Little Orphan at Christ's Christmas Tree
by Fyodor
Dostoevski (1887)
I commend to you one of my
favorite Christmas stories from the days of my early youth. It is written by
the Russian author, Fyodor Dostoevski, and, in its quaint manner, reminds us of
the true and eternal meaning of Christmas. As a child, it touched me deeply,
but as an adult, it still touches my heart with the fire of love. I hope you,
too, will enjoy it as I do.
- Jerry
Ogles
What a fine example of
leaving behind the pain of this world for the Joy of His. There should be no fear of death for
the faithful. We are expected to
do our best here, to exist here as long as we can do it following His
Rules. But, to fear death? There is no death to fear. That is His Gift to us.
- Hap
"No book is really worth
reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth
reading at the age of fifty." - CS Lewis
I
In a large city, on Christmas
eve in the biting cold, I see a young child, still quite young, six years old,
perhaps even less; yet too young to be sent on the street begging, but assuredly
destined to be sent in a year or two.
This child awakes one morning
in a damp and frosty cellar. He is wrapped in a kind of squalid dressing-gown
and is shivering. His breath issues from between his lips in white vapor; he is
seated on a trunk; to pass the time he blows the breath from his mouth, and
amuses himself in seeing it escape. But he is very hungry. Several times since
morning he has drawn near the bed covered with a straw mattress as thin as
gauze, where his mother lies sick, her head resting on a bundle of rags instead
of a pillow.
How did she come there? She
came probably from a strange city and has fallen ill. The proprietress of the
miserable lodging was arrested two days ago, and carried to the police station;
it is a holiday to-day, and the other tenants have gone out. However, one of
them has remained in bed for the last twenty-four hours, stupid with drink, not
having waited for the holiday.
From another corner issue the
complaints of an old woman of eighty years, laid up with rheumatism. This old
woman was formerly a children's nurse somewhere; now she is dying all alone.
She whines, moans, and growls at the little boy, who begins to be afraid to
come near the corner where she lies with the death rattle in her throat. He has
found something to drink in the hallway, but he has not been able to lay his
hand on the smallest crust of bread, and for the tenth time he comes to wake
his mother. He finishes by getting frightened in this darkness.
The evening is already late,
and no one comes to kindle the fire. He finds, by feeling around, his mother's
face, and is astonished that she no longer moves and that she has become as
cold as the wall.
"It is so cold!" he
thinks.
He remains some time without
moving, his hand resting on the shoulder of the corpse. Then he begins to blow
in his fingers to warm them, and, happening to find his little cap on the bed,
he looks softly for the door, and issues forth from the underground lodging.
He would have gone out sooner
had he not been afraid of the big dog that barks all the day up there on the
landing before their neighbor's door.
Oh! what a city! never before
had he seen anything like it. Down yonder from where he came, the nights are
much darker. There is only one lamp for the whole street; little low wooden
houses, closed with shutters; in the street from the time it grows dark, no
one; every one shut up at home: only a crowd of dogs that howl, hundreds,
thousands of dogs, that howl and bark all the night. But then, it used to be so
warm there! And he got something to eat. Here, ah! how good it would be to have
something to eat! What a noise here, what an uproar! What a great light, and
what a crowd of people! What horses, and what carriages! And the cold, the
cold! The bodies of the tired horses smoke with frost and their burning
nostrils puff white clouds; their shoes ring on the pavement through the soft
snow. And how every body hustles every body else! "Ah! how I would like to
eat a little piece of something. That is what makes my fingers ache so."
II
A policeman just passes by,
and turns his head so as not to see the child.
"Here is another street.
Oh! how wide it is! I shall be crushed to death here, I know; how they all
shout, how they run, how they roll along! And the light, and the light! And
that, what is that? Oh! what a big window pane! And behind the pane, a room,
and in the room a tree that goes up to the ceiling; it is the Christmas tree.
And what lights under the tree! Such papers of gold, and such apples! And all
around dolls and little hobby-horses. There are little children well-dressed,
nice, and clean; they are laughing and playing, eating and drinking things.
There is a little girl going to dance with the little boy. How pretty she is!
And there is music. I can hear it through the glass."
