Contents:

The Little Orphan...............................................................................................................................................1

Fyodor Dostoevsky..................................................................................................................................1

I...............................................................................................................................................................1

II. .............................................................................................................................................................2

III. ............................................................................................................................................................2

IV............................................................................................................................................................3

IN a large city, on Christmas eve in the biting cold, I see a young child, still quite young, six years old,

perhaps even less; yet too young to be sent on the street begging, but assuredly destined to be sent in a year or

This child awakes one morning in a damp and frosty cellar. He is wrapped in a kind of squalid

dressinggown and is shivering. His breath issues from between his lips in white vapor; he is seated on a

trunk; to pass the time he blows the breath from his mouth, and amuses himself in seeing it escape. But he is

very hungry. Several times since morning he has drawn near the bed covered with a straw mattress as thin as

gauze, where his mother lies sick, her head resting on a bundle of rags instead of a pillow.

How did she come there? She came probably from a strange city and has fallen ill. The proprietress of the

miserable lodging was arrested two days ago, and carried to the police station; it is a holiday today, and the

other tenants have gone out. However, one of them has remained in bed for the last twentyfour hours, stupid

From another corner issue the complaints of an old woman of eighty years, laid up with rheumatism. This old

woman was formerly a children's nurse somewhere; now she is dying all alone. She whines, moans, and

growls at the little boy, who begins to be afraid to come near the corner where she lies with the death rattle in

her throat. He has found something to drink in the hallway, but he has not been able to lay his hand on the

smallest crust of bread, and for the tenth time he comes to wake his mother. He finishes by getting frightened

The evening is already late, and no one comes to kindle the fire. He finds, by feeling around, his mother's

face, and is astonished that she no longer moves and that she has become as cold as the wall.

He remains some time without moving, his hand resting on the shoulder of the corpse. Then he begins to

blow in his fingers to warm them, and, happening to find his little cap on the bed, he looks softly for the door,

He would have gone out sooner had he not been afraid of the big dog that barks all the day up there on the

Oh! what a city! never before had he seen anything like it. Down yonder from where he came, the nights are

much darker. There is only one lamp for the whole street; little low wooden houses, closed with shutters; in

the street from the time it grows dark, no one; every one shut up at home: only a crowd of dogs that howl,

hundreds, thousands of dogs, that howl and bark all the night. But then, it used to be so warm there! And he

got something to eat. Here, ah! how good it would be to have something to eat! What a noise here, what an

uproar! What a great light, and what a crowd of people! What horses, and what carriages! And the cold, the

cold! The bodies of the tired horses smoke with frost and their burning nostrils puff white clouds; their shoes

ring on the pavement through the soft snow. And how every body hustles every body else! "Ah! how I would

like to eat a little piece of something. That is what makes my fingers ache so."

"Here is another street. Oh! how wide it is! I shall be crushed to death here, I know; how they all shout, how

they run, how they roll along! And the light, and the light! And that, what is that? Oh! what a big window

pane! And behind the pane, a room, and in the room a tree that goes up to the ceiling; it is the Christmas tree.

And what lights under the tree! Such papers of gold, and such apples! And all around dolls and little

hobbyhorses. There are little children welldressed, nice, and clean; they are laughing and playing, eating

and drinking things. There is a little girl going to dance with the little boy. How pretty she is! And there is

The child looks, admires, and even laughs. He feels no longer any pain in his fingers or feet. The fingers of

his hand have become all red, he cannot bend them any more, and it hurts him to move them. But all at once,

he feels that his fingers ache; he begins to cry, and goes away. He perceives through another window another

room, and again trees and cakes of all sorts on the table, red almonds and yellow ones. Four beautiful ladies

are sitting down, and when any body comes he is given some cake: and the door opens every minute, and

many gentlemen enter. The little fellow crept forward, opened the door of a sudden, and went in. Oh! what a

noise was made when they saw him, what confusion! Immediately a lady arose, put a kopeck in his hand, and

THE kopeck has fallen from his hands, and rings on the steps of the stairs. He was not able to tighten his little

fingers enough to hold the coin. The child went out running, and walked fast, fast. Where was he going? He

did not know. And he runs, runs, and blows in his hands. He is troubled. He feels so lonely, so frightened!

"A window! behind the pane, three pretty dolls attired in wee red and yellow dresses, and just exactly as

though they were alive! And that little old man sitting down, who seems to play the fiddle. There are two

others, too, standing up, who play on tiny violins, keeping time with their heads to the music. They look at

each other and their lips move. And they really speak? Only they cannot be heard through the glass."

And the child first thinks that they are living, and when he comprehends that they are only dolls, he begins to

laugh. Never had he seen such dolls before, and he didn't know that there were any like that! He would like to

SUDDENLY he feels himself seized by the coat. A big rough boy stands near him, who gives him a blow of

The child falls. At the same time there is a shout; he remains a moment paralyzed with fear. Then he springs

up with a bound and runs, runs, darts under a gateway somewhere and hides himself in a courtyard behind a

And suddenly he feels quite comfortable. His little hands and feet don't hurt any more; he is warm, warm as

"Ah! I am going asleep! how nice it is to have a sleep! I shall stay a little while and then I will go and see the

dolls again," thought the little fellow, and he smiled at the recollection of the dolls. "They looked just as

Then he hears his mother's song. "Mamma, I am going to sleep. Ah! how nice it is here for sleeping!"

Then who is calling him? He does not see. But some one stoops over him, and folds him in his arms in the

darkness: and he stretches out his hand and all at once oh! what light! Oh! what a Christmas tree! No,

Where is he now? All is resplendent, all is radiant, and dolls all around; but no, not dolls, little boys, little

girls; only they are very bright. All of them circle round him; they fly. They hug him, they take him and carry

him away, and he is flying too. And he sees his mother looking at him and laughing joyfully.

And again he embraces the children, and would like very much to tell them about the dolls behind the

At Jesus's, that day, there is always a Christmas tree for little children that have none themselves.

And he learned that all these little boys and girls were children like himself, who had died like him. Some had

died of cold in the baskets abandoned at the doors of the public functionaries of St. Petersburg; others had

died out at nurse in the foul hovels of the Tchaukhnas; others of hunger at the dry breasts of their mothers

during the famine. All were here now, all little angels now, all with Jesus, and He Himself among them,

And the mothers of these children are there too, apart, weeping; each recognizes her son or her daughter, and

the children fly towards them, embrace them, wipe away the tears with their little hands, and beg them not to

And below on the earth, the concierge in the morning found the wee corpse of the child, who had taken

The mother was found too. She died before him; both are reunited in Heaven in the Lord's house.

This story is an excellent example of the style of M. Dostoivsky, the great Russian novelist, whose works are

attracting so much attention in France. It is without plot, like most of his stories, but it is a very powerful and

realistic sketch. The repetition of words and phrases noticeable in this story is common to Russian stories. It

is particularly noticeable in Count Leon Tolstoi's "Search for Happiness," a volume of short stories written