Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

You have no courage. Misfortunes have conquered you. True philosophers do not act thus. Misfortune is only the fire in which the gold is tried. You have passed through the furnace, and now you are needed, you are running away. Now test others and yourself. You have gained true wisdom, and you ought to employ it for the good of your country. What would become of the citizens if those that knew men, their passions and conditions of life, instead of devoting their knowledge and experience to the service of their country, should hide them away, in their search for peace of mind. Your experience of life has been gained in society, and so you ought to devote it to the same society.”

“But I have no wisdom at all. I am wholly in error. My errors are ancient, but no wisdom has grown out of them. Like water, however old and stale it is, it never becomes wine.”

Thus spake Julius; and seizing his cloak, he left the house and, without resting, walked on and on. At the end of the second day he reached the Christians.

They received him joyfully, though they did not know that he was a friend of Pamphilius, whom everyone loved and respected. At the refectory Pamphilius recognized his friend, and with joy ran to him, and embraced him.

“Well, at last I have come,” said Julius. “What is there for me to do? I will obey you.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Pamphilius. “You and I will go together.”

And Pamphilius led Julius into the house where visitors were entertained, and showing him a bed, said:⁠—

“In what way you can serve the people you yourself will see after you have had time to examine into the way we live; but in order that you may know where immediately to lend a hand, I will show you something tomorrow. In our vineyards the grape harvest is taking place. Go and help there. You yourself will see where there is a place for you.”

The next morning Julius went to the vineyard. The first was a young vineyard hung with thick clusters. Young people were plucking and gathering them. All the places were occupied, and Julius, after going about for a long while, found no chance for himself.

He went farther. There he found an older plantation; there was less fruit, but here also Julius found nothing to do; all were working in pairs, and there was no place for him.

He went farther, and came to a superannuated vineyard. It was all empty. The vinestocks were gnarly and crooked, and, as it seemed to Julius, all empty.

“Just like my life,” he said to himself. “If I had come the first time it would have been like the fruit in the first vineyard. If I had come when the second time I started, it would have been like the fruit in the second vineyard; but now here is my life; like these useless superannuated vinestocks, it is good only for firewood.”

And Julius was terrified at what he had done; he was terrified at the punishment awaiting him because he had ruined his life. And Julius became melancholy, and he said: “I am good for nothing; there is no work I can do now.”

And he did not rise from where he sat, and he wept because he had wasted what could never more return to him. And suddenly he heard an old man’s voice⁠—a voice calling him. “Work, my brother,” said the voice. Julius looked around and saw a white-haired old man, bent with years, and scarcely able to walk. He was standing by a vinestock and gathering from it the few sweet bunches remaining. Julius went to him.

“Work, dear brother; work is joyous;” and he showed him how to find the bunches here and there.

Julius went and searched; he found a few, and brought them and laid them in the old man’s basket. And the old man said to him:⁠—

“Look, in what respect are these bunches worse than those gathered in yonder vineyards? ‘Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you,’ said our Teacher. ‘And this is the will of Him that sent me; that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life, and I will raise him at the last day.’

“ ‘For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved.’

“ ‘He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.’

“ ‘And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.’

“ ‘For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved.’

“ ‘But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God.’

“Be not unhappy, my son. We are all the children of God and His servants. We all go to make up His one army! Do you think that He has no servants besides you? And that if you, in all your strength, had given yourself to His service, would you have done all that He required all that men ought to do to establish His kingdom? You say you would have done twice, ten times, a hundred times more than you did. But suppose you had done ten thousand times ten thousand more than all men, what would that have been in the work of God? Nothing! To God’s work, as to God Himself, there are no limits and no end. God’s work is in you. Come to Him, and be not a laborer but a son, and you become a copartner with the infinite God and in His work. With God there is neither small nor great, but there is straight and crooked. Enter into the straight path of life and