 The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter Once upon a time there were four little rabbits, and their names were Flopsy, Mopsie, Cottontail, and Peter. They lived with their mother in a sand bank, underneath the root of a very big fir tree. Now my dears, said Old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, You may go into the fields or down the lane, but don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden. Your father had an accident there. He was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor. Now run along and don't get into mischief. I'm going out. Then Old Mrs. Rabbit took a basket and an umbrella, and went through the wood to the bakers. She bought a loaf of brown bread and five current buns. Flopsy, Mopsie, and Cottontail, who were good little bunnies, went down the lane together to gather blackberries. But Peter, who was very naughty, ran straight away to Mr. McGregor's garden and squeezed under the gate. First he ate some lettuce and some French beans. And then he ate some radishes. And then, feeling rather sick, he went to look for some parsley. Around the end of a cucumber frame, whom should he meet but Mr. McGregor? Mr. McGregor was on his hands and knees planting out young cabbages. But he jumped up and ran after Peter, waving a rake and calling out, Stop, thief! Peter was most dreadfully frightened. He rushed all over the garden, for he had forgotten the way back to the gate. He lost one shoe among the cabbages and the other amongst the potatoes. After losing them, he ran on four legs and went faster, so that I think he might have gotten away altogether if he had not, unfortunately, run into a gooseberry net, and got caught by the large buttons on his jacket. It was a blue jacket with brass buttons, quite new. Peter gave himself up for lost and shed big tears. But his sobs were overheard by some friendly sparrows, who flew to him in great excitement and implored him to exert himself. Mr. McGregor came up with a sieve, which he intended to pop on top of Peter, but Peter wriggled out just in time, leaving his jacket behind him. He rushed into the tool shed and jumped into a can. It would have been a beautiful thing to hide in, if it had not had so much water in it. Mr. McGregor was quite sure that Peter was somewhere in the tool shed, perhaps hidden underneath a flower pot. He began to turn them over carefully, looking under each. Presently, Peter sneezed, CURTY CHEW! Mr. McGregor was after him in no time, and tried to put his foot upon Peter, who jumped out of a window, upsetting three plants. Peter sat down to rest. He was out of breath and trembling with fright, and he had not the least idea which way to go. Also, he was very damp with sitting in that can. After a time, he began to wander about, going lippity, lippity. Not very fast, and looking all around. He found a door on the wall, but it was locked, and there was no room for a fat little rabbit to squeeze underneath. An old mouse was running in and out, over the stone doorstep, carrying peas and beans to her family in the wood. Peter asked her to the way to the gate, but she had such a large peener mouth that she could not answer. She only shook her head at him. Peter began to cry. Many tried to find his way straight across the garden, but he became more and more puzzled. Presently, he came to a pond where Mr. McGregor filled his water cans. A white cat was staring at some goldfish. She sat very, very still, but now and then the tip of her tail twitched as if it were alive. Peter thought it best to go away without speaking to her. He had heard about cats from his cousin, little Benjamin Bunny. He went back towards the tool shed, but suddenly, quite close to him, he heard the noise of a hoe. Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch. Peter scuttered underneath the bushes, but presently, as nothing happened, he came out and climbed upon a wheelbarrow and peeped over. The first thing he saw was Mr. McGregor hoeing onions. His back was turned towards Peter, and beyond him was the gate. Peter got down very quietly off the wheelbarrow and started running as fast as he could along a straight walk behind some black current bushes. Mr. McGregor caught sight of him at the corner, but Peter did not care. He slipped underneath the gate and was safe at last in the woods outside the garden. Mr. McGregor hung up the little jacket and the shoes for a scarecracker to frighten the blackbirds. Peter never stopped running or looked behind him, till he got home to the big fir tree. He was so tired that he flopped down upon the nice, soft sand on the floor of the rabbit hole, and shut his eyes. His mother was busy cooking. She wondered what he had done with his clothes. It was the second little jacket and a pair of shoes that Peter had lost in that fortnight. I am sorry to say that Peter was not very well during the evening. His mother put him to bed and made some chamomile tea, and she gave a dose of it to Peter. One teaspoonful to be taken at bedtime, but flopsimopsin cottontail had bread and milk and blackberries for supper. Mr. Jonathan Chambers left his house on Maple Street at exactly seven o'clock in the evening, and set out on the daily walk he had taken at the same time, come rain or snow, for twenty solid years. The walk never varied. He paced two blocks down Maple Street, stopped at the Red Star Confectionery to buy a Rose Traffero Perfecto, then walked to the end of the fourth block on Maple. There he turned right on Lexington, followed Lexington to Oak, down Oak, and so by way of Lincoln, back to Maple again, and to his home. He didn't walk fast. He took his time. He always returned to his front door at exactly seven forty-five. No one ever stopped to talk with him. Even the man at the Red Star Confectionery where he bought his cigar remained silent while the purchase was being made. Mr. Chambers merely tapped on the glass top of the counter with a coin. The man reached in and brought forth the box, and Mr. Chambers took his cigar. That was all. For people long ago had gathered that Mr. Chambers desired to be left alone. The newer generation of townsfolk called it eccentricity. Certain uncouth persons had a different word for it. The oldsters remembered that this queer-looking individual with his black silk muffler, rosewood cane, and bowl a hat once had been a professor at State University. A professor of metaphysics they seemed to recall or some such outlandish subject. At any rate a furory of some sort was connected with his name. At the time an academic scandal. He had written a book, and he had taught the subject matter of that volume to his classes. What that subject matter was had long been forgotten. But whatever it was had been considered sufficiently revolutionary to cost Mr. Chambers his post at the university. A silver moon shone over the chimney tops, and a chill, impish October wind was rustling the dead leaves when Mr. Chambers started out at seven o'clock. It was a good night, he told himself, smelling the clean, crisp air of autumn, and the faint pungents of distant wood smoke. He walked unhurriedly, swinging his cane a bit less jointly than twenty years ago. He tucked the muffler more securely under the rusty old topcoat, and pulled his bowler hat more firmly on his head. He noticed that the streetlight at the corner of Maple and Jefferson was out, and he grumbled a little to himself when he was forced to step off the walk, to circle a boarded off section of newly laid concrete work before the driveway of 816. It seemed that he reached the corner of Lexington and Maple just a bit too quickly, but he told himself that this couldn't be, for he never did that. For twenty years, since the year following his expulsion from the university, he had lived by the clock. The same thing at the same time, day after day, he had not deliberately set upon such a life of routine. A bachelor living alone with sufficient money to supply his humble needs, the timed existence had grown on him gradually. So he turned on Lexington and back on Oak. The dog at the corner of Oak and Jefferson was waiting for him once again, and came out snarling and growling, snapping at his heels. But Mr. Chambers pretended not to notice, and the beast gave up the chase. A radio was blaring down the street, and faint wisps of what it was blurting floated to Mr. Chambers. Still taking place. As state building disappeared, thin air, famed scientist Dr. Edmund Harcourt, the wind whipped the muted words away, and Mr. Chambers grumbled to himself. Another one of those fantastic radio dramas, probably. He remembered one from many years before something about the Martians. And Harcourt, what did Harcourt have to do with it? He was one of the men who had ridiculed the book Mr. Chambers had written. But he pushed speculation away, sniffed the clean, crisp air again. Look put the familiar things that materialized out of the late autumn darkness as he walked along. For there was nothing, absolutely nothing in the world, that he would let upset him. That was a tenet he had laid down twenty years ago. There was a crowd of men in front of the drugstore at the corner of Oak and Lincoln, and they were talking excitedly. Mr. Chambers caught some excited words. It's happening everywhere. What did you think it is? The scientists can't explain. But as Mr. Chambers neared them, they fell into what seemed an abashed silence, and watched him pass. He on his part gave them no sign of recognition. That was the way it had been for many years, ever since the people had become convinced that he did not wish to talk. One of the men half started forward as if to speak to him, but then stepped back, and Mr. Chambers continued on his walk. Back at his own front door he stopped, and as he had done a thousand times before, drew forth the heavy gold watch from his pocket. He started