The Lord Christ Celebrates Christmas (A Story)

I always imagine that this happened somewhere in one of the huge cities, on the very night of Christmas. And the weather was terribly icy.

A child. A child of six years or less awoke one morning shivering with cold in a cellar oozing with damp. He was wearing a small thing resembling a shirt, and the breath issuing from his mouth took the shape of rings of white vapor. Crouched in a corner, on a wooden box, he amused himself watching this vapor to drive away his boredom.

But he was hungry; he felt a pressing desire to eat something. Many times during the day he had drawn near the mat on which his mother lay, on a bit of straw shaped like a bed, and under her head a heap of old clothes that served her in place of a pillow.

How did she happen to be in this place?

She must have come with her child from another city and been struck down suddenly by illness. The police had summoned the mistress of the cellar. The rest of the lodgers had scattered at this hour of the night — it was the holiday... and no one was left but the old-clothes peddler, who lay sleeping off the drink he had swallowed twenty-four hours before, without waiting for the holiday to come.

In the other lodging there was a frail old woman crippled by rheumatism, who lay moaning and groaning. In a time gone by, and in another land, she had been a pampered little girl. But now she was alone, sighing and complaining and scolding the little boy, who had come to fear approaching that corner.

He had managed to find something to drink in the passage. But he had not found a single morsel of bread. Ten times at least he had gone up to his mother, trying to wake her. But fear of the darkness took hold of his little heart, and terror overwhelmed him. Night had let down its curtains long since, and still no light lit the place.

He had felt his mother's face and found it cold as the wall. He wondered at her, how she stayed without moving... and he exclaimed to himself: "How cold it is here!" His hand came to rest mechanically on his dead mother's shoulder. He blew on his little fingers to put some warmth into them. And after searching for his cap

on the mat, he left the cellar without a sound, feeling his way with his hands. He would gladly have left the place long before, had he not been afraid of meeting, at the top of the stairs, the big dog that had been barking all night in front of the neighboring house. But the dog was not there now. And here he suddenly found himself in the street.

My God! How immense this city is! He had never seen anything like it. Back there, where he had come from with his mother, darkness lay over the town at night; a single lantern lit the whole street; people took to their houses in the evening, and you would find no one in the streets and hear nothing but the barking of dogs — but the weather, in return, was warm. And there they used to give him something to eat.

But here! O God, if only he could eat something.

And then, what an uproar and clamor deafening his ears, what lights and crowds and horses and carriages — and this frost that pours down, pours down without cease; and the carriage-horses, coming and going, snorting frozen vapor from their nostrils, the iron of their hooves ringing on the pavement through the scattered snow. And these crowds colliding and jostling and... My God, how fiercely the desire grips him to eat something, a morsel of anything. And how sharply the pain creeps through his little fingers!

One of the policemen passed by and turned his head away, as if he had not noticed him.

Here is another street. Oh! How wide it is! Here one of the carriages will surely crush him. How this whole world clamors and hurries! And people pass him by, on foot and in carriages. And the light! What is this light?

And this! What is this, my God? How big this shop window is! Behind the window he saw a room with a great tree rising to the ceiling — a pine tree adorned with lights and clusters of gilded flowers and apples... and around it dolls and little horses, and children in new clothes, laughing and playing and eating and drinking.

And there — a little girl! She has begun to dance with a little boy. Lord, how sweet she is! Even the strains of the music can be heard through the glass.

And our hungry child gapes in astonishment, then bursts out laughing; he laughs despite the pain in his reddened fingers, which will no longer bend.

And suddenly the little one remembers that his fingers hurt him, and he breaks into sobs and runs off in haste.

He stopped before a second window and a room with a tree in it too, and he saw on the table great quantities of cakes — every kind of cake, some made with almonds, some red and some green — and four wealthy ladies sitting and handing them out to the little ones. And many grown people kept coming in from the street. The child slipped up, then suddenly opened the door and entered the room.

Oh! How they began to scold him and wave their hands in his face! And a lady hurried over to him, placed a piaster in his hand, and opened for him the door leading to the street.

How fear seized him! He could not close his frozen fingers over the piaster, and it rolled down the steps with a loud ringing. The child ran off in haste, not knowing where he was going. He felt a strong desire to weep, but he felt afraid as well. And here he is running again, blowing on his hands. He felt alone and frightened, and grief and sorrow took hold of him.

And suddenly he stopped! My God, what is this now? A crowd of people standing before one of the windows. He looked, and saw three dolls — not very large, but dressed in red and green clothes, and whoever looked at them would imagine they were alive, quite alive. And here was an old man sitting and playing on a fiddle — a big fiddle. And two other old men playing on two little fiddles, nodding their heads to the beat of the tune. They look at each other, their lips move, they speak — yes! whoever looks at them would imagine they are speaking... but the window keeps them from being heard.

At first the little one thought they were living creatures. But when he realized they were dolls, he burst out laughing. He had never seen their like before. And despite his desire to weep, gazing at the dolls dazzled him. Lord, how marvelous they were!

And he felt someone seize him from behind.

A wicked boy standing beside him suddenly dealt him a blow on the head, threw down his cap, stuck out his foot before him, and pushed him. He fell to the ground, heard shouting around him, felt afraid, and ran off in haste. Without knowing it, he crossed the courtyard of a large house, went in through a stable door, and crouched behind a pile of firewood: "Here, at least, no one will be able to discover me — the darkness is complete."

He squatted down and huddled into himself and could not draw a breath. So afraid was he.

And suddenly he felt at ease. The pain in his hands and feet ceased, and he felt a warmth as though he were beside a stove. For a moment he imagined he heard his mother's voice singing him a little song as she bent tenderly over him.

— Mama, I'm sleeping. How sweet it is to sleep here, Mama.

And suddenly a tender voice sounded above him: "Come, my dear little one, and look at my tree." He said to himself: "That is my mother's voice." But no... it was not his mother. Who, then, had called him so? He saw no one. Yet someone bent over him in the darkness and clasped him to his breast. And "He" stretched out His arms to him. And suddenly the whole universe was flooded with a great light! My God! What light!

And he saw a tree. Oh! It is the splendid Christmas tree. But it is not of pine. He had never seen a tree like it before. Where, then, is he now? Everything gleams and glows, and everywhere around him are little dolls. But no — they are not dolls. They are little girls and little boys, all of them playing. They dance the dabke and fly. Then they embrace him and take him by the hand. And he flies to them. And here is what he sees: he sees his mother looking at him with joy, and smiling.

Mama, Mama! Ah! How sweet life is here, Mama!

And the little ones embrace him again. And he longs to tell them all about the dolls he had seen in the window.

And he asked them fondly: "Who are you, little boys, and who might you be, you sweet little girls?" They said to him: "This is the Christmas tree that the Lord Christ sets up on Christmas night for the little ones who had no Christmas tree on earth."

And so he learned that all these children had been like him. Some of them had died of cold in baskets left on the steps of the palaces of Petersburg. Some had perished in the hands of wet-nurses. And some had departed this life at their mothers' breasts, whose milk had run dry in the days of the famine of the city of Samara. And they had all gathered here now, like angels, as guests of the Lord Christ; and He was among them, raising His hand to bless them and to bless their mothers.

And the mothers are here too, standing in a corner and shedding tears. Each of them recognizes her child, who flies to meet her. And the children embrace their mothers and wipe away their tears and beg them to weep no more, since they are happy...

And in the morning, the doormen found there the body of a little child who had run into the courtyard of the house and frozen behind a pile of firewood. They found his mother too. She had departed this life a little before her child.

And the two met in the kingdom of the merciful God.