, the more everyone else prepares for defense and becomes embittered at each other.So now all the people who have accepted the teachings of the one who called us murderers are all constantly and predominantly busy with preparations for murder and the murders themselves.
“Well, this is witty,” Beelzebub said after a short silence. - But how free from deceit learned people did not see that the church had perverted the doctrine, and did not restore it?
“They can’t do that,” said a matte-black devil in a robe, with a flat, sloping forehead, muscleless limbs and protruding large ears, crawling forward in a self-confident voice.
- Why? Beelzebub asked sternly, dissatisfied with the self-confident tone of the devil in the robe.
Not embarrassed by the cry of Beelzebub, the devil in a robe, without haste, calmly sat down not on his haunches, like the others, but in an oriental way, crossing his muscleless legs, and began to speak without hesitation, in a quiet, measured voice:
“They can't do it because I keep diverting their attention from what they can and what they need to know to what they don't need to know and what they will never know.
– How did you do it?
“I did and do it at different times,” answered the devil in the robe. - In the old days, I inspired people that the most important thing for them is to know the details about the relationship between the persons of the trinity, about the origin of Christ, about his nature, about the property of God, etc. And they reasoned a lot and at length, argued, argued, and angry. And these arguments so occupied them that they did not think at all about how they should live. And, not thinking about how to live, they did not need to know what their teacher told them about life.
Then, when they were already so confused in these arguments that they themselves ceased to understand what they were talking about, I inspired one that the most important thing for them is to study and explain everything that was written by a man named Aristotle, who lived thousands of years ago. in Greece; he inspired others that the most important thing for them was to find such a stone with which it would be possible to make gold, and such an elixir that would cure all diseases and make people immortal. And the smartest and most learned of them directed all their mental powers to this.
To those who were not interested in this, I suggested that the most important thing is to know: does the earth revolve around the sun, or does the sun revolve around the earth? And when they found out that the earth revolves, not the sun, and determined how many million miles from the sun to the earth, they were very happy and since then they have been studying the distances from the stars even more diligently, although they know that the end of these distances no and cannot be, and that the very number of stars is infinite, and that they do not need to know this at all. In addition, I also inspired them with the fact that it is very necessary and important for them to know how all animals, all worms, all plants, all infinitely small animals originated. And although they do not need to know this at all, and it is quite clear that it is impossible to find out, because there are as many animals as there are stars, they direct all their mental powers to these and similar studies of the phenomena of the material world and are very surprised. because the more they know what they don't need to know, the more they don't know. And although it is obvious that as they study, the area of \u200b\u200bwhat remains to be known becomes wider and wider, the subjects of research are more and more complex and the most knowledge they acquire is more and more inapplicable and inapplicable to life, this does not bother them at all, and they, quite confident in the importance of their studies, continue to research, preach, write and print, and translate from one language to another all their mostly worthless research and reasoning, and if occasionally good, then only for the amusement of a minority of the rich or for the worsening the situation of the majority of the poor.
In order that they would never guess that the only thing necessary for them is the establishment of the laws of life, which is indicated in the teachings of Christ, I inspire them that they cannot know the laws of spiritual life and that any religious teaching, including the teaching of Christ is a delusion and superstition, and what they can learn about how they should live, they can from the science I invented for them, called sociology, which consists in studying how badly former people lived in various ways. So instead of trying to live better, according to the teachings of Christ, they think that they only need to study the lives of former people, and what they will deduce from this study. general laws life, and that in order to live well, they will only have to conform in their lives to these laws invented by them.
In order to further strengthen them in deceit, I inspire them with something similar to the teaching of the church, namely, that there is a certain continuity of knowledge, which is called science, and that the statements of this science are just as infallible as the statements of the church.
And as soon as those who are considered scientists are convinced of their infallibility, they naturally proclaim for undoubted truths the most not only unnecessary, but also often absurd nonsense, which, once they have said them, they can no longer renounce.
That's why I say that as long as I inspire them with respect, servility to the science that I invented for them, they will never understand the teaching that almost destroyed us.