violently. It was only seven thirty. For long minutes he stood there staring at the watch in accusation. The timepiece hadn't stopped, for it still ticked audibly. But fifteen minutes too soon, for twenty years, day in, day out, he had started out at seven, and returned at a quarter of eight. Now it wasn't until then that he realized something else was wrong. He had no cigar. For the first time he had neglected to purchase his evening smoke. Shaken, muttering to himself, Mr. Chambers let himself in his house and locked the door behind him. He hung his hat and coat on the rack in the hall, and walked slowly into the living-room. Going into his favourite chair he shook his head in bewilderment. Silence filled the room, a silence that was measured by the ticking of the old-fashioned pendulum-clock on the mantelpiece. But silence was no strange thing to Mr. Chambers. Once he had loved music, the kind of music he could get by tuning in symphonic orchestras on the radio, but the radio stood silent in the corner, the chord out of its socket. Mr. Chambers had pulled it out many years before. To be precise, upon the night when the symphonic broadcast had been interrupted to give a news-flash, he had stopped reading newspapers and magazines, too, had exiled himself to a few city blocks, and as the years flowed by, that self-exile had become a prison, an intangible, impassable wall, bounded by four city blocks by three. Beyond them lay utter, unexplainable terror. Beyond them he never went. But recluse though he was, he could not on occasion escape from hearing things. Things the news-boy shouted on the streets, things the men talked about on the drugstore corner when they didn't see him coming, and so he knew that this was the year 1960, and that the wars in Europe and Asia had flamed to an end to be followed by a terrible plague, a plague that even now was sweeping through country after country like wildfire, decimating populations, a plague undoubtedly induced by hunger and privation and the miseries of war. But these things he put away as items far removed from his own small world. He disregarded them. He pretended he had never heard of them. Others might discuss and worry over the myth they wished. To him they simply did not matter. But there were two things tonight that did matter. Two curious, incredible events. He had arrived home fifteen minutes early. He had forgotten his cigar. Huddled in the chair, he frowned slowly. It was disquieting to have something like that happen. There must be something wrong. Had his long exile finally turned his mind, perhaps just a very little enough to make him queer, had he lost his sense of proportion, of perspective? No, he hadn't. Take this room, for example. After twenty years it had come to be as much a part of him as the clothes he wore. Every detail of the room was engraved in his mind with clarity. The old centre-leg table with its green covering and stained glass lamp, the mantelpiece with the dusty bric-a-brac, the pendulum-clock that told the time of day as well as the day of the week and months, the elephadastre on the tabaret, and most important of all, the marine print. Mr. Chambers loved that picture. It had depth, he always said. It showed an old sailing ship in the foreground on a placid sea, far in the distance, almost on the horizon line, was a vague outline of a larger vessel. There were other pictures, too, the forest scene above the fireplace, the old English prints in the corner where he sat, the courier and ives above the radio, but the ship print was directly in his line of vision. He could see it without turning his head. He had put it there because he liked it best. Further reverie became an effort, as Mr. Chambers felt himself succumbing to weariness. He undressed and went to bed. For an hour he lay awake, assailed by vague fears he could neither define nor understand. When finally he dozed off, it was to lose himself in a series of horrific dreams. He dreamed first that he was a castaway on a tiny islet in mid-ocean, that the waters around the island teamed with huge poisonous sea snakes, hydrophini, and that steadily those serpents were devouring the island. In another dream he was pursued by a horror which he could neither see nor hear, but only could imagine, and as he sought to flee he stayed in the one place. His legs worked frantically, pumping like pistons, but he could make no progress. It was as if he ran upon a treadway. And again the terror descended on him, a black, unimagined thing, and he tried to scream and couldn't. He opened his mouth and strained his vocal cords and filled his lungs to bursting with the urge to shriek, but not a sound came from his lips. All next day he was uneasy, and as he left the house that evening at precisely seven o'clock he kept saying to himself, You must not forget tonight. You must remember to stop and get your cigar. The streetlight at the corner of Jefferson was still out, and in front of 816 the cemented driveway was still boarded off. Everything was the same as the night before. And now he told himself the Red Star Confectionery is in the next block. I must not forget tonight, to forget twice in a road be just too much. He grasped the thought firmly in his mind, strode just a bit more rapidly down the street. But at the corner he stopped in consternation. He wielded, he stared down the next block. There was no neon sign, no splash of friendly light upon the sidewalk to mark the little store tucked away in this residential section. He stared at the street marker and read the word slowly, Grant. He read it again, unbelieving. For this shouldn't be Grant Street, but Marshall. He had walked two blocks, and the Confectionery was between Marshall and Grant. He hadn't come to Marshall yet, and here was Grant. Or had he absentmindedly come one block farther than he thought, past the store as on the night before? For the first time in twenty years Mr. Chambers retraced his steps. He walked back to Jefferson, then turned around, and went back to Grant again and on to Lexington, then back to Grant again, where he stood astounded while a single, incredible fact grew slowly in his brain. There wasn't any Confectionery. The block from Marshall to Grant had disappeared. Now he understood why he had missed the store on the night before, why he had arrived home fifteen minutes early. On legs that were dead things he stumbled back to his home. He slammed and locked the door behind him, and made his way unsteadily to his chair in the corner. What was this? What did it mean? By what inconceivable necromancy could a paved street with houses, trees, and buildings be spirited away, and the space it had occupied be closed up? Was something happening in the world which he in his secluded life knew nothing about? Mr. Chambers shivered, reached to turn up the collar of his coat, then stopped as he realized the room must be warm. A fire blazed merrily in the grate. The cold he felt came from something somewhere else, the cold of fear and horror, the chill of a half-whispered thought. A deadly silence had fallen, a silence still measured by the pendulum-clock, and yet a silence that held a different tenor than he had ever sensed before, not a homey, comfortable silence, but a silence that hinted at emptiness and nothingness. There was something back of this, Mr. Chambers told himself, something that reached far back into one corner of his brain and demanded recognition, something tied up with the fragments of talk he had heard on the drugstore corner, bits of news broadcasts he had heard as he walked along the street, the shrieking of the news-boy calling his papers, something to do with the happenings in the world from which he had excluded himself. He brought them back to mind now, and lingered over the one central theme of the talk he had overheard, the wars and plagues, hints of a Europe and Asia swept almost clean of human life, of the plague ravaging Africa, of its appearance in South America, of the frantic efforts of the United States to prevent its spread into that nation's boundaries. Millions of people were dead in Europe and Asia, Africa and South America, billions, perhaps. And somehow those gruesome statistics seemed tied up with his own experience, something, somewhere, some part of his earlier life seemed to hold an explanation, but try as he would his befuddled brain failed to find the answer. Dependulum clock struck slowly, its every other chime, as usual, setting up a sympathetic vibration in the pewter vase that stood upon the mantle. Mr. Chambers got to his feet, strode to the door, opened it and looked out. Moonlight tessellated the street in black and silver, etching the chimneys and trees against the silvered sky, but the house directly across the street was not the same. It was strangely lopsided, its dimensions out of proportion, like a house that suddenly had gone mad. He stared at it in amazement, trying to determine what was wrong with it. He recalled how it had always stood, four square, a solid piece of mid-Victorian architecture. Then, before his eyes, the house righted itself again, slowly it drew together, ironed out its queer angles, readjusted its dimensions, became once again the stodgy house he knew it had to be. With a sigh of relief Mr. Chambers turned back into the hall, but before he closed the door he looked again. The house was lopsided, as bad, perhaps worse than before. Gulping in fright Mr. Chambers slammed the door shut, locked it and double-bolted it, then he went to his bedroom and took two sleeping-powders. His dreams that night were the same as on the night before. Again there was the islet in mid-ocean, again he was alone upon it, again the squirming hydrophony were eating his foothold piece by piece. He awoke, body drenched with perspiration. Vague light of early dawn filtered through the window. The clock on the