After giving Efím food and drink, they showed him where he was to sleep; and lay down to sleep themselves.
But though Efím lay down, he could not sleep. He could not get Elisha out of his mind, but remembered how he had seen him three times at Jerusalem, standing in the foremost place.
‘So that is how he got ahead of me,’ thought Efím. ‘God may or may not have accepted my pilgrimage, but He has certainly accepted his!’
Next morning Efím bade farewell to the people, who put some patties in his sack before they went to their work, and he continued his journey.
XII
EFÍM had been away just a year, and it was spring again when he reached home one evening. His son was not at home, but had gone to the public-house, and when he came back, he had had a drop too much. Efím began questioning him. Everything showed that the young fellow had been unsteady during his father’s absence. The money had all been wrongly spent, and the work had been neglected. The father began to upbraid the son; and the son answered rudely.
‘Why didn’t you stay and look after it yourself?’ he said. ‘You go off, taking the money with you, and now you demand it of me!’
The old man grew angry, and struck his son.
In the morning Efím went to the village Elder to complain of his son’s conduct. As he was passing Elisha’s house, his friend’s wife greeted him from the porch.
‘How do you do, neighbour,’ she said. ‘How do you do, dear friend? Did you get to Jerusalem safely?’
Efím stopped.
‘Yes, thank God,’ he said. ‘I have been there. I lost sight of your old man, but I hear he got home safely.’
The old woman was fond of talking:
‘Yes, neighbour, he has come back,’ said she. ‘He’s been back a long time. Soon after Assumption, I think it was, he returned. And we were glad the Lord had sent him back to us! We were dull without him. We can’t expect much work from him any more, his years for work are past; but still he is the head of the household and it’s more cheerful when he’s at home. And how glad our lad was! He said, “It’s like being without sunlight, when father’s away!” It was dull without him, dear friend. We’re fond of him, and take good care of him.’
‘Is he at home now?’
‘He is, dear friend. He is with his bees. He is hiving the swarms. He says they are swarming well this year. The Lord has given such strength to the bees that my husband doesn’t remember the like. “The Lord is not rewarding us according to our sins,” he says. Come in, dear neighbour, he will be so glad to see you again.’
Efím passed through the passage into the yard and to the apiary, to see Elisha. There was Elisha in his grey coat, without any face-net or gloves, standing under the birch trees, looking upwards, his arms stretched out and his bald head shining, as Efím had seen him at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem: and above him the sunlight shone through the birches as the flames of fire had done in the holy place, and the golden bees flew round his head like a halo, and did not sting him.
Efím stopped. The old woman called to her husband.
‘Here’s your friend come,’ she cried.
Elisha looked round with a pleased face, and came towards Efím, gently picking bees out of his own beard.
‘Good-day, neighbour, good-day, dear friend. Did you get there safely?’
‘My feet walked there, and I have brought you some water from the river Jordan. You must come to my house for it. But whether the Lord accepted my efforts.…’
‘Well the Lord be thanked! May Christ bless you!’ said Elisha.
Efím was silent for a while, and then added:
‘My feet have been there, but whether my soul, or another’s, has been there more truly.…’
‘That’s God’s business, neighbour, God’s business,’ interrupted Elisha.
‘On my return journey I stopped at the hut where you remained behind.…’
Elisha was alarmed, and said hurriedly:
‘God’s business, neighbour, God’s business! Come into the cottage, I’ll give you some of our honey.’ And Elisha changed the conversation, and talked of home affairs.
Efím sighed, and did not speak to Elisha of the people in the hut, nor of how he had seen him in Jerusalem. But he now understood that the best way to keep one’s vows to God and to do His will, is for each man while he lives to show love and do good to others.
1 Worn by Russian peasants instead of stockings.
2 Little Russia is situated in the south-western part of Russia, and consists of the Governments of Kief, Poltava, Tchemigof, and part of Kharkof and Kherson.
3 In Great Russia the peasants let their shirt hang outside their trousers.
WHERE LOVE IS, GOD IS
IN a certain town there lived a cobbler, Martin Avdéitch by name. He had a tiny room in a basement, the one window of which looked out on to the street. Through it one could only see the feet of those who passed by, but Martin recognized the people by their boots. He had lived long in the place and had many acquaintances. There was hardly a pair of boots in the neighbourhood that had not been once or twice through his hands, so he often saw his own handiwork through the window. Some he had re-soled, some patched, some stitched up, and to some he had even put fresh uppers. He had plenty to do, for he worked well, used good material, did not charge too much, and could be relied on. If he could do a job by the day required, he undertook it; if not, he told the truth and gave no false promises; so he was well known and never short of work.
Martin had always been a good man; but in his old age he began to think more about his soul and to draw nearer to God. While he still worked for a master, before he set up on his own account, his wife had died, leaving him with a three-year-old son. None of his elder children had lived, they had all died in infancy. At first Martin thought of sending his little son to his sister’s in the country, but then he felt sorry to part with the boy, thinking: ‘It would be hard for my little Kapitón to have to grow up in a strange family; I will keep him with me.’
Martin left his master and went into lodgings with his little son. But he had no luck with his children. No sooner had the boy reached an age when he could help his father and be a support as well as a joy to him, than he fell ill and, after being laid up for a week with a burning fever, died. Martin buried his son, and gave way to despair so great and overwhelming that he murmured against God. In his sorrow he prayed again and again that he too might die, reproaching God for having taken the son he loved, his only son, while he, old as he was, remained alive. After that Martin left off going to church.
One day an old man from Martin’s native village, who had been a pilgrim for the last eight years, called in on his way from Tróitsa Monastery. Martin opened his heart to him, and told him of his sorrow.
‘I no longer even wish to live, holy man,’ he said. ‘All I ask of God is that I soon may die. I am now quite without hope in the world.’
The old man replied: ‘You have no right to say such things, Martin. We cannot judge God’s ways. Not our reasoning, but God’s will, decides. If God willed that your son should die and you should live, it must be best so. As to your despair – that comes because you wish to live for your own happiness.’
‘What else should one live for?’ asked Martin.
‘For God, Martin,’ said the old man. ‘He gives you life, and you must live for Him. When you have learnt to live for Him, you will grieve no more, and all will seem easy to you.’