The Two Old Men Page #6

"The Two Old Men" is a short moral tale by Leo Tolstoy that explores themes of friendship, generosity, and the human capacity for kindness. The story revolves around two elderly men who, despite their different approaches to life, embark on a journey together. As they encounter various challenges and situations, they reflect on their past decisions and life lessons. Ultimately, the narrative highlights the importance of compassion and understanding in nurturing meaningful relationships and the value of selflessness in human interactions. Through its simple yet profound storytelling, Tolstoy invites readers to contemplate their own values and behaviors in the context of friendship and community.

• Short story

								

Eliséy could have got there ahead of him.

"How in the world did Bodróv get to that place in front?" he thought.
"No doubt he met a man who knew how to get him there. When all go out, I
will hunt him up, and I will drop the pilgrim in the colette, and will
walk with him. Maybe he will take me to the front place."

Efím kept an eye on Eliséy, so as not to lose him. When the masses were
over, the people began to stir. As they went up to kiss the Sepulchre,
they crowded and pushed Efím to one side. He was frightened lest his
purse should be stolen. He put his hand to his purse and tried to make
his way out into the open. When he got out, he walked and walked, trying
to find Eliséy, both on the outside and in the church. In the church he
saw many people in the cells: some ate, and drank wine, and slept there,
and read their prayers. But Eliséy was not to be found. Efím returned to
the hostelry, but he did not find his companion there either. On that
evening the pilgrim, too, did not come back. He was gone, and had not
returned the rouble to Efím. So Efím was left alone.

On the following day Efím went again to the Sepulchre of the Lord with a
Tambóv peasant, with whom he had journeyed on the ship. He wanted to
make his way to the front, but he was again pushed back, and so he stood
at a column and prayed. He looked ahead of him, and there in front,
under the lamps, at the very Sepulchre of the Lord, stood Eliséy. He had
extended his hands, like a priest at the altar, and his bald spot shone
over his whole head.

"Now," thought Efím, "I will not miss him."

He made his way to the front, but Eliséy was not there. Evidently he had
left. On the third day he again went to the Sepulchre of the Lord, and
there he saw Eliséy standing in the holiest place, in sight of
everybody, and his hands were stretched out, and he looked up, as though
he saw something above him. And his bald spot shone over his whole head.

"Now," thought Efím, "I will certainly not miss him; I will go and stand
at the entrance, and then he cannot escape me."

Efím went out and stood there for a long time. He stood until after
noon: all the people had passed out, but Eliséy was not among them.

Efím passed six weeks in Jerusalem, and visited all the places,
Bethlehem, and Bethany, and the Jordan, and had a stamp put on a new
shirt at the Lord's Sepulchre, to be buried in it, and filled a bottle
of Jordan water, and got some earth, and candles with blessed fire, and
in eight places inscribed names for the mass of the dead. He spent all
his money and had just enough left to get home on, and so he started for
home. He reached Jaffa, boarded a ship, landed at Odessa, and walked
toward his home.


XI.

Efím walked by himself the same way he had come out. As he was getting
close to his village, he began to worry again about how things were
going at his house without him. In a year, he thought, much water runs
by. It takes a lifetime to get together a home, but it does not take
long to ruin it. He wondered how his son had done without him, how the
spring had opened, how the cattle had wintered, and whether the hut was
well built. Efím reached the spot where the year before he had parted
from Eliséy. It was not possible to recognize the people. Where the year
before they had suffered want, now there was plenty. Everything grew
well in the field. The people picked up again and forgot their former
misery. In the evening Efím reached the very village where the year
before Eliséy had fallen behind. He had just entered the village, when a
little girl in a white shirt came running out of a hut.

"Grandfather, grandfather! Come to our house!"

Efím wanted to go on, but the girl would not let him. She took hold of
his coat and laughed and pulled him to the hut. A woman with a boy came
out on the porch, and she, too, beckoned to him:

"Come in, grandfather, and eat supper with us and stay overnight!"

Efím stepped in.

"I can, at least, ask about Eliséy," he thought. "This is the very hut
into which he went to get a drink."

Efím went inside. The woman took off his wallet, gave him water to wash
himself, and seated him at the table. She fetched milk, cheese, cakes,
and porridge, and placed it all on the table. Tarásych thanked her and
praised the people for being hospitable to pilgrims. The woman shook her
head.

"We cannot help receiving pilgrims," she said. "We received life from a
pilgrim. We lived forgetting God, and God punished us in such a way that
all of us were waiting for death. Last summer we came to such a point
that we were all lying down sick and starved. We should certainly have
died, but God sent us an old man like you. He stepped in during the
daytime to get a drink; when he saw us, he took pity on us and remained
at our house. He gave us to eat and to drink, and put us on our feet
again. He cleared our land from debt, and bought a horse and cart and
left it with us."

The old woman entered the room, and interrupted her speech:

"We do not know," she said, "whether he was a man or an angel of the
Lord. He was good to us all, and pitied us, and then went away without
giving his name, so that we do not know for whom to pray to God. I see
it as though it happened just now: I was lying down and waiting for
death to come; I looked up and saw a man come in,--just a simple,
bald-headed man,--and ask for a drink. I, sinful woman, thought that he
was a tramp, but see what he did! When he saw us he put down his wallet,
right in this spot, and opened it."

The girl broke in.

"No, granny," she said, "first he put his wallet in the middle of the
room, and only later did he put it on the bench."

And they began to dispute and to recall his words and deeds: where he
had sat down, and where he had slept, and what he had done, and what he
had said to each.

Toward evening the master of the house came home on a horse, and he,
too, began to tell about Eliséy, and how he had stayed at their house.

"If he had not come to us," he said, "we should all of us have died in
sin. We were dying in despair, and we murmured against God and men. But
he put us on our feet, and through him we found out God, and began to
believe in good people. May Christ save him! Before that we lived like
beasts, and he has made men of us."

They gave Efím to eat and to drink, and gave him a place to sleep, and
themselves went to bed.

As Efím lay down, he could not sleep, and Eliséy did not leave his mind,
but he thought of how he had seen him three times in Jerusalem in the
foremost place.

"So this is the way he got ahead of me," he thought. "My work may be
accepted or not, but his the Lord has accepted."

In the morning Efím bade the people good-bye: they filled his wallet
with cakes and went to work, while Efím started out on the road.


XII.

Efím was away precisely a year. In the spring he returned home.

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