bedside table showed seven-thirty. For a long time he lay there motionless. Again the fantastic happenings of the night before came back to haunt him, and as he lay there staring at the windows he remembered them one by one, but his mind, still fogged by sleep and astonishment, took the happenings in its stride, mulled over them, lost the keen edge of fantastic terror that had lurked around them. The light through the windows slowly grew brighter. Mr. Chambers slid out of bed, slowly crossed to the window, the cold of the floor biting into his bare feet. He forced himself to look out. There was nothing outside the window, no shadows, as if there might be a fog, but no fog, however thick, could hide the apple-tree that grew close against the house. But the tree was there, shadowy, indistinct in the gray, with a few withered apples still clinging to its boughs, a few shriveled leaves reluctant to leave the parent branch. The tree was there now, but it hadn't been when he first had looked. Mr. Chambers was sure of that. And now he saw the faint outlines of his neighbor's house, but those outlines were all wrong. They didn't jibe and fit together. They were out of plum, as if some giant hand had grasped the house and wrenched it out of true, like the house he had seen across the street the night before, the house that had painfully righted itself when he thought of how it should look. Perhaps if he thought of how his neighbor's house should look, it too might right itself, but Mr. Chambers was very weary, too weary to think about the house. He turned from the window and dressed slowly in the living-room. He slumped into his chair, put his feet up on the old cracked ottoman. For a long time he sat, trying to think. And then, abruptly, something like an electric shock ran through him. Rigid he sat there, limp inside at the thought. Minutes later he arose and almost ran across the room to the old Mahogany bookcase that stood against the wall. There were many volumes in the case, his beloved classics on the first shelf, his many scientific works on the lower shelves. The second shelf contained but one book, and it was around this book that Mr. Chambers' entire life was centered. Twenty years ago he had written it, and foolishly attempted to teach its philosophy to a class of undergraduates. The newspapers, he remembered, had made a great deal of it at the time. Tongues had been set to wagging, narrow-minded townsfolk, failing to understand either his philosophy or his aim, but seeing in him another exponent of some anti-rational cult had forced his expulsion from the school. It was a simple book, really, dismissed by most authorities as merely the vagaries of an overzealous mind. Mr. Chambers took it down now, opened its cover, and began thumbing slowly through the pages. For a moment the memory of happier days swept over him. Then his eyes focused on the paragraph. Paragraph written so long ago, the very words seemed strange and unreal. Man himself, by the power of mass suggestion, holds the physical fate of this earth, yes, even the universe, billions of minds seeing trees as trees, houses as houses, streets as streets, and not as something else, minds that see things as they are and have kept things as they were, destroy those minds, and the entire foundation of matter, robbed of its regenerative power, will crumple and slip away like a column of sand. His eyes followed down the page. Yet this would have nothing to do with matter itself, but only with matter's form, for while the mind of man through long ages may have moulded an imagery of that space in which he lives, mind would have little conceivable influence upon the existence of that matter, what exists in our known universe shall exist always and can never be destroyed, only altered or transformed. But in modern astrophysics and mathematics, we gain an insight into the possibility, yes, probability, that there are other dimensions, other brackets of time and space impinging on the one we occupy. If a pin is thrust into a shadow, would that shadow have any knowledge of the pin? It would not, for in this case, the shadow is two-dimensional, the pin three-dimensional, yet both occupy the same space. Granting then that the power of men's minds alone holds this universe, or at least this world, in its present form, maybe not go farther, and envision other minds in some other plane watching us, waiting, waiting craftily for the time they can take over the domination of matter. Such a concept is not impossible. It is a natural conclusion if we accept the double hypothesis that mind does control the formation of all matter and that other worlds lie in juxtaposition with ours. Perhaps we shall come upon a day far distant when our plane, our world, will dissolve beneath our feet and before our eyes, as some stronger intelligence reaches out from the dimensional shadows of the very space we live in and rests from us, the matter which we know to be our own. He stood astounded beside the bookcase, his eyes staring unseeing into the fire upon the hearth. He had written that, and because of those words, he had been called a heretic, had been compelled to resign his position at the university, had been forced into this hermit life. A tumultuous idea hammered at him. Men had died by the millions all over the world. Where there had been thousands of minds, there were now one or two, a feeble force to hold the form of matter intact. The plague had swept Europe and Asia almost clean of life, had blighted Africa, had reached South America, might even have come to the United States. He remembered the whispers he had heard, the words of the men at the drugstore corner, the buildings disappearing. Something scientists could not explain, but those were merely scraps of information. He did not know the whole story, he could not know. He never listened to the radio, never read a newspaper. But abruptly the whole thing fitted together in his brain, like the missing piece of a puzzle into its slot. The significance of it all gripped him with damning clarity. There were not sufficient minds in existence to retain the material world in its mundane form. Some other power from another dimension was fighting to supersede man's control and take his universe into its own plane. Abruptly Mr. Chambers closed the book, shoved it back in the case and picked up his hat and coat. He had to know more. He had to find someone who could tell him. He moved through the hall to the door, emerged into the street. On the walk he looked skyward, trying to make out the sun. But there wasn't any sun, only an all-pervading grayness that shrouded everything. Not a gray fog, but a gray emptiness that seemed devoid of life, of any movement. The walk led to his gate, and there it ended. But as he moved forward, the sidewalk came into view, and the house ahead loomed out of the gray, but a house with differences. He moved forward rapidly, visibility extended only a few feet, and as he approached them, the houses materialized, like two-dimensional pictures without perspective, like twisted cardboard soldiers lining up for review on a misty morning. Once he stopped and looked back and saw that the grayness had closed in behind him, the houses were wiped out. The sidewalk faded into nothing. He shouted, hoping to attract attention, but his voice frightened him. It seemed to ricochet up and into the higher levels of the sky as if the giant door had been opened to a mighty room high above him. He went on until he came to the corner of Lexington. There on the curb he stopped and stared. The gray wall was thicker there, but he did not realize how close it was until he glanced down at his feet and saw there was nothing, nothing at all beyond the curb-stone, no dull gleam of wet asphalt, no sign of a street. It was as if all eternity ended here at the corner of Maple and Lexington. With a wild cry, Mr. Chambers turned and ran. Back down the street, he raced, coat streaming after him in the wind, bowler hat bouncing on his head. Panzing, he reached the gate and stumbled up the walk, thankful that it was still there. On the stoop he stood for a moment, breathing hard. He gazed back over his shoulder and a queer feeling of inner numbness seemed to well over him. At that moment the gray nothingness appeared to thin. The enveloping curtain fell away and he saw vague and indistinct, yet cast in stereoscopic outline. A gigantic city was lined up against the darkling sky. It was a city fantastic with cubed domes, spires and aerial bridges and flying buttresses. Tunnel-like streets flanked on either side by shining metallic ramps and runways, stretched endlessly to the vanishing point. Great shafts of multi-colored light probed huge streamers and ellipses above the higher levels. And beyond, like a final backdrop, rose a titanic wall. It was from that wall, from its crenellated parapets and battlements that Mr. Chambers felt the eyes peering at him, thousands of eyes glaring down with but a single purpose. And as he continued to look, something else seemed to take form above that wall. A design this time that swirled and writhed in the ribbons of radiance and rapidly coalesced into strange geometric features, without definite line or detail. A colossal face, a face of indescribable power and evil it was, staring down with malevolent composure. Then the city and the face slid out of focus, the vision faded like a darkened magic lantern and the grayness moved in again. Mr. Chambers pushed open the door of his house, but he did not lock it. There was no need of locks, not any more. A few coals of fire still smoldered in the grate, and going there he stirred them up, raked away the ash, piled on more wood. The flames leapt merrily dancing in the chimney's throat. Without removing his hat and coat, he sank exhausted in his favorite chair, closed his eyes, then opened them