In one of the picturesque corners of Russia, there is a small village with the cheerful name "Good". This is where the little girl Sophia lived.
Every now and then happened to her incredible stories. And all because the baby believed in a miracle ...
Just before Christmas, the girl's parents went to town for a fair. Mom, hurrying up, said:
We won't be long. We will choose gifts for everyone and return on the evening bus!
Although Sophia did not like to be alone, but today, the departure of her parents was most welcome. The fact is that the little girl made a postcard for the holiday for her father and mother. And, drawing, knowing that at any moment they can enter the room, it was inconvenient.
Don't worry, I'll be good," Sophia promised.
Dad laughed and said that no one doubted it. After seeing off her parents, she decided to immediately get down to business. But, as soon as she closed the gate, an unfamiliar girl suddenly appeared on the road. So beautiful that you can't take your eyes off her! Her snow-white fur coat shone under the rays of the bright winter sun, her boots shone with cleanliness, and a huge pom-pom dangled merrily on a knitted white hat. The girl walked and wept bitterly, wiping her tears with her sleeve.
What, are you lost? Sofia called out to the stranger.
No, - the girl sobbed, - no one wants to be friends with me!
What is your name? Sofia asked.
Envy, she whispered.
Seeing that Sophia was frowning, she hastened to add:
So you will drive me away now, but I, in fact, am good! It's just that all people confuse me with my sister, so they drive me out of the yard ...
Sofia thought about it. She didn't know envy had a sister. At least the parents never talked about it. Maybe they didn’t know?.. Meanwhile, the uninvited guest, seeing her confusion, began to ask:
Let's be friends! Do you want me to tell you the whole truth about my sister and me, and you will see for yourself that we are completely different from her?
Sophia became curious and opened the gate. When the girls entered the house, Envy exclaimed:
How delicious you smell here!
These are tangerines! Mom bought three kilos!
Why so many? - Envy was amazed, - Do you eat so much?
Sofia laughed.
Of course not! We just have guests. My cousins are Yulia and Nastenka. So we came up with the idea of putting gifts in beautiful packages for them. Each will get tangerines, chocolate and some other souvenir. I don't know which one yet. Parents themselves will choose at the fair ... You better tell about your sister!
Envy sighed sadly.
It’s embarrassing for me to talk badly about her, but, on the other hand, I’m not lying ... You see, I am White Envy, and my sister is called Black Envy. We are often confused, but we, after all, are so different! My sister is angry and does not like it when something good happens to people. And I, for example, am very happy if someone new toy gave. I'm just trying to do everything so that I have the same thing. Is it bad? I think it's very good!
Sofia shrugged. She wasn't sure if it was really good. However, the girl did not want to quarrel with a new acquaintance.
Envy, I need to draw a postcard for mom and dad, so I have no time to entertain you - said Sofia.
I'll sit in the corner. Don't worry, I won't distract you! the guest responded.
Soon a Nativity scene appeared on a sheet of paper. The bright purple sky above him was illuminated by a slightly uneven, but big star… Sofia diligently drew the inscription under the picture: “Merry Christmas!” The girl almost forgot about her new acquaintance, who modestly settled on the sidelines. The little girl folded the postcard and suddenly thought: “It’s like parents don’t know that there is Black Envy and White Envy. And, so they would definitely allow us to be friends. After all, there is no harm from this snow-white girl. He sits quietly, does not interfere with anyone.
Until the very evening, Envy told Sofia what gifts her girlfriends would receive for Christmas: Masha would be given a huge teddy bear, Tanya will get real skates, and for Lyudochka they bought a set of toy dishes. Porcelain! The girls chatted so much that they did not hear how mom and dad entered the house.
Oh, what will happen?! Now I'm being kicked out! - envy fussed.
Don't worry, - Sophia began to reassure her, - I'll tell my parents everything. Explain that you are White!
No, no, no, - whimpered Envy, - I know your parents! When they were little, I used to visit them. They did not believe then that I was good, they will not believe now. I can't see them!
Sophia said sadly:
Okay, let me let you out the window then.
Envy began to shift from foot to foot, and then blushed and confessed:
To be honest, I really want to see what they bought your sisters ... Can I hide under your bed? I would just take a look, and then I'll leave!
And without waiting for an answer, the guest quickly darted under the bed.
Daughter, look, what a beauty! - said dad, entering the nursery.
He placed two small bright boxes on the table. Sofia carefully opened one of them and gasped in delight. On a velvety pillow lay a tiny glass bell. An angel was painted on his frail side. The baby immediately understood: this is the best gift in the world ...
You call! Dad smiled.