The child looks, admires, and
even laughs. He feels no longer any pain in his fingers or feet. The fingers of
his hand have become all red, he cannot bend them any more, and it hurts him to
move them. But all at once, he feels that his fingers ache; he begins to cry,
and goes away. He perceives through another window another room, and again
trees and cakes of all sorts on the table, red almonds and yellow ones. Four
beautiful ladies are sitting down, and when any body comes he is given some
cake: and the door opens every minute, and many gentlemen enter. The little
fellow crept forward, opened the door of a sudden, and went in. Oh! what a
noise was made when they saw him, what confusion! Immediately a lady arose, put
a kopeck in his hand, and opened herself the street door for him. How
frightened he was!
III
The kopeck has fallen from
his hands, and rings on the steps of the stairs. He was not able to tighten his
little fingers enough to hold the coin. The child went out running, and walked
fast, fast. Where was he going? He did not know. And he runs, runs, and blows
in his hands. He is troubled. He feels so lonely, so frightened! And suddenly,
what is that again! A crowd of people stand there and admire.
"A window! behind the
pane, three pretty dolls attired in wee red and yellow dresses, and just
exactly as though they were alive! And that little old man sitting down, who
seems to play the fiddle. There are two others, too, standing up, who play on
tiny violins, keeping time with their heads to the music. They look at each
other and their lips move. And they really speak? Only they cannot be heard
through the glass."
And the child first thinks
that they are living, and when he comprehends that they are only dolls, he
begins to laugh. Never had he seen such dolls before, and he didn't know that
there were any like that! He would like to cry, but those dolls are just too
funny!
IV
Suddenly he feels himself
seized by the coat. A big rough boy stands near him, who gives him a blow of
his fist on the head, snatches his cap, and trips him up.
The child falls. At the same
time there is a shout; he remains a moment paralyzed with fear. Then he springs
up with a bound and runs, runs, darts under a gateway somewhere and hides
himself in a court-yard behind a pile of wood. He cowers and shivers in his
fright; he can hardly breathe.
And suddenly he feels quite
comfortable. His little hands and feet don't hurt any more; he is warm, warm as
though near a stove, and all his body trembles.
"Ah! I am going asleep!
how nice it is to have a sleep! I shall stay a little while and then I will go
and see the dolls again," thought the little fellow, and he smiled at the
recollection of the dolls. "They looked just as though they were
alive!"
Then he hears his mother's
song. "Mamma, I am going to sleep. Ah! how nice it is here for
sleeping!"
"Come to my house,
little boy, to see the Christmas tree," said a soft voice.
He thought at first it was
his mother; but no, it was not she.
Then who is calling him? He does
not see. But some one stoops over him, and folds him in his arms in the
darkness: and he stretches out his hand and--all at once--oh! what light! Oh!
what a Christmas tree! No, it is not a Christmas tree; he has never seen the
like of it!
Where is he now? All is
resplendent, all is radiant, and dolls all around; but no, not dolls, little
boys, little girls; only they are very bright. All of them circle round him;
they fly. They hug him, they take him and carry him away, and he is flying too.
And he sees his mother looking at him and laughing joyfully.
"Mamma! mamma! ah! how
nice it is here!" cries her little boy to her.
And again he embraces the
children, and would like very much to tell them about the dolls behind the
window pane. "Who are you, little girls?" he asks, laughing and
fondling them.
It is the Christmas tree at
Jesus's.
At Jesus's, that day, there
is always a Christmas tree for little children that have none themselves.
And he learned that all these
little boys and girls were children like himself, who had died like him. Some
had died of cold in the baskets abandoned at the doors of the public
functionaries of St. Petersburg; others had died out at nurse in the foul
hovels of the Tchaukhnas; others of hunger at the dry breasts of their mothers
during the famine. All were here now, all little angels now, all with Jesus,
and He Himself among them, spreading his hands over them, blessing them and
their sinful mothers.
And the mothers of these
children are there too, apart, weeping; each recognizes her son or her
daughter, and the children fly towards them, embrace them, wipe away the tears
with their little hands, and beg them not to weep.
And below on the earth, the
concierge in the morning found the wee corpse of the child, who had taken
refuge in the courtyard. Stiff and frozen behind the pile of wood it lay.
The mother was found too. She
died before him; both are reunited in Heaven in the Lord's house.
THE END.