- Very well. Thank you,” said Beelzebub, and his face shone. “You are worthy of a reward, and I will give you a worthy reward.
“But you forgot us,” the rest of the motley, small, big, bow-legged, fat, thin devils shouted in several voices.
- What are you doing? Beelzebub asked.
“I am the devil of technical improvement.
I am the division of labor.
- I am the means of communication.
- I am a typographer.
- I am art.
- I am medicine.
I am culture.
- I am education.
“I am the corrections of people.
- I am intoxication.
- I am a charity.
- I am socialism.
“I am of feminism,” they all suddenly shouted, crowding forward in the face of Beelzebub.
“Speak separately and briefly,” shouted Beelzebub. “You,” he said to the devil of technical improvements. - What are you doing?
“I inspire people that the more things they do and the sooner they do them, the better it will be for them. And people, ruining their lives to produce things, do them more and more, despite the fact that these things are not needed by those who force them to do, and are inaccessible to those who do them.
- Good. Well, what about you? - Beelzebub turned to the devil of the division of labor.
“I inspire people that, since it is possible to do things with machines rather than people, then people must be turned into machines, and they do it, and people turned into machines hate those who did it to them.
- And this is good. You? - Beelzebub turned to the devil of the means of communication.
- I inspire people that for their good they need to move from place to place as soon as possible. And people, instead of improving their lives for everyone in their places, spend most of it moving from place to place and are very proud that they can travel fifty miles or more in an hour.
Beelzebub praised this one too.
The devil of typography spoke. His business, as he explained, was to more people to report all those nasty and stupid things that are done and written in the world.
The devil of art explained that he, under the guise of consolation and excitation of lofty feelings in people, indulges their vices, depicting them in an attractive way.
The devil of medicine explained that their business was to inspire people that the most necessary thing for them was to take care of their bodies. And since taking care of your body has no end, people who take care of their body with the help of medicine not only forget about the lives of other people, but also about their own.
The devil of culture explained that he inspires people that the use of all those affairs that are in charge of the devils of technical improvements, division, labor, communications, printing, art, medicine, is something like a virtue and that a person who uses all this can be completely satisfied yourself and not try to be better.
The devil of education explained that he inspires people that they can, living badly and not even knowing what a good life consists of, teach children a good life.
The Devil of Correcting People explained that he teaches people that, being vicious themselves, they can correct vicious people.
The devil of intoxication said that he teaches people that instead of getting rid of the suffering produced by a bad life, trying to live better, it is better for them to forget themselves under the influence of intoxication with wine, tobacco, opium, morphine.
The Devil of Charity said that by suggesting to people that by plundering by the pood and giving to the robbed of gold they are virtuous and do not need improvement, he makes them inaccessible to goodness.
The devil of socialism boasted that in the name of the highest social structure life of people, he excites the enmity of the classes.
The devil of feminism boasted that, in order to improve the structure of life, he, in addition to the enmity of classes, also excites enmity between the sexes.
- I am comfort, I am fashion! - shouted and squeaked other devils, crawling up to Beelzebub.
“Do you really think that I am so old and stupid that I don’t understand that, as soon as the doctrine of life is false, then everything that could be harmful to us, everything becomes useful to us,” shouted Beelzebub and laughed out loud. - Enough. Thank you all.
And, flapping his wings, he sprang to his feet. The devils surrounded Beelzebub. At one end of the grappled devils was a devil in a cape - the inventor of the church, at the other end - a devil in a robe, the inventor of science. These devils gave each other their paws, and the circle was closed. And all the devils, laughing, squealing and whistling, began, waving and waving their tails, spinning and dancing around Beelzebub. Beelzebub, spreading his wings and fluttering them, danced in the middle, lifting his legs high. Above, there were screams, weeping, groans and gnashing of teeth.
The father gave his son an estate, bread, cattle and said:
- Live as I do, and you will always be fine.
The son took everything from his father, left his father and began to live for his own pleasure. “My father told me to live like him. He lives and rejoices, and I will live like that.”
