****THE HEAVENLY CHRISTMAS TREE****
            by Fyodor Dostoevski

      I am a novelist, and I believe I have made up this story. While I
 say "I believe," I am certain that I did make it up. But somehow I
 cannot help feeling that this really happened somewhere, and must have
 happened on a Christmas eve, in a large city, on a terribly frosty day.
      I can see a boy, a little boy, some six years old, or less. This
 boy awoke that morning in a cold and clammy cellar. He wore some kind of
 a loose coat, and shivered with cold. His breath issued from his mouth
 like white steam, and, sitting on the edge of a box, he found it amusing
 to emit this steam and watch it disappear. But he was terribly hungry.
 Several times that morning he had gone up to the cot, where, on a mat
 not thicker than a pancake and with some kind of a bundle for a pillow,
 his sick mother was lying. How did she come here? She had possibly come
 with her boy from some provincial town and had suddenly fallen ill. The
 landlady, who let "corners" to lodgers, had been taken to the police
 station two days before; the lodgers had gone about their business and
 the only one left had been lying dead drunk for the last twenty-four
 hours, having thus anticipated the holiday. In another corner, groaning
 with rheumatism, lay an old lady of eighty, who had at one time been a
 children's nurse, but was now left to die alone. She was scolding and
 grumbling at the boy, so that he became afraid of going near her corner.
 He had found water to drink outside in the hall, but could not find a
 crust anywhere; and he tried a number of times to wake his mother. He
 began at last to fear the darkness; twilight had long set in, but no one
 made a light. Feeling his mother's face, he wondered why she did not
 move at all and was as cold as the wall. It was very cold here, he
 thought. He stood awhile, forgetting to remove his hand from the dead
 woman's shoulder, then he breathed on his small fingers to warm them,
 and, fumbling for his shabby cap on the cot, he softly groped his way
 out of the cellar. He would have gone sooner, but was scared of the big
 dog which had been howling all day outside a neighbor's door at the head
 of the stairs. Now the dog had left, and he went into the street.
      Mercy, what a city! Never before had he seen anything like it. The
 town he had come from, the nights were always so pitch dark: just one
 lamp for the whole street. The little low, wooden houses were closed
 with shutters; the streets were deserted after dusk. People shut them-
 selves up in the houses, and only packs of dogs, hundreds and thousands
 of them, barked and howled all night long. But he had been warm and had
 been given enough to eat, while here.... Lord! if he only HAD something
 to eat! And what a noise and bustle! What dazzling light, what crowds of
 people!... horses, carriages.... And the cold, the bitter cold! Frozen
 steam rose in clouds from the horses, out of their warmly-breathing
 mouths and nostrils; through the flaky snow is heard the clanking of
 their hooves against the stones, and there is such a pushing, jostling
 .... And, oh, Lord! he does so crave a morsel to eat! ... And his tiny
 fingers all at once begin to hurt him so. A policeman passed him, and
 turned away, to avoid seeing the boy.
      And now another street. What a wide one! Here they will surely be
 run over! How these people run, and race and shout! And the light--so
 much light! And, oh! what is this? A huge window. And behind the glass--
 a tree, so tall,--reaching up to the ceiling. It is a Christmas tree,
 and on it ever so many little lights, gilt paper and apples, and little
 dolls and horses; and about the room children--so clean and well
 dressed,--running, playing, laughing, and eating and drinking things.
 Now one little girl begins to dance with a little boy,--such a pretty
 little girl! And you can hear music, through the glass. And as the
 little boy in the street looks on in wonder, he too laughs,
 though his toes are beginning to ache, and his fingers are so red and
 stiff with cold that he cannot bend them, and it hurts to move them.
