Quote #2
Some one has to be kind, girl- some one has to pity people! Christ pitied everybody- and he said to us: 'Go and do likewise!' I tell you- if you pity a man when he most needs it, good comes of it. Why- I used to be a watchman on the estate of an engineer near Tomsk- all right - the house was right in the middle of a forest- lonely place - winter came- and I remained all by myself. Well- one night I heard a noise- thieves creeping in! I took my gun- I went out. I looked and saw two of them opening a window- and so busy that they didn't even see me. I yell: 'Hey there- get out of here!' And they turn on me with their axes- I warn them to stand back, or I'd shoot- and as I speak, I keep on covering them with my gun, first on the one, then the other- they go down on their knees, as if to implore me for mercy. And by that time I was furious- because of those axes, you see- and so I say to them: 'I was chasing you, you scoundrels- and you didn't go. Now you go and break off some stout branches!'- and they did so- and I say: 'Now - one of you lie down and let the other one flog him!' So they obey me and flog each other- and then they began to implore me again. 'Grandfather,' they say, 'for God's sake give us some bread! We're hungry!' There's thieves for you, my dear! [Laughs.] And with an ax, too! Yes- honest peasants, both of them! And I say to them, 'You should have asked for bread straight away!' And they say: 'We got tired of asking- you beg and beg- and nobody gives you a crumb- it hurts!' So they stayed with me all that winter - one of them, Stepan, would take my gun and go shooting in the forest- and the other, Yakoff, was ill most of the time - he coughed a lot . . . and so the three of us together looked after the house . . . then spring came . . . 'Good-bye, grandfather,' they said- and they went away- back home to Russia . . . escaped convicts- from a Siberian prison camp . . . honest peasants! If I hadn't felt sorry for them- they might have killed me- or maybe worse- and then there would have been a trial and prison and afterwards Siberia- what's the sense of it? Prison teaches no good- and Siberia doesn't either- but another human being can . . . yes, a human being can teach another one kindness- very simply!