He lived like this for a year, two, ten, twenty years, and lived through all his father's estate, and he had nothing left. And he began to ask his father to give him more, but his father did not listen to him. Then he began to coax his father and give his father what he had the best, and ask him. But his father did not answer him. Then the son began to ask for forgiveness from his father, thinking that he had offended his father, and again asked for more, but the father did not say anything.
And then the son began to curse his father. He said:
“If you don’t give now, why did you give and clothe me before, and promised that I would always live well.” All my former joys, when I lived on the estate, are not worth one hour of present torment. I see that I am dying, and there is no salvation. And who is to blame? - You. You knew that I would not have enough property, but you did not give me more. You only told me: live like me, and you will be fine. I lived like you. You lived for your pleasure, and I lived for my pleasure. You left more for yourself. You still have it, but I didn't. You are not a father, but a deceiver and a villain. Cursed is my life, damned are you, the villain, the tormentor, I don’t want to know and I hate you.
The father gave the estate to the second son and said only:
- Live like me, and you will always be fine.
The second son was not so happy with the estate as the first. He thought he should. But he knew what had happened to his older brother, and therefore he began to think about how not to live the whole estate in the same way as the first. He understood one thing, that the older brother misunderstood the words “live like me,” and that one should not live only for one's own pleasure. And he began to think what it means: "Live like me." And he came up with the idea that it was necessary, like his father, to start all the estate that was given to him. And he began to start again the same estate as the one that his father had given him.
And he began to figure out how to do again everything that his father had given him. And he began to ask his father how to do what, but his father did not answer him. But the son thought that his father was afraid to tell him, and began to sort through all his father's things in order to understand from them how everything was done. And he spoiled and ruined everything that he received from his father, and everything that he made new, all this was not good. But he did not want to admit that he spoiled everything, and he lived and suffered, and told everyone that his father did not give him anything, but he did everything himself. “And we all ourselves can do everything better and better, and we will soon reach such a point that everything will be fine.” So spoke the second son, while he still had something of his father, but when he broke the last and he had nothing to live on, he laid hands on himself and killed himself.
The father gave the same estate to the third son, and also said:
- Live the way I do, and you will always be fine.
And the third son, just like the first and second, was delighted with the estate and left his father. But he knew what happened to the older brothers, and began to think about what it means: "Live the way I do, and you will always be fine."
The elder brother thought that to live like his father meant to live for his own pleasure, and he lived everything and disappeared. The second brother thought that to live like his father meant to do everything that his father had done, and he also despaired. What does it mean: "Live like a father"?
And he began to remember everything he knew about his father. And no matter how much he thought, he did not know anything else about his father, except that before there was nothing, and he himself did not exist; and that his father gave birth, made him drink, nourished him, taught him and gave him all good things, and said; live the way I do, and you will always be fine. The father did the same with his brothers. And no matter how much he thought, he could not find out anything more about his father. All he knew about his father was only that his father did good to him and his brothers.
And then he understood what the words mean: "Live as I do." He realized that to live like a father means to do what he does, to do good to people.
And when he thought this, his father was already beside him and said:
“Here we are together again, and you will always be fine.” Go to your brothers, to all my children, and tell them what it means to “live like me,” and that it is true that those who live like me will always be fine.
And the third son went and told everything to his brothers, and since then all the children, when they received property from their father, rejoiced not because they had a lot of property, but because they could live like their father, and that they would be always good.
The Father is God; sons are people; property is life. People think they can live alone, without God. Some of these people think that life was given to them in order to enjoy this life. They have fun and squander life, but when the time comes to die, they don’t understand why such a life was given, the fun of which ends in suffering and death. And these people die, cursing God and calling him evil, and separated from God. This is the first son.
Other people think that life was given to them in order to understand how it is made, and to make it better than the one that was given to them from God. And they fight to make another better life. But they, improving this life, destroy it, and by this they themselves deprive themselves of life.
Still others say: “All that we know about God is that he gives people good, tells them to do the same as he does, and therefore we will do the same as he, the good of people.”
And as soon as they begin to do this, God himself comes to them and says: “This is what I wanted. Do with me together what I do, and as I live, so you will live.
