Chapter 15 little boy next to christ at christmas party

Boys and children "with a little handle" are a strange lot.People often see them vaguely in their dreams.Before Christmas, before and during the Christmas party, I always saw a little boy in a corner of the street, probably seven or eight years old at most.In the terrible cold he was almost in his summer clothes, except that he had an old cloth round his neck.That said he was still being prepared to be sent out.He walks around "with a little handle".This is a technical term that means begging.The term was invented by the children themselves.There were a lot of boys like him, and they were turning around on the road, and shouting strangely what they had learned.However, the boy didn't yell strangely, and he seemed to speak quite innocently and looked me in the eyes not very accustomed and trusting-this shows that he may have just started to do this business.After careful cross-examination by me, he said that he had a sick sister who was unemployed at home.Perhaps, he was telling the truth.But I found out later that there are countless boys like this.They were sent out "with little handles" in spite of the freezing weather, and were bound to be beaten if they got nothing.After begging for a few kopecks, the little boy went back to some basement with his little hands red and stiff from the cold.A bunch of slobs tend to get drunk there.These idlers "strike in the factory from Saturday to Sunday, and don't return to work until Wednesday night at the earliest."Their hungry, battered wives drank with them in the basement, where their nursing babies screamed with hunger.They drink, they are lewd, they do bad things, and most of all they drink.They sent the boy to the tavern at once with the money he had begged for, and he got another drink.Sometimes, just for fun, they poured half a bottle of wine into his mouth.They laughed as he lost his breath and fell to the floor, nearly unconscious.

...you ruthlessly poured a glass of bad wine into my mouth... As soon as he grew up, he was sent to some factory, but he had to give all the money he earned to the idlers, who went to drink it up as soon as they got it.These kids are 100 percent criminals before they even enter the factories.They roamed the city and knew where they could shelter and which cellars they could spend the night unnoticed.One of them spent several nights in a yard-sweeper's basket without him noticing.Of course, they became a group of thieves. Even eight-year-olds are addicted to stealing, sometimes without even knowing their behavior is a crime.In the end they endured everything just for their freedom - hunger, cold, beatings, and then fled from those slobs and wandered, these savage children sometimes knew nothing, neither where they lived nor what race they belonged to , let alone whether there is a God or an emperor; some people even recounted what they did, which made people unbelievable, but it was all true.

The little boy next to Christ at the Christmas party But, I am a novelist, as if I made up a "story" with my own hands.Why did I write "as if"?For I myself know with certainty that I made it up, but I have a vague feeling that it happened somewhere and sometime, just on Christmas Eve, in a big city, and it was freezing cold. I vaguely remember that there was a boy in the basement, very young, maybe six or seven years old, maybe even younger.The little boy woke up in the cold, damp basement in the morning.He wore a long smock and shivered with cold.His breath was like a cloud of white mist.He sat on a box in the corner, and because he was bored, he deliberately exhaled a cloud of gas from his mouth to amuse himself, and it was funny to watch the gas fly out.Still, he was eager for something to eat.Walked several times from early in the morning to the boards where his sick mother lay on a thin, pie-like mattress, with a bundle under her head for a pillow.How did she get here?She must have come here from another city with the little boy and suddenly contracted the disease.The hostess here was arrested and taken to the police station two days ago; it was almost the holiday, and the original residents had dispersed, and the remaining lazy man was drunk all day and all night before the holiday.In another corner of the room, an eighty-year-old woman who had been a nurse was suffering from rheumatism and was moaning in pain. Now she was dying and dying alone.She kept sighing and muttering to the little boy, scaring the little boy from going to the corner where she was.He got water somewhere in the hall, but he couldn't find bread anywhere, so for the tenth time he went to wake his mother.At last he felt frightened in the dark: evening had fallen, but the lights had not yet been lit.

When he touched his mother's face, he was shocked. It turned out that she hadn't moved at all, and her whole body was as cold as a wall. "It's too cold here", he thought for a while, stood for a while, and subconsciously forgot that his hand was on the dead man's shoulder, and then he blew on his hand, trying to warm his fingers.He suddenly found his own broken hat on the bed, and quietly walked out of the basement.He should have gone out earlier, but he was always afraid of a big dog on the stairs, because the dog stood by the door of the next door all day and barked.But now the dog was gone, so he suddenly went outside.

My God, what a city!He had never seen such a place.His city was pitch black at night, with only one light on the entire street.A low wooden house with the door tightly closed with a panel.As soon as it got dark, there was no one on the streets, everyone was shut in their homes, except for whole packs of dogs (hundreds of them) barking all night long.But it was warm there, and there were people to eat.But here, my God, there was nothing to eat!There are banging and rumbling sounds everywhere.How bright the lights are, how many pedestrians, how many horse-drawn cars, how cold the weather is!The heat from the galloping horses, the heat from the panting horses’ mouths has already frozen; the horses’ hoofs are stepping on the loose snow and falling on the stone road, making a rattling sound, the carriages and horses are extremely crowded .My God, I want to eat something, even if it is a small piece of bread!And suddenly my fingers hurt like hell!A police officer walked by, turning his head so as not to spot the little boy.