Sophia took the memento by the white ribbon and shook it slightly. The sound was so gentle and clear that even my mother, running out of the kitchen, clapped her hands happily:
What a wonder our dad found! And I was already going to buy ordinary wooden boxes for Nastya and Yulia ...
In the second box was exactly the same bell, only it was tied to a pink ribbon. Sophia carefully placed the gifts on the shelf, and the parents left the room, closing the door tightly behind them.
Yeah, - Envy whispered under the bed, - they definitely didn’t buy you such a bell ...
Why? – the girl was surprised.
Yes, because it is unlikely that the seller immediately found three identical ones! For you, they most likely chose some mittens.
Mittens are also a great gift! Sofia objected.
Yeah, only the bell is better.
The little girl couldn't argue with that.
Okay, don't be upset, - said Envy, so be it, I'll teach you how to make sure that you get both of these gifts! Listen carefully and remember: you will go to your mother now and start whimpering. Better even cry. Tell her that you liked these bells so much - you don’t have the strength to part with them! And, sisters and tangerines with chocolate will suffice. If mom does not agree, then start to roar louder. And don't forget to stomp your feet!
Then Envy crawled out from under the bed and, carefully examining Sophia, waved her hand:
However, you won't get anything. You can't be naughty. But, and it does not matter. Take now one box and throw it on the floor. No one will even guess that we did it on purpose! But the second bell will definitely be given to you! The parents of Nastya and Yulia will not give one gift for two.
Then Sofia saw how the guest's fur coat and boots turned black! And even the hat turned black, so that now the pom-pom looked like a huge coal. Envy had already stretched out her hand towards the shelf, but Sophia grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and said angrily:
You lied to me. You don't have any sister! Envy in the world is only one - Black. It's you who change into a white coat on purpose to confuse people!
Envy began to break out, but Sophia held her tightly. The girl bravely opened the window and threw her out into the street. Envy landed right in the snowdrift and floundered in it for a long time, snorting with indignation. And Sophia closed the window and began to sharpen her pencils. She drew a postcard for mom and dad, but she didn’t have time for her sisters yet. The little girl tried her best to make it, like the gifts, the most beautiful in the world ...
Parents, meanwhile, took out another box and hid it in a sideboard. It contained a glass bell on a purple ribbon.
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One day a woman appeared on the threshold of the puppet craftswoman. She held a bundle in her hand and smiled happily: - Look how many colors I have ...
Rated the book
There are "New Year's" and "Christmas" books. For me, between these categories can not put an equal sign. After the collection "Christmas stories foreign writers”a flurry of criticism rained down, furrowing my brows in displeasure, I wanted to figure out what was the reason. Everything turned out to be simple: people from the "Christmas" book are waiting for the effect of the "New Year's" - raising their spirits, the desire to gobble up half a kilo of tangerines, wrap a garland around a floor lamp and go looking for a cookie recipe.
Christmas stories- they are about something else, they are full of biblical motifs and they are closer to parables, because their task is to educate. Therefore, yes, there is both the exorcism of the devil and the massacre of babies, which the reader, who does not know deeply about the origins of happy holiday or simply to the ignorant, they will seem terrible and even blasphemous.
knocked out general mood only Dickens' A Christmas Carol and The Nutcracker and mouse king» Hoffmann, but about them at the end.
I'll start with Anatole France, because the collection contains 2 of his creations: the short story "Belshazzar" and " New Year's gift Mademoiselle de Doucine", both with a somewhat anti-church orientation and are conceived more like parodies. The short story "Belshazzar" in the first edition was subtitled "A Christmas Story". I will tell you for a reason, because the plot is connected with the gospel legend about the worship of the Magi to the newborn Jesus Christ. But the cunning author in no time conditionally changes the vector to the side biblical story about the Queen of Sheba, and, being a Frenchman, he cannot avoid the adventurous amorous plot and the exoticism of the East. The “wisdom” acquired by the hero about renunciation of everything worldly is highly doubtful. "New Year's Gift Mademoiselle de Ducines" is sustained in the same tone, ridiculing arrogant religiosity and the rejection of interpretations of the Bible, which are in moderation a large number its authors are innumerable.
The Brothers Grimm's short story "Mary's Child"
Like all fairy tales from the pen of the Brothers Grimm, this one is not inferior in gloom and some hopelessness, but it is important precisely in the finale: “Whoever confesses and repents of his sin, that sin is forgiven!”. As a person who spent half of his childhood in the fairy kingdoms created by Grimm, I can safely say: it is better to read from the end.
"Christmas at the Hunting Lodge" by Thomas Mine Reid full of Irish motifs and reminds that someone celebrates the holiday, savoring delicious pudding, and someone defending himself by shooting back from enemies. It's trite, but it's true, and it hurts.