Thousand Gold
The rich man wanted to give 1,000 gold to the poor, but did not know which poor to give this money to. He came to the priest and said:
– I want to give 1000 gold to the poor, but I don’t know who to give. Take the money and give it to whoever you know.
The priest said:
- The money is big, I also don’t know who to give it to: maybe I will give one a lot, and the other a little. Tell me, how poor and how much to give your money?
Rich said:
- If you do not know to whom to give money, then God knows: whoever comes to you first, give the money to him.
A poor man lived in the same parish. He had many children, and he himself was sick and could not work. The poor man once read the psalter and read these words: I was young and old and did not see the righteous left one and his children asking for bread.
The poor man thought: “I have been abandoned by God! And I didn't do anything wrong. Let me go to the priest, I'll ask him how the untruth is said in the Scripture.
He went to the priest. The priest saw him and said:
“This poor man came to me first,” and gave him all the rich man’s 1,000 gold coins.
the miserable situation in which the meadow was, and who found in the owner’s forgotten prescriptions the rule not to mow weed grass, but to uproot it, this man happened to remind the owners of the meadow that they acted unreasonably and that unreasonableness is already It has long been indicated by a kind and wise host.
And what? Instead of checking the justice of this man’s reminder and, in case of his fidelity, stop mowing the weeds, or in case of his infidelity, to prove to him the injustice of his reminder, or to recognize the prescriptions of a kind and wise owner as unfounded and optional for themselves, the owners of the meadow did neither one nor the other, not a third, but they were offended at the reminder of that person and began to scold him. They called him an insane proud man who imagined that he alone of all understood the owner’s instructions, others a malicious false interpreter and slanderer, still others, forgetting that he did not speak his own, but only resembled the instructions of a wise owner revered by all, called him a malicious person, wishing to breed bad grass and deprive people of their meadows. “He says that we don’t need to mow the grass, and if we don’t destroy the grass,” they said, deliberately keeping silent about the fact that the man did not say that weeds should not be destroyed, but that we should not mow, and if you pluck it, the weeds will grow and completely destroy our meadow. And why then was the meadow given to us, if we must cultivate weeds in it? And the opinion that this man is either a madman, or a false interpreter, or aims at harming people, was so firmly established that everyone scolded him and everyone laughed at him. And no matter how much this man explained that he not only did not want to plant weeds, but, on the contrary, believed that one of the main occupations of the farmer consisted in the destruction of bad grass, as the kind and wise owner understood this, whose words he only recalls, - no matter how much he said this, they didn’t listen to him, because it was finally decided that this man was either an insane proud man who misinterpreted the words of a wise and kind owner, or a villain who called people not to destroy weeds, but to protect and return them.
The same thing happened to me when I pointed to the injunction of the gospel doctrine of non-resistance to evil.
violence. This rule was preached by Christ and after him at all times and by all his true disciples. But whether because they did not notice this rule, or because they did not understand it, or because the execution of this rule seemed too difficult for them, the further time passed, the more this rule was forgotten, the more and more the warehouse was removed. life of people from this rule, and finally things have come to what it has come to now - to the point that this rule has already begun to seem to people something new, unheard of, strange and even insane. And the same thing happened to me that happened to that person who pointed out to people the long-standing prescription of a kind and wise owner that weeds should not be mowed, but should be uprooted.
As the owners of the meadow, deliberately keeping silent about the fact that the advice was not not to destroy the bad grass, but to destroy it in a reasonable way, they said: let's not listen to this man - he is a madman, he orders not to mow the bad grasses, but he orders them to be bred, - so to my words that, in order to destroy evil, according to the teachings of Christ, it is necessary not to resist it with violence, but to destroy it with love at the root, they said: we will not listen to him, he is a fool: he advises not resist evil, so that evil crushes us.
I said that according to the teachings of Christ, evil cannot be eradicated by evil, that any resistance to evil by violence only increases evil, that according to the teachings of Christ, evil is eradicated by good: “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who offend you, do good to those who hate you, love your enemies, and you will have no enemy." I said that according to the teachings of Christ, the whole life of a person is a struggle against evil, resistance to evil with reason and love, but that of all the means of resisting evil, Christ excludes one unreasonable means of resisting evil with violence, which consists in fighting evil with evil itself.