again. He sighed with relief as he saw the room was unchanged. Everything in its accustomed place, the clock, the lamp, the elephant ashtray, the marine print on the wall. Everything was as it should be. The clock measured the silence with its measured ticking. It chimed abruptly, and the vase sent up its usual sympathetic vibration. This was his room, he thought. Rooms acquire the personality of the person who lives in them, become a part of him. This was his world, his own private world, and as such it would be the last to go. But how long could he, his brain, maintain its existence? Mr. Chambers stared at the marine print, and for a moment a little breath of reassurance returned to him. They couldn't take this away. The rest of the world might dissolve because there was insufficient power of thoughts to retain its outward form, but this room was his. He alone had furnished it. He alone, since he had first planned the house's building, had lived here. This room would stay, it must stay on, it must. He rose from his chair and walked across the room to the bookcase, stood staring at the second shelf with its single volume. His eyes shifted to the top shelf and swift terror gripped him, for all the books weren't there. A lot of books weren't there, only the most beloved, the most familiar ones. So the change had already started here. The unfamiliar books were gone, and that fitted in the pattern, for it would be the least familiar things that would go first. Wheeling he stared across the room. Was it his imagination, or did the lamp on the table blur and begin to fade away? But as he stared at it, it became clear again a solid, substantial thing. For a moment real fear reached out and touched him with chilly fingers, for he knew that this room no longer was proof against the thing that had happened out there on the street. Or had it really happened, might not all this exist within his own mind? Might not the street be as it always was with laughing children and barking dogs? Might not the red-star confectionery still exist, splashing the street with the red of its neon sign? Could it be that he was going mad? He had heard whispers when he had passed. Whispers the gossiping housewives had not intended him to hear, and he had heard the shouting of boys when he walked by. They thought him mad. Could he be really mad? But he knew he wasn't mad. He knew that he perhaps was the sanest of all men who walked the earth, for he and he alone had foreseen this very thing, and the others had scoffed at him for it. Somewhere else the children might be playing on a street, but it would be a different street, and the children undoubtedly would be different too. For the matter of which the street and everything upon it had been formed would now be cast in a different mould, stolen by different minds in a different dimension. Perhaps we shall come upon a day, far distant, when our plane, our world, will dissolve beneath our feet, and before our eyes, as some stronger intelligence reaches out from the dimensional shadows of the very space we live in, and rests from us the matter which we know to be our own. But there had been no need to wait for that distant day. Scant years after he had written those prophetic words, the thing was happening. Man had played unwittingly into the hands of those other minds in the other dimension. Man had waged a war, and war had bred a pestilence, and the whole vast cycle of events was but a detail of a cyclopean plan. He could see it all now by an insidious mass hypnosis minions from that other dimension, or was it one supreme intelligence, had deliberately sown the seeds of dissension. The reduction of the world's mental power had been carefully planned with diabolic premeditation. On impulse he suddenly turned, crossed the room and opened the connecting door to the bedroom. He stopped on the threshold, and a sob forced its way to his lips. There was no bedroom, where his solid fore-poster and dresser had been. There was grayish nothingness. Like an automaton, he turned again and paced to the hall door. Here too he found what he had expected. There was no hall, no familiar hat rack and umbrella stand. Nothing. Weekly Mr. Chambers moved back to his chair in the corner. So here I am, he said, half-aloud. So there he was, embattled in the last corner of the world that was left to him. Perhaps there were other men like him, he thought, men who stood at bay against the emptiness that marked the transition from one dimension to another, men who had lived close to the things they loved, who had endowed those things with such substantial form by power of mind alone, that they now stood out alone against the power of some greater mind. The street was gone. The rest of his house was gone. This room still retained its form. This room, he knew, would stay the longest, and when the rest of the room was gone, this corner with his favorite chair would remain. For this was the spot where he had lived for twenty years. The bedroom was for sleeping, the kitchen for eating. This room was for living. This was his last stand. These were the walls and floors and prints and lamps that had soaked up his will to make them walls and prints and lamps. He looked out the window into a blank world. His neighbor's houses already were gone. They had not lived with them as he had lived with this room. Their interests had been divided, thinly spread. Their thoughts had not been concentrated as his, upon an area four blocks by three, or a room fourteen by twelve. Staring through the window, he saw it again. The same vision he had looked upon before, and yet different in an indescribable way. There was the city illumined in the sky. There were the elliptical towers and turrets, the cube-shaped domes and battlements. He could see with stereoscopic clarity the aerial bridges, the gleaming avenues sweeping on into infinitude. The vision was nearer this time, but the depth and proportion had changed, as if he were viewing it from two concentric angles at the same time. And the face, the face of magnitude, of power, of cosmic craft and evil. Mr Chambers turned his eyes back into the room. The clock was ticking slowly, steadily. The grayness was stealing into the room. The table and the radio were the first to go. They simply faded away, and with them went one corner of the room, and then the elephant ashtray. Oh, well, said Mr Chambers, I never did like that very well. Now, as he sat there, it didn't seem queer to be without the table or the radio. It was as if it was something quite normal, something one could expect to happen. Perhaps if he thought hard enough he could bring them back. But, after all, what was the use? One man alone could not stand off the irresistible march of nothingness. One man all alone simply couldn't do it. He wondered what the elephant ashtray looked like in that other dimension. It certainly wouldn't be an elephant ashtray, nor would the radio be a radio, or perhaps they didn't have ashtrays or radios or elephants in the invading dimension. He wondered, as a matter of fact, what he himself would look like when he finally slipped into the unknown. For he was matter too, just as the ashtray and the radio were matter. He wondered if he would retain his individuality, if he still would be a person, or would he merely be a thing? There was one answer to all of that. He simply didn't know. Nothingness advanced upon him, ate its way across the room, stalking him, as he sat in the chair underneath the lamp, and he waited for it. The room, or what was left of it, plunged into dreadful silence. Mr. Chambers started. The clock had stopped, funny the first time, in twenty years. He leapt from his chair and then sat down again. The clock hadn't stopped. It wasn't there. There was a tingling sensation in his feet. The end of The Street That Wasn't There, by Clifford Donald Simac and Carl Richard Jackaby. This recording is in the public domain. What Men Live By, by Leo Tolstoy This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by Teresa DeBolt, Latin, Oklahoma, July 2007. Chapter 1 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death, I John 3, 14. Whoso hath the world's goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shuddeth up his compassion from him, how did the love of God abiden him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and truth. Verses 17 and 18 Love is of God, and everyone that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love. Verses 7 and 8 No man hath beheld God at any time, if we love one another, God abideth in us. Verse 12 God is love, and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him. Verse 16 If a man say, I love God, and hateeth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? Verse 20 A shoemaker named Simon, who had neither house nor land of his own, lived with his wife and children in a peasant's hut, and earned his living by his work. Work was cheap, but bread was dear, and what he earned he spent for food. The man and his wife had one sheepskin coat between them for winter wear, and even that was torn to tatters. And this was the second year he had been wanting to buy sheepskins for a new coat. Before winter Simon saved up a little money, a three-ruple note lay hidden in his wife's box. And five rupals and twenty co-pegs were owed him by customers in the village. So one morning he prepared to go to the village to buy the sheepskins. He put on over his shirt his wife's Wadden Nanking Jacket, and over that he put his own cloth coat. He took three rupals and started off after breakfast. I'll collect the five rupals that are do me, thought he. Add the three I've got, and that will be enough to buy sheepskins for the winter coat. He came to the village and called it a peasant's hut, but the man was not home. The peasant's wife promised that the money should be paid next week, but she