Self-Renunciation. The Free ManСамоотречение. Свободный человек

Even the firmest people have their hours of despondency. You see the good, you strive toward it, you want to bring it about — and all your efforts seem vain, and you feel abandoned by those for whose sake you sacrificed yourself. You endure hatred, slander, persecution. It is just then that the cry bursts from the heart: “Father, deliver me from this hour…” Christ went through this. Alone in a world sick, blind, and deaf, among disciples who did not understand him; among a crowd coarse and indifferent, among merciless enemies, foreseeing the execution that was to be the first fruit of his work, Christ said: “Father, save me from this hour,” but at once added, with a foreboding of both the torments and the death on the cross: “But for this hour I have come.”

Yes, for just this: to suffer and to die, and to conquer by suffering, to conquer by death.

An eternal example for those who wish to carry on his work! It teaches them that the work is fruitful only through self-sacrifice, that he who sows does not reap, that if he does not die, he will remain alone; but if he dies, he will grow, like a grain cast into the ground, and bring forth much fruit.

You who feel that your soul is troubled because your word is rejected, because you do not see it at work, and that the future which was to come of it will, as it seems to you, be cast with you into the grave in which the sons of Satan would like to bury truth itself — believe, on the contrary, that it is just at this time that the work of life will begin, that for this hour you have come.

Disciples of Christ, you are not greater than your teacher; you must follow him along the path he has laid down for you, do your duty for duty’s own sake, and, asking nothing on this earth, expecting nothing more, say, like Didymus: And we too go and die with him. Sow, and sow, under the scorching sun, under the icy rain; sow everywhere, in the courts and in the prisons, on the very places of execution; sow: the harvest will come in its own time.

To be able to love others truly, not in words, we must not love ourselves — this too not in words, but in deed. What usually happens, though, is this: we think we love others, we assure ourselves and others of it, but we love them only in words, while ourselves we love in deed. Others we will forget to feed and put to bed, but ourselves never. And so, to love others truly, in deed, we must learn to forget to feed ourselves and put ourselves to bed, just as we forget to do it for others.

The greater the sacrifice, the more love; and the more love, the more fruitful the deeds, the greater the benefit to people.

There are two limits: one is to lay down one’s life for one’s friends; the other is to live without changing the conditions of one’s life. All people stand between these two limits: some at the level of Christ’s disciples, who left everything and followed him; others at the level of the rich young man, who at once turned away and went off when he was told to change his life. Between these two limits are the various Zacchaeuses, who change their lives only in part. But to be even a Zacchaeus, one must strive unceasingly toward the first limit.

Nekhlyudov stood at the edge of the ferry, looking at the wide, swift river. From the town came, over the water, the boom and brazen quiver of the big bell. The driver standing beside Nekhlyudov and all the carters, one after another, took off their caps and crossed themselves. But a short, shaggy old man standing nearest of all, by the rail, whom Nekhlyudov had not noticed at first, did not cross himself, but raised his head and stared at Nekhlyudov. This old man was dressed in a patched peasant coat, woolen trousers, and worn-out, patched leather boots. On his back was a small bag, and on his head a tall fur cap, rubbed bare.

“What’s this, old man, why aren’t you praying?” said Nekhlyudov’s driver, putting his cap back on. “Or aren’t you baptized?”

“Pray to who, then?” said the shaggy old man, resolutely and aggressively, rapping out one syllable after another.

“To God, of course,” the driver said ironically.

“Then you show me: where is he? God, that is?”

There was something so serious and firm in the old man’s expression that the driver, feeling that he was dealing with a strong man, was somewhat abashed; but he did not show it, and, trying not to fall silent and disgrace himself before the people listening, answered quickly:

“Where? In heaven, of course.”

“And have you been there?”

“Whether I have or I haven’t, everybody knows you have to pray to God.”

“No man hath seen God anywhere. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath revealed him,” said the old man, frowning sternly, in the same rapid patter.

“You must be a heathen, a hole-worshipper. You pray to a hole,” said the driver, thrusting the handle of his whip into his belt and straightening the breeching on the side horse.

Someone laughed.

“And what’s your faith, granddad?” asked a man no longer young, who stood with his cart at the edge of the ferry.

“I haven’t got any faith. Because I believe nobody, nobody at all, except my own self,” the old man answered, as quickly and resolutely as before.

“But how can you believe yourself?” said Nekhlyudov, entering the conversation. “You might be wrong.”

“Never in my life,” the old man answered resolutely, with a toss of his head.

“Then why are there different faiths?” asked Nekhlyudov.

“That’s just why there are different faiths: people believe people, and don’t believe themselves. I believed people too, and went astray as if in the taiga; I got so lost I never hoped to get out. The Old Believers, and the New Believers, and the Sabbatarians, and the Khlysty, and the Priestly, and the Priestless, and the Austrians, and the Molokans, and the Skoptsy. Every faith praises itself alone. So they’ve all crawled off every which way, like blind puppies. There are many faiths, but the spirit is one. In you, and in me, and in him. So let everyone believe his own spirit, and there you are: all will be united. Let everyone be his own man, and all will be as one.”

The old man spoke loudly and kept looking around, evidently wishing as many people as possible to hear him.

“And have you professed this for long?” asked Nekhlyudov.

“Me? A long time now. This is the twenty-third year they’ve been persecuting me.”

“Persecuting you how?”

“As they persecuted Christ, so they persecute me. They seize me and take me around the courts and around the priests — the scribes, the Pharisees; they’ve put me in the madhouse. But there’s nothing they can do to me, because I’m free. ‘What,’ they say, ‘is your name?’ They think I’ll take some rank or other on myself. But I don’t take any. I’ve renounced everything: I have no name, no place, no fatherland — I have nothing. I’m my own man. ‘What are you called?’ — Man. — ‘And how old are you?’ — I don’t count, I say, and it can’t be counted either, because I always was and always will be. — ‘Who are your father and mother?’ they say. — I have no father and no mother, I say, except God and the earth. God’s the father, the earth’s the mother. — ‘And do you acknowledge the tsar?’ they say. — Why shouldn’t I? He’s his own tsar, and I’m my own tsar. — ‘Well,’ they say, ‘there’s no talking to you.’ I say: I’m not asking you to talk to me. That’s how they torment me.”

“And where are you going now?” asked Nekhlyudov.

“Wherever God leads me. I work, and when there’s no work, I beg,” the old man finished, noticing that the ferry was coming up to the other bank, and he looked around triumphantly at all who had been listening to him.

The ferry put in at the other bank. Nekhlyudov took out his purse and offered the old man some money. The old man refused.

“I don’t take that. Bread I take,” he said.

“Well, goodbye.”

“There’s nothing to forgive. You haven’t wronged me. And I can’t be wronged anyway,” said the old man, and began putting the bag he had taken off back on his shoulder.

Meanwhile the post cart had been rolled off and the horses harnessed.

“What do you want to talk to him for, sir?” the driver said to Nekhlyudov when he had tipped the ferrymen and climbed into the cart. “Just a good-for-nothing tramp.”