What people live on
What people live on is a short story by Leo Tolstoy , which he wrote in 1881.
content
characters
- Semion , the cobbler
- Matriona , wife of the cobbler
- Mikhailo , the stranger
action
The shoemaker Semion, who lives in the poorest of circumstances, has to buy new sheepskin for himself and his wife. To do this, he goes into the village and plans to collect the money he needs to buy from his debtors. But it is not enough, and so he spends the small amount of twenty kopecks he received on a schnapps. On the way home, he meets a naked man sitting on the ground outside in the cold. At first Semion hesitates for a while, but then feels sorry for the stranger. He then sporadically dresses him in his caftan and takes him to his family home.
Once there, the stranger threatens to be thrown out by Matrenas, the shoemaker's wife, who at first only complains about the lack of fur and going to the pub. Shortly before he was thrown out, Matrena took pity on the man and let him have his way. For the first time he smiled with joy. Shortly afterwards, the stranger also mentions his name: Michailo. Over time, the master shoemaker teaches the man named Michailo his craft and lets him work successfully as a trained journeyman. Despite all this, Michailo remains silent about his origins and remains very silent but hardworking the whole time.
One day a rich man comes by and demands that the expensive leather he brought be made into boots. According to his express wish, these should last a very long time. Michailo, who is now successful as a journeyman, grins briefly. This was the second time he smiled. After the customer left the house, Michailo made him lightweight shoes instead. Shortly afterwards, the rich man's boy comes back and reports that the client suddenly died and that mortuary shoes are now needed. This is exactly what the journeyman made.
Years later, a woman and her two girls come to the shoemaker's shop. The twins are very similar - only one of the two has a crippled foot. The woman asks the shoemaker to make shoes for the girls. She says that she is the foster mother of the twins. The birth mother, on the other hand, died at birth. The foot of the second daughter was accidentally pinched off by the dying mother and therefore crippled. Since the biological father also died before the mother, the woman took in the twins, for whom shoes are now needed. When Mikhailo heard the story from his mother, he smiled for the third time.
After the woman and her children leave, the journeyman Michailo reveals his secret. He originally comes from heaven and reveals himself as a former angel. Years ago he was originally sent to earth on a divine commission to fetch the soul of the birth mother of the twins. Michailo felt sorry for the woman who had already lost her husband and had just given birth to twins. After a short conversation, God sent him back to fetch the soul anyway. He gave Mikhailo three questions to be answered - only then could he return to heaven. Michailo should understand:
- What is in people
- What is not given to people and
- What people live on.
The mother's soul now came to God and he landed as a mortal on earth, only to be discovered later by accident by the shoemaker Semion. Thus, the origin of Mikhail is clear.
He now answered the three questions:
- What is in people : He understood that, despite initial rejection, there was Semion's and Matriona's love behind the good deeds,
- What is not given to people : he answers this using the story with the rich customer of special shoes. Mikhail grinned for the second time because he saw his colleague, the Angel of Death, standing behind the customer. That is why he knew that it was no longer the special shoes that were needed but actually mortuary shoes.
"And it is not given to anyone to know whether they need boots or funeral shoes in the evening."
- In the end, Michailo realized that people do not live from selfish self-interest, but from cooperation and above all from the love that is in them. Then he quotes John from the New Testament ( 1st letter of John 4:16 EU ).
“I understood: it only seems to people as if they live from worrying about themselves; in truth they only live on love. He who remains in love remains in God and God in him, for God is love. "
After answering these questions to the shoemakers, he was redeemed and returned to his place.
literature
- Leo Tolstoy: Collected Works - The Stories ( What people live on p. 329–355). Anaconda-Verlag, Cologne 2016, ISBN 978-3-7306-0341-3 .