would not pay it herself. Then Simon called on another peasant, but this once wore he had no money and would only pay twenty co-pegs, which he owed for a pair of boots Simon had mended. Simon then tried to buy the sheepskins on credit, but the dealer would not trust him. Bring your money, he said. Then you may have the pick of the skins. We know what debt collecting is like. So all the business the shoemaker did was get the twenty co-pegs for boots he had mended, and to take a pair of felt boots a peasant gave him to sew with leather. Simon felt downhearted. He spent the twenty co-pegs on vodka and started homewards without having bought any skins. In the morning he felt the frost, but now after drinking the vodka he felt warm, even without a sheepskin coat. He tried it along, striking his stick on the frozen earth with one hand, swinging the felt boots with the other, and talking to himself. I'm quite warm, said he, though I have no sheepskin coat. I've had a drop, and it runs through all my veins. I need no sheepskins. I go along and don't worry about anything. That's the sort of man I am. What do I care? I can live without sheepskins. I don't need them. My wife will fret, to be sure. And true enough, it is a shame. One works all day long, and then does not get paid. Stop a bit. If you don't bring that money along, sure enough I'll skin you. Blessed if I don't. How's that? He pays twenty co-pegs at a time. What can I do with twenty co-pegs? Drink it. That's all one can do. Hard up, he says he is. So he may be. But what about me? You have a house in cattle and everything. I've only got what I stand up in. You've got corn of your own growing. I have to buy every grain. Do what I will. I must spend three roubles every week for bread alone. I come home and find the bread all used up, and I have to fork out another rouble and a half. So just pay up what you owe, and no nonsense about it. By this time, he had nearly reached the shrine at the bend of the road. Looking up, he saw something whitish behind the shrine. The daylight was fading, and the shoemaker peered at the thing without being able to make out what it was. There was no white stone there before. Can it be an ox? It's not like an ox. It has a head like a man. But it's too white. And what could a man be doing there? He came closer, so that it was clearly visible. To his surprise, it really was a man, alive or dead, sitting naked, leaning motionless against the shrine. Terror seized the shoemaker, and he thought, Someone has killed him, stripped him, and left him there. If I meddle, I shall surely get into trouble. So the shoemaker went on. He passed in front of the shrine so that he could not see the man. When he had gone some way, he looked back and saw that the man was no longer leaning against the shrine, but was moving as if looking toward him. The shoemaker felt more frightened than before, and thought, Shall I go back to him, or shall I go on? If I go near him, something dreadful may happen. Who knows who the fellow is? He has not come here for any good. If I go near him, he may jump up and throttle me, and there will be no getting away. Or if not, he'd still be a burden on one's hands. What could I do with a naked man? I couldn't give him my last clothes. Heaven only helped me to get away. So the shoemaker hurried on, leaving the shrine behind him, when suddenly his conscious smote him and stopped him in the road. What are you doing, Simon? said he to himself. The man may be dying of want, and you slip past afraid. Have you grown so rich as to be afraid of robbers? Ah, Simon, shame on you! So he turned, went back, and went up to the man. Simon approached the stranger, looked at him, and saw that he was a young man, fit with no bruises on his body, only evidently freezing and frightened. And he sat there leaning back without looking up at Simon, as if too faint to lift his eyes. Simon went close to him, and the man seemed to wake up. Turning his head, he opened his eyes and looked into Simon's face. That one look was enough to make Simon fond of the man. He threw the felt boots on the ground, undid his sash, and laid it on the boots, and took off his cloth coat. It's not a time for talking, said he. Come, put this coat on at once. And Simon took the man by the elbows and helped him to rise. As he stood there, Simon saw that his body was clean and in good condition. His hands and feet shapely, his face good and kind. He threw his coat over the man's shoulders, but the ladder could not find the sleeves. Simon guided his arms into them, and drawing the coat well on, wrapped it closely about him, tying the sash around the man's waist. Simon even took off his torn cap and put it on the man's head. But then his own head felt cold, and he thought, I'm quite bald, while he has long, curly hair. So he put his cap on his own head again. It would be better to give him something for his feet, thought he. And he made the man sit down and helped him to put on the felt boots, saying, There, friend, now move about and warm yourself. Other matters can be settled later on. Can you walk? The man stood up, and looked kindly at Simon, but could not say a word. Why don't you speak, said Simon? It's too cold to stay here. We must be getting home. There, now take my stick. And if you're feeling weak, lean on that. Now step out. The man started walking and moving easily, not lagging behind. As they went along, Simon asked him, And where do you belong to? I'm not from these parts. I thought as much. I know the folks hereabouts. But how did you come to be there in the shrine? I cannot tell. Has someone been ill-treating you? No one has ill-treated me. God has punished me. Of course God rules all. Still, you'll have to find food and shelter somewhere. Where do you want to go? It is all the same to me. Simon was amazed. The man did not look like a rogue, and he spoke gently. But yet he gave no account of himself. Still Simon thought. Who knows what may have happened? And he said to the stranger, Well then, come home with me. And at least warm yourself a while. So Simon walked toward his home, and the stranger kept up with him, walking at his side. The wind had risen and Simon felt it cold under his shirt. He was getting over his dippiness now, and began to fill the frost. He went along, sniffling and wrapping his wife's coat around him. And he thought to himself, There now, talk about sheepskins. I went out for sheepskins, and came home without even a coat on my back. And what is more, I'm bringing a naked man along with me. Matrona won't be pleased. And when he thought of his wife, he felt sad. But when he looked at the stranger, and remembered how he had looked up at him at the shrine, his heart was glad. Simon's wife had everything ready early that day. She had cut wood, brought water, fed the children, eaten her own meal, and now she sat thinking. She wondered if she ought to make bread. Now or tomorrow? There was still a large piece left. If Simon had some dinner in town, she thought, and does not eat much for supper, the bread will last out another day. She weighed the piece of bread in her hand, again and again, and thought, I won't make any more today. We have only enough flour left to bake one batch. We can manage to make this last out till Friday. So Matrona put away the bread, and set down at the table to patch her husband's shirt. While she worked, she thought how her husband was buying skins for a winter coat. If only the dealer doesn't cheat him. My good man is much too simple. He cheats nobody, but any child can take him in. Eight rubles is a lot of money. He should get a good coat for that price. Not tanned skins, but still a proper winter coat. How difficult it was last winter to get on without a warm coat. I could neither get down to the river nor go out anywhere. When he went out, he put on all we had, and there was nothing left for me. He did not start very early today, but still it is time he was back. I only hope he's not gone out on a spree. Hardly had Matrona thought this when steps were heard on the threshold and someone entered. Matrona stuck her needle into her work, and went out on to the passage. There she saw two men, Simon, and with him a man without a hat, and wearing felt boots. Matrona noticed at once that her husband smelt of spirits. There now he has been drinking, she thought. And when she saw that he was coatless, had only her jacket on, brought no parcel, stood there silent, and seemed ashamed, her heart was ready to break with disappointment. He has drunk the money, she thought, and has been on a spree with some good-for-nothing fellow, whom he has brought home with him. Matrona led them pass into the hut, followed them in, and saw that the stranger was a young, slight man, wearing her husband's coat. There was no shirt to be seen under it, and he had no hat. Having entered he stood, neither moving nor raising his eyes. And Matrona thought, he must be a bad man, he is afraid. Matrona frowned, and stood beside the oven looking to see what they would do. Simon took off his cap, and sat down on the bench as if things were all right. Come, Matrona, if supper is ready, let us have some. Matrona muttered something to herself and did not move, but stayed where she was by the oven. She looked first at the one, and then at the other at them, and only shook her head. Simon saw that his wife was annoyed, but tried to pass it off, pretending not to notice anything. He took the stranger by the arm. Sit down, friend, said he, and let us have some supper. The stranger sit down on the bench. Haven't you cooked anything for us, said Simon? Matrona's anger boiled over. I've cooked, but not for you. It seems to me you have drunk your wits away. You went to buy a sheepskin coat, but come home without so much as the coat you had on, and bring a naked vagabond home with you. I have no supper