Now another street—oh, how wide!If you don't pay attention here, you will definitely be trampled to death. People are always yelling, hustle and bustle, running around, but the lights are so bright!What is this?Oh, a big piece of glass, and behind it is a room with a tree reaching up to the ceiling.It was a fir tree with many lamps and gold papers and apples hanging from it, and around it were some dolls and ponies.The children were clean and dressed in their best clothes, and they were all laughing and playing and eating and drinking something.Look at this little girl dancing with a boy, what a beautiful little girl!The melodious music here can be heard through the windows.Looking at all this, the little boy was taken aback, but he also laughed, but his fingers and toes were already sore, the fingers were already red and swollen, and he couldn't bend them, and it hurt when he moved them.As soon as the boy thought of the pain in his fingers, he couldn't help crying and ran forward, so through another glass, he saw another room, where there were trees again, but there were all kinds of biscuits on the table : Pink, crimson, yellow.Sitting next to it were four rich ladies, who would bring him snacks as soon as he came in, and the door would open after a while, and many gentlemen walked in from the outside.The little boy walked to the door quietly, opened the door suddenly, and walked in.Oops, someone yelled at him immediately, beckoning!A young lady came up to him quickly, thrust a kopeck into his hand, and opened the door herself to let him out.He was scared to death!The kopeck rolled out immediately and fell clanging on the steps: his red fingers could not bend or hold the kopeck.After the little boy ran out, he ran faster and faster, but he didn't know where he was going.He wanted to cry again, but he was afraid, so he ran as fast as he could, blowing on his fingers as he ran.He was beginning to be troubled, because he was suddenly so alone, so miserable, and all of a sudden, Lord!What's going on?People stood in groups, with surprised expressions on their faces: it turned out that on the window inside the glass, there were three dolls, small ones, wearing bright red and green dresses, exactly like living people, so lifelike!A little old man was sitting, as if he were playing the cello; two other men were standing there playing the violin, keeping to the beat, shaking their heads, and looking at each other.Their lips are still moving, they must be talking!It's completely talking, but it's just that you can't hear it through the glass.At first the little boy thought they were living people, but then he realized that they were also dolls, so he burst out laughing.He had never seen such a doll before, and he didn't know that there were such lifelike dolls in the world!So he wanted to cry, but looking at the doll, he felt ridiculous, too ridiculous.Suddenly, he felt that someone behind him was grabbing his clothes: a vicious big boy stood beside him, suddenly raised his hand, hit him on the head, and kicked his lower body.The little boy was knocked to the ground, he immediately cried out, and then lost consciousness.Then he suddenly got up and ran, not knowing where to run.As a result, he ran into a doorway, ran into a strange yard, and then sat behind a pile of firewood: "No one can find it here, and it's very dark."

He sat down, curled up, too scared to breathe.Suddenly, really suddenly, he felt very comfortable!The pain in the hands and feet suddenly disappeared, and the whole body became hot, as if sleeping on a hot kang.He trembled all over, ah, so he fell asleep!How good it is to sleep here! "I'll sit here for a while, and then I'll go to see the doll." The little boy couldn't help laughing at the thought of the doll, "It's just like a living person! . . . " Then suddenly he heard his mother singing beside him. "Mom, I'm going to sleep, oh, how comfortable it is to sleep here!"

"Son, let's go to the Christmas party!" Suddenly a calm voice sounded in his ear. He had thought it was his mother who said it, but no, it wasn't her.Who is calling him?He didn't see it, but someone was bending over him, holding him in the dark, and he held out his hand to the person... and suddenly, ah, what a light!Ah, what a fir tree!It was not a fir tree either, he had never seen such a tree before!Where is he now?Everything was golden and radiant and all boys and girls, only they were all so bright and they all spun and flew around him and they all kissed him and pulled him and flew with him and he was flying too .Then he saw: his mother was looking at him, smiling happily at him.

"Mother, mother! Oh, how wonderful it is here, mother!" the little boy called to her, and kissed the children again.He wanted to tell them about the dolls behind the glass as soon as possible. "Who are you, boys? Who are you, girls?" he asked them with a smile, full of love for them. "It's 'Christ's Christmas tree,'" they answered him, "and on this day there is always a Christmas tree at Christ's place for the children who don't have one..." And he knew that these men and women were like him, or child.However, some of them were abandoned on the stairs of the doors of the dignitaries of Petersburg, frozen to death in wicker baskets; some died in orphanages; in the arms of others; some contracted the plague and died in third-class carriages.They're all here now, all in Christ, as angels.He himself was among them, and he stretched out his hand to them, and blessed them and their sinful mothers... But the mothers of these children still stood here weeping; each one knew his own son or daughter.The sons and daughters flew to their mothers, kissed them, wiped their tears with their own hands, begged them not to cry, because they were happy here...

The next morning, the yard sweepers found a small body downstairs, the body of a boy who had come to freeze to death behind the woodpile; died; and the two of them met in heaven, at the side of God. Why did I make up such a story and not write it in a normal, sensible diary, and I am a writer?Because I promised long ago that I would write several novels devoted to real-life events.But the problem is that I always feel, vaguely, that all this could actually happen, that is, what happened in the basement and behind the pyre is real, and as for the Christmas tree of Christ, what to say to you Well, whether it exists or not, I don't know.As a novelist, of course I have to create something fictional.