•
Rating:
"A shoemaker lived with his wife and children in the house of a mužìk. He had neither his own house nor his own land, and to earn a living for himself and his family, he had only his shoemaking work. Bread was expensive, but work paid little, so he spent all he earned on food. That shoemaker had only one fur...'' *
The good old Tolstoy. It is a pleasure to read him, Tolstoy, for his flowing, light, vivid prose that enchants the reader and brings words to life. It is as if his characters truly existed. I read this narrative (What Men Live By) many years ago, and I found it splendid. I reread it the other evening, and nothing has changed. The title itself is pure poetry: what makes men live, Lev, we’ve been asking ourselves that for centuries.
‘'And so the shoemaker arrives at the chapel at the curve, and sees, just behind the chapel, something white. It was already getting dark. The shoemaker looked closer... Could it be a beast? It resembles a person in the head, but why is it white? And what is a person doing here?''
And thus Semyon meets Mikhail, the fallen angel. A bit like in ‘'The Legend of the Holy Drinker'', where Andreas meets the distinguished gentleman. One, a homeless alcoholic living under the bridges of the Seine, the other, a gentleman who gives him two hundred francs; but Andreas, with a high sense of honor, accepts them only on the condition that he returns them all to the statue of the ‘'little Teresa'' in the Church of St. Mary of Batignolles. And so begins his odyssey, in an attempt to fulfill the promise he made. It is a fable, that of the holy drinker, set in a magical Paris: the lights, the shadows, the miracles, the mysteries of sanctity, the temptations of life...
And with a beautiful ending:
‘'And the angel began to sing praises to God, and at the sound of his voice, the whole isbà trembled... And wings sprouted from the back of the angel, and he ascended to heaven''
And the fallen angel rose back to heaven. For Andreas, everything is more human: a deeply mystical vision, and then a gentle and discreet death. But not before he has understood the mystery of faith. Like Mikhail, it is necessary for him to understand the three words of God, and the third is the most difficult.
Yes, because it takes him so long to realize that:
‘'in reality, (men) are alive solely because it is love that makes them live''
* Edizioni Mondadori, translated by Igor Sibaldi
Loading comments slowly