for drunkards like you. That's enough, Matrona. Don't wag your tongue without reason. You'd better ask what sort of man. And you tell me what you've done with the money. Simon found the pocket of the jacket, drew out the three ruble note, and unfolded it. Here is the money. Trivenoff did not pay, but promised to pay soon. Matrona got still more angry. He had brought no sheepskins, but had put his only coat on some naked fellow, and had even brought him into their house. She snatched up the note from the table, took it to put it away in safety, and said, I have no supper for you. We can't feed all the naked drunkards in the world. There now, Matrona, hold your tongue a bit. First hear what a man has to say. Much wisdom I shall hear from a drunken fool. I was right not wanting to marry you, a drunkard. The linen my mother gave me, you drank, and now you've been to buy a coat, and have drunk it too. Simon tried to explain to his wife that he had only spent twenty copeks. Tried to tell how he had found the man, but Matrona would not let him get a word in. She talked nineteen to the dozen, and dragged in things that had happened ten years before. Matrona talked and talked, and at last she flew at Simon, and seized him by the sleeve. Give me my jacket. You're the only one I have, and you must need to take it from me and wear it yourself. Give it here, you mangy dog, and may the devil take you. Simon began to pull off the jacket, and turned a sleeve of it inside out. Matrona seized the jacket, and it burst, it seems. She snatched it up, threw it over her head, and went to the door. She meant to go out, but stopped, undecided. She wanted to work off her anger. But she also wanted to learn what sort of a man the stranger was. Matrona stopped and said, if he were a good man he would not be naked. Why hasn't he even a shirt on him? If he were all right, you would say where you came across the fellow. That's just what I'm trying to tell you, said Simon. As I came to the shrine, I saw him sitting all naked and frozen. It isn't quite the weather to sit about naked. God sent me to him, or he would have perished. What was I to do? How do we know what may have happened to him? So I took him, clothed him, and brought him along. Don't be angry, Matrona. It is a sin. Remember, we all must die one day. Angry words rose to Matrona's lips. But she looked at the stranger and was silent. He sat on the edge of the bench motionless. His hands folded on his knees. His head drooping on his breast. His eyes closed. His brows knit as if in pain. Matrona was silent. And Simon said, Matrona, have you no love of God? Matrona heard these words. And as she looked at the stranger, suddenly her heart softened toward him. She came back from the door and going to the oven, she got out the supper. Sitting a cup on the table, she poured out some cavas. Then she brought out the last piece of bread and set out a knife and spoons. Eat if you want to, said she. Simon drew the stranger to the table. Take your place, young man, said he. Simon cut the bread, crumbled into the broth, and they began to eat. Matrona sat at the corner of the table, resting her head on her hand, and looking at the stranger. And Matrona was touched with pity for the stranger, and began to feel fond of him. And at once the stranger's face lit up. His brows were no longer bent, and he raised his eyes and smiled at Matrona. When they had finished supper, the woman cleared away the things that began questioning the stranger. Where are you from, said she? I'm not from these parts. But how did you come to be on the road? I may not tell. Did someone rob you? God punished me. And you were lying there naked? Yes, naked and freezing. Simon saw me and had pity on me. He took off his coat, put it on me, and brought me here. And you have fed me, given me drink, and shown pity on me. God will reward you. Matrona rose, took from the window Simon's old shirt she had been patching and gave it to the stranger. She also brought out a pair of trousers for him. There, said she, I see you have no shirt. Put this on, and lie down where you please, in the loft or on the oven. This stranger took off the coat, put on the shirt, and lay down in the loft. Matrona put out the candle, took the coat, and climbed to where her husband lay. Matrona drew the skirts of the coat over her and lay down, but could not sleep. She could not get the stranger out of her mind. When she remembered that he had eaten their last piece of bread, and that there was no more for to-morrow, and thought of the shirt and trousers she had given away, she felt grieved. But when she remembered how he had smiled, her heart was glad. Long did Matrona lie awake, and she noticed that Simon also was awake. He drew the coat toward him, Simon. Well, you have had the last piece of bread and I have not put any to rise. I don't know what we shall do to-morrow. Perhaps I can borrow some of neighbor Martha. If we're alive, we shall find something to eat. The woman lay still awhile, and then said, He seems a good man, but why does he not tell us who he is? I suppose he has his reasons. Simon. Well, we give, but why does nobody give us anything? Simon did not know what to say, so he only said, Let us stop talking, and turned over, and went to sleep. In the morning Simon awoke. The children were still asleep. His wife had gone to the neighbors to borrow some bread. The stranger alone was sitting on the bench, dressed in the old shirt and trousers, and looking upwards. His face was brighter than it had been the day before. Simon said to him, Well, friend, the belly wants bread and the naked body clothes. When has to work for a living? What work do you know? I do not know any. This surprised Simon, but he said, Men who want to learn can learn anything. Men work, and I will work also. What is your name? Michael. Well, Michael, if you do not wish to talk about yourself, that is your own affair, but you will have to earn a living for yourself. If you will work, as I tell you, I will give you food and shelter. May God reward you. I will learn. Show me what to do. Simon took yarn. Put it around his thumb. And began to twist it. It is easy enough. Michael watched him, put some yarn around his own thumb in the same way, caught the knack, and twisted the yarn also. Then Simon showed him how to wax the thread. This also Michael mastered. Next, Simon showed him how to twist the bristle in, and how to sew. And this too, Michael learned at once. Whatever Simon showed him, he understood at once, and after three days, he worked as if he had sewn boots all his life. He worked without stopping and ate little. When work was over, he sat silently, looking upwards. He hardly went into the street, spoke only when necessary, and neither joked nor laughed. They never saw him smile, except that first evening when Matrona gave them supper. Day by day and week by week, the year went round. Michael lived and worked with Simon. His fame spread until people said that no one sewed boots so neatly and strongly as Simon's workman, Michael. And from all the district round, people came to Simon for their boots, and he began to be well off. One winter day, as Simon and Michael sat working, a carriage on sledge runners with three horses and with bells drove up to the hut. They looked out of the window. The carriage stopped at their door. A fine servant jumped down from the box and opened the door. A gentleman in a fur coat got out and walked up to Simon's hut. Up jumped Matrona and opened the door wide. The gentleman stooped to enter the hut, and when he drew himself up again, his head nearly reached the ceiling, and he seemed quite to fill his end of the room. Simon rose, bowed, and looked at the gentleman with astonishment. He had never seen anyone like him. Simon himself was lean. Michael was thin, and Matrona was dry as a bone. That this man was like someone from another world, red-faced, burly, with a neck like a bull's. And looking all together as if he were cast an iron. The gentleman puffed, threw off his fur coat, and sat down on the bench and said, Which of you is the master bootmaker? I am your excellency, said Simon, coming forward. Then the gentleman shouted to his lad, Hey, Fedka, bring the leather! The servant ran in, bringing a parcel. The gentleman took the parcel and put it on the table. Untie it, said he. The lad untied it. The gentleman pointed to the leather. Look here, shoemaker, said he. Do you see this leather? Yes, your honor. Do you know what sort of leather it is? Simon felt the leather and said, It is good leather. Good indeed, why you fool, you never saw such leather before in your life. It's German and costs twenty rubles. Simon was frightened and said, Where should I ever see leather like that? Just so. Now, can you make it into boots for me? Yes, your excellency. I can. Then the gentleman shouted at him, You can, can you? Well, remember whom you are to make them for and what the leather is. You must make me boots that will wear for a year, neither losing shape nor coming unsewn. If you can do it, take the leather and cut it up. But if you can't, say so. I warn you now, if your boots become unsewn or lose shape within a year, I will have you put in prison. If they don't burst or lose shape for a year, I will pay you ten rubles for your work. Simon was frightened and did not know what to say. He glanced at Michael nudging him with his elbow whispered. Shall I take the work? Michael nodded his head as if to say, Yes, take it. Simon did, as Michael advised, and undertook to make boots that would not lose shape or split for a whole year. Calling his servant, the gentleman told him to pull the boot off his left leg which was stretched out. Take my measure, said he. Simon stitched a paper measure seventeen inches long, smoothed it out, knelt down, wiped his hand well on his apron, so as to not soil