And these words of mine were understood in such a way that I say that Christ taught that one should not resist evil. And all those whose lives are built on violence, and who therefore value violence, willingly accepted such a reinterpretation of my words, and with it the words of Christ, and it was recognized that
1 Teaching of the XII Apostles. (Note by L. N. Tolstoy.)
the doctrine of non-resistance to evil is a false, absurd, godless and pernicious doctrine. And people calmly continue to produce and increase evil under the guise of destroying evil.
SECOND PARABLE
People traded flour, butter, milk and all sorts of food supplies. And one before the other, wanting to get more profits and get rich as soon as possible, these people began to mix more and more various cheap and harmful impurities into their goods: bran and lime were poured into flour, margarine was put into butter, water and chalk into milk. And as long as these goods did not reach consumers, everything went well: wholesalers sold to retailers and retailers sold to petty ones.
There were many barns, shops, and trade seemed to be going very well. And the merchants were happy. But urban consumers, those who did not produce their own food and therefore had to buy it, were very unpleasant and harmful.
The flour was bad, the butter and milk were bad, but since there were no other goods in the markets in the cities, except for mixed goods, the city consumers continued to take these goods and blamed themselves and bad cooking for their bad taste and their ill health, and merchants continued to mix foreign cheap substances in more and more quantities with food supplies.
This went on for quite some time; the townspeople all suffered, and no one dared to express their displeasure.
And it happened to one housewife, who always ate and fed her family with household supplies, to come to the city. This hostess had been cooking all her life, and although she was not a famous cook, she knew how to bake bread and cook tasty dinners well.
This mistress bought in the city of supplies and began to bake and cook. The bread was not baked, but fell apart. Margarine butter cakes were tasteless. The hostess put milk, the cream was not infused. The hostess immediately guessed that the supplies were not good. She examined them and
her guess was confirmed: in flour she found lime, in butter - margarine, in milk - chalk. Seeing that all the supplies were false, the hostess went to the market and began to loudly denounce the merchants and demand from them either that they keep good, nutritious, unspoiled goods in their shops, or that they stop trading and close their shops. But the merchants did not pay any attention to the hostess and told her that their goods were first class, that the whole city had been buying from them for many years and that they even had medals, and showed her the medals on the signboards. But the hostess did not give up.
I don’t need a medal, she said, but healthy food, such that my stomach and my children don’t get sick from it.
It’s true, mother, you haven’t seen real flour and oil, ”the merchants told her, pointing to white-looking, pure flour, poured into lacquered bins, to a yellow similarity of butter lying in beautiful cups, and to a white liquid in shiny transparent vessels.
It’s impossible for me not to know,” the hostess answered, “because all my life I have done nothing but cook and eat with the children myself. Your goods are damaged. Here is proof for you,” she said, pointing to spoiled bread, margarine in tortillas and sludge in milk. - Your goods must all be thrown into the river or burned and good ones should be brought in instead! - And the hostess, without ceasing, standing in front of the shops, shouted all the same to the approaching buyers, and the buyers began to be embarrassed.
Then, seeing that this insolent mistress could damage their trade, the merchants said to the buyers:
Look, gentlemen, what a crazy woman this is. She wants to starve people to death. Orders all food supplies to sink or burn. What will you eat if we obey her and do not sell food to you? Do not listen to her: she is a rude redneck and does not know a lot about supplies, and attacks us only out of envy. She is poor and wants everyone to be as poor as she is.
So the merchants spoke to the assembled crowd, deliberately silent about the fact that the woman does not want to destroy the supplies, but to replace the bad ones with good ones.
And then the crowd attacked the woman and began to scold her. And no matter how much the woman assured everyone that she did not want to destroy food supplies, that, on the contrary, she
life was only concerned with feeding and feeding itself, but that it only wants those people who take care of people's food not to poison them harmful substances under the guise of food; but no matter how much she said and whatever she said, they did not listen to her, because it was decided that she wanted to deprive people of the food they needed.
