But my opponent did not utter a single sound, and
only, as before, mournfully and submissively nodded
his head up and down.
I laughed ... he vanished.
February 1878.
I was walking along the street ... I was stopped
by a decrepit old beggar.
Bloodshot, tearful eyes, blue lips, coarse rags, festering
wounds.... Oh, how hideously poverty had eaten
into this miserable creature!
He held out to me a red, swollen, filthy hand.
He groaned, he mumbled of help.
I began feeling in all my pockets.... No purse,
no watch, not even a handkerchief.... I had taken
nothing with me. And the beggar was still waiting
... and his outstretched hand feebly shook and trembled.
Confused, abashed, I warmly clasped the filthy, shaking
hand ... ’Don’t be angry, brother;
I have nothing, brother.’
The beggar stared at me with his bloodshot eyes; his
blue lips smiled; and he in his turn gripped my chilly
fingers.
‘What of it, brother?’ he mumbled; ’thanks
for this, too. That is a gift too, brother.’
I knew that I too had received a gift from my brother.
February 1878.
’THOU SHALT HEAR THE FOOL’S JUDGMENT....’—PUSHKIN
‘Thou shalt hear the fool’s judgment....’
You always told the truth, O great singer of ours.
You spoke it this time, too.
‘The fool’s judgment and the laughter
of the crowd’ ... who has not known the one
and the other?
All that one can, and one ought to bear; and who has
the strength, let him despise it!
But there are blows which pierce more cruelly to the
very heart.... A man has done all that he could;
has worked strenuously, lovingly, honestly....
And honest hearts turn from him in disgust; honest
faces burn with indignation at his name. ‘Be
gone! Away with you!’ honest young voices
scream at him. ’We have no need of you,
nor of your work. You pollute our dwelling-places.
You know us not and understand us not.... You
are our enemy!’
What is that man to do? Go on working; not try
to justify himself, and not even look forward to a
fairer judgment.
At one time the tillers of the soil cursed the traveller
who brought the potato, the substitute for bread,
the poor man’s daily food.... They shook
the precious gift out of his outstretched hands, flung
it in the mud, trampled it underfoot.
Now they are fed with it, and do not even know their
benefactor’s name.
So be it! What is his name to them? He,
nameless though he be, saves them from hunger.
Let us try only that what we bring should be really
good food.
Bitter, unjust reproach on the lips of those you love....
But that, too, can be borne....
‘Beat me! but listen!’ said the Athenian
leader to the Spartan.
‘Beat me! but be healthy and fed!’ we
ought to say.