 Suddenly he remembered how they hurt him, and he began to cry, and ran
 on. But there again is another window, and behind it in the room another
 tree; there are tables laden with cakes,--all sorts of them--red,
 yellow, with almonds; and four richly dressed young ladies sit there and
 give the cakes away to all who come; and the door is opened incessantly
 and people enter from the street. The little boy stole up to the door,
 suddenly opened it and went in. Oh dear, how they shouted and waved him
 back with their hands! One lady went up to him hastily, slipped a copper
 into his hand, and herself opened the door for him. How frightened he
 was! He dropped the coin, which rolled, clinking, down the steps: he
 could not bend his rigid, red fingers to hold it. He ran away as fast as
 he could, with no idea of where he was running. He felt like crying, but
 he was too frightened, and could only run, and meantime breathe on his
 hands to warm them. He was miserable; he felt so strange, so alone and
 forlorn. Suddenly ... oh Lord, what is this now? An admiring crowd
 stands before a window, and behind the pane are three dolls, dressed in
 red and green gowns, looking just as if they were alive! One is a little
 old man who sits there, playing on a very large fiddle, and the other
 two stand close by and play on small fiddles; they regard each other and
 nod their heads in time while their lips move; they are speaking but one
 cannot hear them through the glass. At first the boy thought they were
 really alive, and when he realized they were dolls, he laughed. Never
 had he seen such dolls and never thought there could be such! He wanted
 to cry, yet had to laugh,--the dolls were so very, very amusing! At this
 moment he felt that someone took hold of him from behind: a wicked, big
 boy who stood beside him, suddenly struck him on the head, snatched away
 his cap and tripped him. The little fellow stumbled to the ground, and
 people began to shout; numb with fright, he somehow picked himself up
 and ran, ran madly on, till, half unconsciously, he slipped into a gate-
 way and found himself in a courtyard, where he cowered down behind a
 stack of wood. He felt safe there; it was dark, and "they" would not
 find him.
      He sat huddled up and could not catch his breath from fright. Sud-
 denly, quite suddenly, he felt comfortable; hands and feet ceased to
 ache, and grew as warm as if he were sitting on a stove. Then he shud-
 dered and gave a start; why, he had almost fallen asleep! How nice it
 would be to sleep here. "I will rest here awhile, and go to look at the
 dolls again," thought the boy, smiling to himself, adding: "Just as
 though they are alive!" ... Then it seemed to him that he heard his
 mother singing. "Mother, I am asleep; it is so nice to sleep here!"
      "Come to my Christmas tree, little boy!" a gentle voice whispered
 near him.
      At first he thought it was his mother; but it was not she. Who is
 it then that calls him? He cannot see; but someone is bending over him;
 embraces him in the dark. He puts forth his hands ... and lo! what a
 flood of bright light! ... And oh! what a tree! But no, it cannot be; he
 has never seen such trees ... WHERE is he, now? Shining radiance every-
 where, and so many, many little dolls all around him ... But no! they
 are not dolls; these are all little boys and little girls, so pretty and
 bright, dancing, flying, and they crowd around him and kiss him, and, as
 he gazes, he sees his mother looking at him, laughing happily.
      "Mamma, Mamma! Oh, how nice it is here!" he exclaims, and again
 kisses the children, and wants to tell them at once about the dolls be-
 hind the shop window. He asks them: "Who are you, little boys? Who are
 you, little girls?" He laughs and loves them all.
      "This is Christ's Christmas tree," they answer. "On this day Christ
 always has a tree for such little children as have no tree of their
 own...."
      And he discovered that these boys and girls were all children like
 himself; that some had frozen to death in the baskets in which they had
 been deposited on doorsteps; others had died in wretched hovels, whither
 they had been sent from the Foundlings' Hospital; others again had
 starved to death at their mothers' dried-up breasts; had been suffocated
 in the foul air of third-class railroad carriages. And now, here they
 were all angels, Christ's guests, and He Himself was in their midst, ex-
 tending His hands to them, blessing them and their poor, sinful
 mothers.... And the mothers stand there, a little apart, weeping; each
 one knows her little boy or girl; and the children fly up to them, and
 kiss them, and wipe away their tears with their tiny hands, and beg them
 not to weep, for they, the children, are so happy....
      And down below, on that Christmas morning, the porter found the
 body of a little boy who had hidden behind a stack of wood, and there
 frozen to death. His mother was also found.... She had died before him.
 They had met before God in heaven....
      Why in the world have I made up such a story, in this matter of
 fact diary of mine, which should treat only of real events? ... But
 then, you see, I cannot help fancying that all this may have really
 happened,--I mean what took place in the basement and behind the wood-
 stack. As to Christ's Christmas tree, I can't tell you whether or not it
 may have really happened. But it is a novelist's business to invent.
                                         (--1876--)