The same thing happened to me in relation to the science and art of our time. All my life I have lived on this food and, whether it is good or bad, I have tried to feed others whom I could to feed it. And since this is food for me, and not an article of commerce or luxury, I certainly know when food is food and when it is only similar to it. And so, when I tried the food that in our time began to be sold in the mental market under the guise of science and art, and tried to feed my loved ones with it, I saw that most of this food is not real. And when I said that that science and that art, which are traded in the mental market, are margarine or, at least, with large admixtures alien to true science and true art substances and that I know this, because the products I bought at the mental market turned out to be indigestible neither for me nor for people close to me, not only indigestible, but downright harmful, they began to shout and hoot at me and suggest to me that this is due to that I am not learned and do not know how to deal with such lofty objects. When did I begin to prove that the dealers in this mental commodity themselves incessantly accuse each other of deceit; when I recalled that at all times, under the name of science and art, many harmful and bad things were offered to people, and that therefore in our time there is the same danger, that this is not a joke, that spiritual poison is many times more dangerous than bodily poison, and that therefore it is necessary with the greatest attention to study those spiritual products that are offered to us in the form of food, and diligently discard everything fake and harmful - when I began to say this, no one, no one, not a single person in any article or book objected to these arguments , and from all the shops they shouted, as at that woman: “He is a madman! he wants to destroy science and art, what we live by. Fear him and do not listen! Welcome to us, to us! We have the latest foreign goods.
THIRD PARABLE
There were travelers. And it happened that they went astray, so that they no longer had to go on level ground, but through swamp, bushes, thorns and deadwood that blocked their path, and it became harder and harder to move.
Then the travelers divided into two parties: one decided, without stopping, to go straight ahead in the direction in which she was now going, assuring herself and others that they had not strayed from the present direction and would nevertheless come to the goal of the journey; the other party decided that since the direction in which they are now going is obviously wrong - otherwise they would have already arrived at the destination of the journey - it is necessary to look for a road, and in order to find it, you need to move as quickly as possible without stopping all directions. All the travelers were divided between these two opinions: some decided to go straight ahead, others decided to go in all directions, but there was one person who, not agreeing with either opinion, said that before going in that direction, on which we have already gone, or to start moving quickly in all directions, hoping that in this way we will find the present, we must first of all stop and think about our position and then, after thinking it over, take one or the other. But the travelers were so agitated by the movement, they were so frightened by their position, they so wanted to console themselves with the hope that they had not lost their way, but had only gone astray for a short time and would now find it again, so, most importantly, they wanted to drown out their fear that this opinion was met with general indignation, reproaches and ridicule from people of both the first and second directions.
This is advice of weakness, cowardice, laziness, some said.
A good means to reach the goal of the journey is to sit still and not move! others said.
That's why we are people and that's why we were given the strength to fight and work, overcoming obstacles, and not cowardly submit to them, - said the third.
And no matter how many people who separated from the majority say that, moving in the wrong direction, without changing it, we probably do not approach, but move away.
from our goal, and that in the same way we will not reach the goal if we rush from side to side, that the only way to reach the goal is to figure out from the sun or stars which direction will lead us to our goal, and choosing it, walk along it, but that in order to do this, you must first of all stop, stop not in order to stand, but then in order to find real way and then steadily walk along it, and that for both of them it is necessary to first stop and come to your senses - no matter how much he said this, they did not listen to him.
And the first part of the travelers went forward in the direction in which it was going, the second part began to rush from side to side, but neither one nor the other not only did not approach the goal, but also did not get out of the bushes and thorns and wanders to this day. .
