25Octoberоктября · 25-е октября
Человек, сознающий свое назначение, этим самым и сознает свое достоинство. Сознает же свое назначение только человек религиозный.
Those who are conscious of their calling are by that very fact conscious of their dignity. And only religious people are conscious of their calling.
1. Царь спросил святого человека: думаешь ли ты обо мне? Святой отвечал: думаю, когда забываю бога.
1. A king asked a holy man, “Do you ever think of me?” “I do,” the holy man answered, “when I forget God.”
From Gulistan, ch. II · shortened by Tolstoy .
Original · Persianپادشاهی پارسایی را دید.
گفت: هیچت از ما یاد آید؟
گفت: بلی! وقتی که خدا را فراموش میکنم.
Source text: api.ganjoor.netIn English · James Ross, 1823A king said to a holy man, "Are you ever thinking of me?" "Yes," replied he, "at such time as I am forgetting God Almighty!
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Gulistan, ch. II (On the morals of dervishes), II, story 15 (Ganjoor numbering; XIV in Ross).
The anecdote is given faithfully ('parsa' = holy man); Tolstoy omits the closing couplet (he whom God drives from His door runs everywhere, he whom God calls is sent to no other door). Ross's English is from his 1823 translation as reprinted in 'The Persian Literature' (1900).
2. Мы чтим бога каждый раз, когда чувствуем жизнь наших ближних так же, как нашу собственную жизнь.
2. We honor God every time we feel the lives of our neighbors as we feel our own.
From Doveri dell’uomo · reworded by Tolstoy .
What changedAn aside to workers becomes a maxim: feel our neighbors’ lives as our own.
Original · ItalianIo dunque non vi parlo di Dio per dimostrarvene l’esistenza, o per dirvi che dovete adorarlo: voi lo adorate, anche non nominandolo, ogni qualvolta voi sentite la vostra vita e la vita degli esseri che vi stanno intorno …
Source text: it.wikisource.orgIn English · Emilie Ashurst Venturi, 1862I do not therefore speak to you of God in order to demonstrate to you His existence, or to tell you that you are bound to worship Him.
… whensoever you deeply feel your own life, and that of the fellow-beings by whom you are surrounded …
Source text: archive.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Doveri dell’uomo (The Duties of Man), Chapter II, "Dio" (Doveri dell’uomo, London 1860 edition).
In Mazzini this is an aside to the workers ("you adore Him, even without naming Him, whenever you feel your own life and the life of the beings around you") opening an argument against separating God from the earth. Tolstoy makes it a first-person-plural maxim and sharpens "feel your life and theirs" into feeling our neighbours' lives as our own; his source was probably L. P. Nikiforov's 1905 selection of Mazzini's thoughts (vol. 42 source list).
3. Ничто так не характеризует человека, как его обращение с дураками.
3. Nothing reveals a man’s character like the way he treats fools.
From Fragments d’un journal intime · close to the original .
Original · FrenchRien ne caractérise mieux un homme que la manière dont il se conduit avec les sots.
Source text: archive.orgIn English · Mrs Humphry Ward, 1885Nothing is more characteristic of a man than the manner in which he behaves toward fools.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Fragments d’un journal intime, Journal entry of 17 December 1854; Fragments d’un journal intime, 7th ed. (Genève: Georg, 1897), t. I, p. 94.
Confirmed as Amiel: a one-sentence fragment closing the entry of 17 December 1854, rendered word for word.
4. Стоит освободить себя от обязанности уважения к одному человеку на том основании, что он дурной, глупый, неисправимый, и не будет уже того предела неуважения к людям, до которого мы допустим себя.
4. We need only excuse ourselves from the duty of respecting a single person, on the ground that this person is bad, stupid, incorrigible, and there will be no limit left to the disrespect toward people that we allow ourselves.
5. Пора бы, наконец, человеку узнать себе цену. Что же, в самом деле, разве он какое-нибудь незаконнорожденное существо? Подобает ли ему прятаться и робко озираться по сторонам? Нет, пусть голова моя твердо и прямо держится на плечах. Жизнь дана мне не напоказ, а для того, чтобы я жил ею. Я сознаю свою обязанность говорить правду, чистую правду на всех перекрестках. Я должен заботиться не о мнении людей обо мне, а об истинном своем назначении.
5. It is time a man learned his own worth at last. Is he, then, some creature born out of wedlock? Is it fitting for him to hide and glance timidly about? No: let my head sit firm and upright on my shoulders. My life was given me not for show but to be lived. I know it is my duty to speak the truth, the plain truth, on every street corner. I must care not about what people think of me, but about my true calling.
From Self-Reliance, in Essays: First Series · joined by Tolstoy from several places .
Emerson’s own wordsLet a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper in the world which exists for him.
I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.
I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle.
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Self-Reliance, in Essays: First Series (1841), Paragraphs 18, 7, 8 and 9 (of 52, counting from 'I read the other day'), used in that order.
Stitched from four places in the essay, with the 'know his worth' passage, which comes later in the essay, put first. Emerson's 'charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper' turns into rhetorical questions; 'upright and vital' becomes a head held straight on the shoulders; 'the rude truth in all ways' becomes 'the pure truth at every crossroads' (the 'ways' read as roads); and 'what I must do' becomes 'my true calling'. Tolstoy's source list (Jubilee vol. 42 commentary) includes a Russian translation of Self-Reliance (Posrednik, 1904) and Broadbent's Emerson selection (1903), either of which may have supplied the Russian.
Translation note. Idiom: «на всех перекрестках» (at every crossroads) means openly, in public. “On every street corner” keeps both the sense and the image.
6. Свобода лица — величайшее дело; на ней и только на ней может вырасти свобода народа. В себе самом человек должен уважать свою свободу и чтить ее не менее, чем в ближнем, чем в целом народе.
6. The freedom of the individual is the greatest of all things; on it, and on it alone, can the freedom of a people grow. A man must respect his freedom in himself and honor it no less than in his neighbor or in a whole people.
From С того берега · reworded by Tolstoy .
What changed“The real will of the people” becomes “the freedom of the people.”
Original · RussianСвобода лица — величайшее дело; на ней и …
… только на ней …
… может вырасти действительная воля народа. В себе самом человек должен уважать свою свободу и чтить ее не менее, как в ближнем, как в целом народе.
Source text: ru.wikisource.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. С того берега (From the Other Shore), introduction: "Прощайте!" (Paris, 1 March 1849), Введение, «Прощайте!»; Собр. соч. в 30 т., т. 6 (1955).
Two consecutive sentences from Herzen's farewell letter to his Moscow friends. Tolstoy changes 'the real will of the people' (действительная воля народа) to 'the freedom of the people' and modernises 'не менее, как' to 'не менее, чем'; the italic 'only on it' loses its emphasis. No pre-1929 English exists: Garnett's 'My Past and Thoughts' does not include 'From the Other Shore' (first English 1956).
Только человек, сознающий себя духовным существом, может сознавать человеческое достоинство свое и других людей, и только такой человек не унизит ни себя, ни ближнего поступком или положением, недостойным человека.
Only those who are conscious of themselves as spiritual beings can be conscious of human dignity in themselves and in others; and only they will not degrade themselves or their neighbors by any act, or any position, unworthy of a human being.
Tolstoy TodayТолстой сегодня · tolstoytoday.org/october/25