the gentleman's sock, and began to measure. He measured the sole and around the instep, and began to measure the calf of the leg, but the paper was too short. The calf of the leg was as thick as a beam. Mind you don't make it too tight in the leg. Simon stitched on another strip of paper. The gentleman twitched his toes about in his sock, looking around at those in the hut. And as he did, he noticed Michael. Whom have you there? asked he. That is my workman. He will sew the boots. Mind, said the gentleman to Michael. Remember to make them so they will last me a year. Simon also looked at Michael, and saw that Michael was not looking at the gentleman, but was gazing into the corner behind the gentleman. As if he saw someone there. Michael looked and looked, and suddenly he smiled, and his face became brighter. What are you grinning at, you fool? thundered the gentleman. You'd better look to it that the boots are ready in time. They shall be ready in time, said Michael. Mind it is so, said the gentleman. And he put on his boots and his fur coat, wrapped the ladder around him, and went to the door. But he forgot to stoop, and struck his head against the lintel. He swore and rubbed his head. Then he took his seat in the carriage, and drove away. When he had gone, Simon said, There's a figure of a man for you. You could not kill him with a mallet. He almost knocked out the lintel, but little harm it did him. And Matrona said, Living as he does, how should he not grow strong? Death itself can't touch such a rock as that. Then Simon said to Michael, Well, we have taken the work. But we must see we don't get into trouble over it. The leather is dear, and the gentleman hot tempered. We must make no mistakes. Come, your eye is truer, and your hands have become nimbler than mine. So you take this measure and cut out the boots. I will finish off the sewing of the vamps. Michael did as he was told. He took the leather, spread it out on the table, folded it in two, took a knife, and began to cut out. Matrona came and watched him cutting, and was surprised to see how he was doing it. Matrona was accustomed to seeing boots made, and she looked and saw that Michael was not cutting the leather for boots, but was cutting it round. She wished to say something, but she thought to herself, Perhaps I do not understand how gentlemen's boots should be made. I suppose Michael knows more about it, and I won't interfere. When Michael had cut up the leather, he took a thread, and began to sew, not with two ends, as boots are sewn, but with a single end, as for soft slippers. Again Matrona wondered, but again she did not interfere. Michael sewed on steadily till noon, then Simon rose for dinner, looked around, and saw that Michael had made slippers out of the gentleman's leather. Ah! groaned Simon, and he thought, How is it that Michael, who has been with me a whole year, and never made a mistake before, should do such a dreadful thing? The gentleman ordered high boots, welted with whole fronts, and Michael has made soft slippers with single soles, and has wasted the leather. What am I to say to the gentleman? I can never replace leather such as this. And he said to Michael, What are you doing, friend? You have ruined me. You know the gentleman ordered high boots, but see what you have made. Hardly had he begun to rebuke Michael, when rat-tat went, the iron ring that hung on the door. Someone was knocking. They looked out of the window. A man had come on horseback, and was fastening his horse. They opened the door, and the servant who had been with the gentleman came in. Good day, said he. Good day, replied Simon. What can we do for you? My mistress has sent me about the boots. What about the boots? Why, my master no longer needs them. He is dead. Is it possible? He did not live to get home after leaving you, but died in the carriage. When we reached home and the servants came to help him alight, he rolled over like a sack. He was dead already, and so stiff he could hardly be got out of the carriage. My mistress sent me here, saying, Tell the bootmaker that the gentleman who ordered boots of him, and left the leather for them, no longer needs the boots. But that he must quickly make soft slippers for the corpse. Wait till they are ready, and bring them back with you. That is why I have come. Michael gathered up the remnants of the leather, rolled them up, took the soft slippers he had made, slapped them together, wiped them down with his apron, and handed them, and the roll of leather, to the servant, who took them and said, Goodbye, masters, and good day to you. Another year passed, and another. And Michael was now living his sixth year with Simon. He lived as before. He went nowhere, only spoke when necessary, and had only smiled twice in those years. Once when Matrona gave him food, and a second time when the gentleman was in their hut. Simon was more than pleased with his workman. He never now asked him where he came from, and only feared less Michael should go away. They were all at home one day. Matrona was putting iron pots in the oven. The children were running along the benches and looking out of the window. Simon was sewing at one window, and Michael was fastening on a hill at the other. One of the boys ran along the bench to Michael, leaned on his shoulder, and looked out of the window. Look, Uncle Michael, there is a lady with little girls. She seems to be coming here, and one of the little girls is lame. When the boys said that, Michael dropped his work, turned to the window, and looked out into the street. Simon was surprised. Michael never used to look into the street, but now he pressed against the window, staring at something. Simon also looked out, and saw that a well-dressed woman was really coming to his hut, leading by the hand two little girls in fur coats, and woolen shawls. The girls could hardly be told one from the other, except that one of them was crippled in her left leg, and walked with a limp. The woman stepped into the porch and entered the passage. Feeling about for the entrance, she found the latch, which she lifted, and opened the door. She let the two girls in first, and followed them into the hut. Good day, good folk! Pray come in, said Simon. What can we do for you? The woman sat down at the table. The two little girls pressed close to her knees, afraid of the people in the hut. I won't let their shoes made for these two little girls for spring. We can do that. We never have made such small shoes, but we can make them. Either welted or turn over shoes, when inlined. My man Michael is a master at the work. Simon glanced at Michael, and saw that he had left his work, and was sitting with his eyes fixed on the little girls. Simon was surprised. It was true the girls were pretty, with black eyes, plump and rosy cheeked, and they wore nice kerchiefs and fur coats. But still Simon could not understand why Michael should look at them like that, just as if he had known them before. He was puzzled, but went on talking with the woman, and arranging the price. Having fixed it, he prepared the measure. The woman lifted the lame girl on her lap, and said, Take two measures from this little girl, make one shoe for the lame foot, and three for the sound one. They both have the same size feet, they are twins. Simon took the measure. Speaking of the lame girl, said, How did it happen to her? She is such a pretty girl. Was she born so? No. Her mother crushed her leg. Then Matrona joined in. She wondered who this woman was, and whose the children were, and so she said, Are not you their mother then? No, my good woman, I am neither their mother nor any relation to them. They were quite strangers to me, but I adopted them. They are not your children, and yet you are so fond of them. How can I help being fond of them? I fed them both at my own breasts. I had a child of my own, but God took him. I was not so fond of him as I now am of them. Then whose children are they? The woman, having begun talking, told them the whole story. Just about six years since their parents died, both in one week. Their father was buried on the Tuesday, and their mother died on the Friday. These orphans were born three days after their father's death, and their mother did not live another day. My husband and I were then living as peasants in the village. We were neighbors of theirs. Our yard, being next to theirs, their father was a lonely man, a woodcutter in the forest. When falling trees one day, they let one fall on him. It fell across his body and crushed his bowels out. They hardly got him home before his soul went to God, and that same week his wife gave birth to twins, these little girls. She was poor and alone. She had no one, young or old, with her. Alone she gave them birth, and alone she met her death. The next morning I went to see her, but when I entered the hut, she, poor thing, was already stark and cold. In dying she had rolled onto this child and crushed her leg. The village folk came to the hut, washed her body, laid her out, made a coffin, and buried her. They were good folk. The babies were left alone. What was to be done with them? I was the only woman there who had a baby at the time. I was nursing my first born, eight weeks old, so I took them for a time. The peasants came together and thought and thought what to do with them. And at last they said to me, for the present, Mary, you had better keep the girls, and later on we will arrange what to do for them. So I nursed the sound one at my breast, but at first I did not feed this crippled one. I did not suppose she would live, but then I thought to myself, why should the poor innocent suffer? I pitied her and began to feed her, and so I fed my own boy and these two the three of them at my own breast. I was young and strong and had good food, and God gave me so much milk that at times it even overflowed. I