Exactly the same thing happened to me when I tried to express doubt that the path along which we wandered into the dark forest of the labor question and into the swamp of nations that could never end in armaments that was sucking us in was not quite the path along which we have to go, which is very likely that we have gone astray, and that therefore, should we not stop for a while in that movement, which is obviously false, should we not figure out first of all from those general and eternal beginnings of the truth revealed to us, are we going in the direction we intended to go? No one answered this question, no one said: we have not made a mistake in the direction and are not wandering, we are sure of this for this and that reason. Not a single person has said that, perhaps, we have definitely made a mistake, but that we have an undoubted means, without stopping our movement, to correct our mistake. Nobody said either one or the other. And everyone got angry, offended and hurried to drown out my solitary voice with a friendly conversation. “We are already lazy and backward. And then the preaching of laziness, idleness, idleness! Some even added: doing nothing. "Don't listen to him - follow us!" shouted both those who believe that salvation lies in going along a once chosen direction, whatever it may be, and those who believe that salvation lies in rushing about in all directions.
What to stand? What to think? Fast forward! Everything will be done by itself!
People have gone astray and suffer from it. It would seem that the first and main effort of energy that should be made should not be aimed at strengthening the movement that has lured us into the false position in which we find ourselves, but at stopping it. It would seem that it is clear that only by stopping can we at least somewhat understand our situation and find the direction in which we must go in order to arrive at the true good of not one person, not one category of people, but the true common the good of humanity, to which all people and each individual heart aspire. And what? People invent everything possible, but not only one thing that can save them, and if not save them, then at least alleviate their situation, precisely in order to stop at least for a minute and not continue to increase their misfortunes with their false activity. People feel the distress of their situation and do everything possible to rid themselves of it, but only that one thing that is sure to alleviate their situation, they will never do, and the advice to do this irritates them most of all.
If one could still doubt that we have gone astray, then this attitude towards the advice to think again proves most clearly how hopelessly we have gone astray and how great our despair is.
Tolstoy L.N. Three parables // L.N. Tolstoy. Collected works in 22 vols. M.: Fiction, 1982. T. 12. S. 288-296.
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
Three parables
First parable
Weed grass has grown in a good meadow. And in order to get rid of it, the owners of the meadow mowed it, and the weed grass only multiplied from this. And so the kind and wise owner visited the owners of the meadow and, among other teachings that he gave them, he also said that weeds should not be mowed, since it only spreads more from this, but it is necessary to uproot it.
But either because the owners of the meadow did not notice, among other instructions of the good owner, the instruction not to mow the weed grass, but to pull it out, or because they did not understand it, or because, according to their calculations, they did not want to fulfill this, but it turned out that the prescription not to mow the weeds, but to pull them out, was not fulfilled, as if it had never existed, and people continued to mow the weeds and propagate it. And although in subsequent years there were people who reminded the owners of the meadow of the prescription of a kind and wise owner, they did not listen to them and continued to act as before, so that mowing weeds as soon as it appeared became not only a habit, but even sacred tradition, and the meadow became more and more littered. And it came to the point that only weeds became in the meadow, and people wept over this and came up with all sorts of means to improve the situation, but they did not use only one that had long been offered to them by a kind and wise owner. And recently it happened to a man who saw the miserable situation in which the meadow was, and found in the forgotten instructions of the owner the rule not to mow the weed grass, but to uproot it, - this man happened to remind the owners of the meadow about that they acted foolishly, and that this foolishness had long been indicated by a kind and wise master.
And what? Instead of checking the justice of this man’s reminder and, in case of his fidelity, stop mowing the weeds, or in case of his infidelity, to prove to him the injustice of his reminder, or to recognize the prescriptions of a kind and wise owner as unfounded and optional for themselves, the owners of the meadow did neither one nor the other, not a third, but they were offended at the reminder of that person and began to scold him. They called him an insane proud man who imagined that he alone of all understood the owner’s instructions, others a malicious false interpreter and slanderer, still others, forgetting that he did not speak his own, but only resembled the instructions of a wise owner revered by all, called him a malicious person, wishing to breed bad grass and deprive people of their meadows. “He says that we don’t need to mow the grass, and if we don’t destroy the grass,” they said, deliberately silent about the fact that the man was not talking about the need not to destroy weeds, but that we must not mow, but if you pluck it, then the weeds will grow and completely destroy our meadow. And why then was the meadow given to us, if we must cultivate weeds in it? And the opinion that this man is either a madman, or a false interpreter, or aims at harming people, was so firmly established that everyone scolded him and everyone laughed at him. And no matter how much this man explained that he not only did not want to plant weeds, but, on the contrary, believed that one of the main occupations of the farmer consisted in the destruction of bad grass, as the kind and wise owner understood this, whose words he only recalls, - no matter how much he said this, they did not listen to him, because it was finally decided that this man was either a crazy proud man who misinterpreted the words of a wise and kind owner, or a villain who called on People not to destroy weeds, but to protect and return them.