used some times to feed two at a time while the third was waiting. When one had enough, I nursed the third, and God so ordered it that these grew up while my own was buried before he was two years old. And I had no more children, though we prospered. Now my husband is working for the corn merchant at the mill. The pay is good, and we are well off. But I have no children of my own, and how lonely I should be without these little girls. How can I help loving them? They are the joy of my life. She pressed the lame little girl to her with one hand, while with the other she wiped the tears from her cheeks. Amitrona sighed and said, The proverb is true that says, One may live without father or mother, but one cannot live without God. So they talked together, when suddenly the whole hut was lighted up as though by summer lightning from the corner where Michael sat. They all looked toward him and saw him sitting, his hands folded on his knees, gazing upward, and smiling. The woman went away with the girls. Michael rose from the bench, put down his work, and took off his apron. Then, bowing low to Simon and his wife, he said, Farewell, masters! God has forgiven me. I ask your forgiveness too, for anything done amiss. And they saw that a light shone for Michael, and Simon rose, bowed down to Michael, and said, I see, Michael, that you are no common man, and I can neither keep you nor question you. Only tell me this. How is it that when I found you and brought you home, you were gloomy? And when my wife gave you food, you smiled at her and became brighter. Then, when the gentleman came to order the boots, you smiled again, and became brighter still. And now, when this woman brought the little girls, you smiled a third time, and have become as bright as day. Tell me, Michael, why does your face shine so? And why did you smile those three times? And Michael answered, Light shines for me because I have been punished. But now God has pardoned me, and I smiled three times because God sent me to learn three truths, and I have learned them. One, I learned when your wife pitied me, and that is why I smiled the first time. The second, I learned when the rich man ordered the boots. And then I smiled again. And now, I saw those three little girls, I learned the third and last truth, and I smiled the third time. And Simon said, Tell me, Michael, what did God punish you for? And what were the three truths that I too may know them? And Michael answered, God punished me for disobeying him. I was an angel in heaven and disobeyed God. God sent me to fetch a woman's soul. I flew to earth and saw the sick woman lying alone, who had just given birth to twin girls. They moved feebly at their mother's side, but she could not lift them to her breast. When she saw me, she understood that God had sent me for her soul, and she wept and said, Angel of God, my husband has just been buried, killed by a falling tree. I have neither sister nor aunt nor mother. No one to care for my orphans. Do not take my soul. Let me nurse my babes, feed them, and set them on their feet before I die. Children cannot live without father or mother. And I hearkened to her. I placed one child at her breast. And gave the other into her arms. I returned to the Lord in heaven. I flew to the Lord and said, I cannot take the soul of the mother. Her husband was just killed by a tree. The woman has twins, and praise of her soul may not be taken. She says, Let me nurse and feed my children, and set them on their feet. Children cannot live without father or mother. I have not taken her soul. And God said, Go, take the mother's soul, and learn three truths. Learn what dwells in men, what is not given to men, and what men live by. When thou hast learned these three things, thou shalt return to heaven. So I flew again to earth and took the mother's soul. The babes dropped from her breast. Her body rolled over on the bed and crushed one babe, twisting its leg. I rose above the village, wishing to take her soul to God. But the wind seized me, and my wings drooped and dropped off. Her soul rose to God alone, while I fell to earth by the roadside. And Simon and Matrona understood who it was that had lived with them, and whom they had clothed and fed. And they wept with awe and with joy. And the angel said, I was alone in the field naked. I had never known human needs, cold and hunger, till I became a man. I was famished, frozen, and did not know what to do. I saw near the field I was in, a shrine built for God, and I went to it hoping to find shelter. But the shrine was locked, and I could not enter. So I sat down beside the shrine to shelter myself at least from the wind. Evening drew on. I was hungry, frozen, and in pain. Suddenly I heard a man coming along the road. He carried a pair of boots, and was talking to himself. For the first time since I became a man, I saw the mortal face of a man, and his face seemed terrible to me, and I turned from it. And I heard the man talking to himself of how to cover his body from the cold in winter, and how to feed wife and children, and I thought. I am perishing of cold and hunger, and here is a man thinking only about a cloth himself and his wife, and how to get bread for themselves. He cannot help me. When the man saw me, he frowned and became still more terrible, and passed me by on the other side. I despaired. But suddenly I heard him coming back. I looked up and did not recognize the same man. Before I had seen death in his face, but now he was alive, and I recognized in him the presence of God. He came up to me, clothed me, took me with him, and brought me to his home. I entered the house, and a woman came to meet us, and began to speak. The woman was still more terrible than the man had been. The spirit of death came from her mouth. I could not breathe for the stench of death that spread around her. She wished to drive me out into the cold, and I knew that if she did so, she would die. Suddenly her husband spoke to her of God, and the woman changed at once. And when she brought me food and looked at me, I glanced at her, and saw that death no longer dwelt in her. She had become alive, and in her too I saw God. When I remembered the first lesson God had set me, learn what dwells in man. And I understood that in man dwells love. I was glad that God had already begun to show me what he had promised, and I smiled for the first time. But I had not yet learnt all. I did not know what is not given man, and what men live by. I lived with you, and a year passed. A man came to order boots that should wear for a year without losing shape or cracking. I looked at him, and suddenly behind his shoulder I saw my comrade, the angel of death. None but me saw that angel, but I knew him, and I knew that before the sunset he would take that rich man's soul. And I thought to myself, the man is making preparations for a year, and does not know that he will die before evening. And I remembered God's second saying, learn what is not given to man. What dwells in man I already knew. Now I learnt what is not given man. It is not given to man to know his own needs. And I smiled for the second time. I was glad to have seen my comrade, angel, glad also that God had revealed to me the second saying. But still I did not know all. I did not know what men live by. And I lived on, waiting till God should reveal to me the last lesson. In the sixth year came the girl twins with the woman, and I recognized the girls and heard how they had been kept alive. Having heard the story I thought, their mother besought me for the children's sake, and I believed her when she said that children cannot live without father or mother. But a stranger has nursed them, and has brought them up. And when the woman showed her love for the children that were not her own, and wept over them, I saw in her the living God, and I understood what men live by. And I knew that God had revealed to me the last lesson, and had forgiven my sin. And then I smiled for the third time. And the angel's body was bared, and he was clothed in light, so that the eye could not look upon him. And his voice grew louder, as though it came not from him, but from heaven above. And the angel said, I have learned that all men live not by care for themselves, but by love. It was not given to the mother to know what her children needed for their life, nor was it given to the rich man to know what he himself needed. Nor is it given to any man to know whether, when evening comes, he will need boots for his body, or slippers for his corpse. I remained alive when I was a man, not by care of myself, but because love was present in a passer-by, and because he and his wife pitied and loved me. The orphans remained alive not because of their mother's care, but because there was love in the heart of a woman, a stranger to them, who pitied and loved them. And all men live not by the thought they spend on their own welfare, but because love exists in man. I knew that God gave life to men, and desires that they should live. Now I understood more than that. I understood that God does not wish men to live apart. And therefore he does not reveal to them what each one needs for himself, but he wishes them to live united, and therefore reveals to each of them what is necessary for all. I have now understood that though it seems to men that they live by care for themselves, in truth it is love alone by which they live. He who has love is in God, and God is in him, for God is love. And the angel sang praise to God so that the hut trembled at his voice. The roof opened, and a column of fire rose from earth to heaven. Simon and his wife and children fell to the ground. Wings appeared on the angels' shoulders, and he rose into the heavens. And when Simon came to himself, the hut stood as before, and there was no one in it, but his own family. End of What Men Live By by Leo Tostoy.