The same thing happened to me when I pointed to the injunction of the gospel teaching about non-resistance to evil by violence. This rule was preached by Christ and after him at all times and by all his true disciples. But whether because they did not notice this rule, or because they did not understand it, or because the execution of this rule seemed too difficult for them, the further time passed, the more this rule was forgotten, the more and more the warehouse was removed. life of people from this rule, and finally things got to the point where it has come now - to the point that this rule has already begun to seem to people something new, unheard of, strange and even insane. And the same thing happened to me that happened to that person who pointed out to people the long-standing prescription of a kind and wise owner that weeds should not be mowed, but should be uprooted.
Like the owners of the meadow, deliberately keeping silent about the fact that the advice was not not to destroy the bad grass, but to destroy it in a reasonable way, they said: let's not listen to this man - he is a madman, he orders not to mow the bad grasses, but he orders them to be bred, - so to my words that, in order to destroy evil, according to the teachings of Christ, it is necessary not to resist it with violence, but to destroy it with love, they said: we will not listen to him, he is a fool: he advises not resist evil, so that evil crushes us.
I said that according to the teachings of Christ, evil cannot be eradicated by evil, that any resistance to evil by violence only increases evil, that according to the teachings of Christ, evil is eradicated by good: “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who offend you, do good to those who hate you, love your enemies, and you will have no enemy. I said that according to the teachings of Christ, the whole life of a person is a struggle against evil, resistance to evil with reason and love, but that of all the means of resisting evil, Christ excludes one unreasonable means of resisting evil with violence, which consists in fighting evil with evil itself.
And these words of mine were understood in such a way that I say that Christ taught that one should not resist evil. And all those whose life is built on violence and who, therefore, value violence, willingly accepted such a reinterpretation of my words and, along with it, of the words of Christ, and it was recognized that the doctrine of non-resistance to evil is a false, absurd, godless and pernicious doctrine. And people calmly continue to produce and increase evil under the guise of destroying evil.
Second parable
People traded flour, butter, milk and all sorts of food supplies. And one before the other, wanting to get more profits and get rich as soon as possible, these people began to mix more and more various cheap and harmful impurities into their goods; bran and lime were poured into flour, margarine was put into butter, water and chalk into milk. And as long as these goods did not reach consumers, everything went well: wholesalers sold to retailers and retailers sold to petty ones.
There were many barns, shops, and trade seemed to be going very well. And the merchants were happy. But urban consumers, those who did not produce their own food and therefore had to buy it, were very unpleasant and harmful.
- Burns, Robert - short biography
- The concept of common vocabulary and vocabulary of limited use
- Nancy Drew: The Captive Curse Walkthrough Nancy Drew Curse of Blackmoore Manor Walkthrough
- Deadpool - Troubleshooting
- Won't start How to Survive?
- What to do if bioshock infinite won't start
- Walkthrough Nancy Drew: Alibi in Ashes
- Spec Ops: The Line - game review, review Spec ops the line crashes on missions
- Room escape level 1 walkthrough
- Processing tomatoes with boric acid How much will 2 grams of boric acid
- Cucumber Grass (Borago)
- Bioinsecticide Lepidocid: purpose, properties and application procedure Lepidocide waiting period
- How to change the language to Russian in steam
- Dendrobium noble: room care
- Morphology of plants general concepts - document
- Planting, propagation and care of bamboo at home, photo Growing bamboo from seeds
- How to strengthen the cellular signal for the Internet in the country
- Sanskrit reveals the forgotten meaning of Russian words (2 photos)
- The oldest language Sanskrit programming language of the future Dead language Sanskrit
- Who has dominion over all the earth?