"Port in a Storm" by George MacDonald- the most frivolous story, and Christmas is played as a decoration family history about the acquaintance of parents, but the impression leaves a pleasant one.
The Christmas Miracle by Guy de Maupassant- about a somewhat unattractive, but taking place to be a form of manifestation of miracles - the exorcism of the devil. What to do, miracles are deeper and more significant than the transformation of a pumpkin into a carriage and back.
The Massacre of the Innocents by Maurice Maeterlinck- the case when the name speaks for itself. If it seems to you that Christmas has nothing to do with it, then look at the frescoes and mosaics from the beginning of the Renaissance. The killed babies are revered as holy martyrs, because they were the first to suffer for the sake of Christ.
"God in the Cave" by Gilbert Keith Chesterton- it's like a cherry on the cake in this collection. “Yes, in Bethlehem, opposites truly converged.” This is not a story, this is a worthy and beautiful, simply brilliant treatise, in which Christianity is considered, as it were, "from the outside", sensibly and subtly. There are too many inconsistencies and incidents in the Christian perception of the world, religion and even oneself, but this does not make faith obsolete.
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann- a work from childhood, which then I did not like. I perceived The Nutcracker as a fairy tale for children, for this reason, even the ballet of the same name by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, when I was already in high school, I watched without much enthusiasm. But how great was my surprise that there are 2 versions of the story - full and abridged. In this collection it is complete, thanks to which I perceive Hoffmann's The Nutcracker as a fairy tale not only for children.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens- the most delightful little thing in the collection. She is like a favorite Christmas ball, the brilliance and charm of which does not fade over the years. Continuing the analogy, I would call "Christmas Carol" - decoration self made, with soul and wisdom invested in it. This is an excellent example of a fairy tale with near-religious motives, after reading which you want to be better and kinder, so as not to be like the miser Uncle Scrooge, as he appears to us at the beginning.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Rated the book
I don't know what others are expecting when looking at a book with such a festive cover and title. But I'm honestly very disappointed. Because some of the stories here are completely off topic, they pushed it in for volume or something ...
The Christmas spirit was clearly not enough for the entire collection. For me the key ones are:
1. "A Christmas Carol in Prose" C. Dickens. I think everyone more or less knows this story, someone read it, someone watched it, and someone may have heard it out of the corner of their ear. I confess, I didn’t read and didn’t watch, but I knew about Scrooge. In general, I really like the style of Dickens, and this little story is so wintry and magical.
And how many such Scrooges in the world who are not happy with anything, greedy and unfriendly beeches who do not need anyone? But, unfortunately, there is not enough magic for all such beeches. So, change yourself, all the best to you and happiness.
I would love to watch cartoons.
2. "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" Hoffman.
What a sweet and good fairy tale. What a pleasure to dive into fairy tale where toys come to life, where good conquers evil, where love works wonders.
Reading, remembering soviet cartoon And at first I thought I forgot something there. But I revised it, I don’t argue, the cartoon is good, but in the same place everything is not like it was in a fairy tale. I looked at the current version and was also upset. I want it to be like in a fairy tale :)
3. In "Child of Mary" Brothers Grimm's most important thought - "Whoever confesses and repents of his sin, his sin is forgiven."
Stop, stop!!! This does not mean that we must now run headlong and repent, because no one has canceled the rule for others “you know less, you sleep better”, have pity on your listeners, let some secrets remain only yours.
But this masterpiece - "Massacre of the innocents" How I got here, I can't even figure it out. This is just a bloody thriller, if you bought this book for children, then cut out these pages. Here children are cut off limbs, heads fly in all directions. And I didn’t catch the essence at all, dead children and heartbroken parents.
Rated the book
One of several Christmas and New Year collections published by the Nikea publishing house. Small format, a wonderful cover without unnecessary embellishments, finally, excellent content - in total we have a wonderful New Year's gift! True, perhaps, rather for the older generation (for the younger there are other collections).
Although it all starts very well. Dickens, Grimm and Hoffmann suggest that one can take up a book at any age, but before you get a foothold in it, nevertheless, skim through the content to the end. "Christmas at the Hunting Lodge" by Thomas Mine Reid - okay, the heat of passion, the shooting, but Cooper, beloved by young people, has had worse. Next - Belshazzar by Anatole France. Hmm ... Stormy love with the Queen of Sheba, and in the literal sense, and not in the Disney sense, makes you think, especially since this woman is generous to many with caresses. However, the impression is quickly softened by the sweet story "The New Year's Gift of Mademoiselle de Doucine" - a charming and informative story, especially for those who revere New Year pagan holiday and refuses to celebrate it (that is, for me, to some extent).
Guy de Maupassant's "Christmas Miracle" and George MacDonald's "Port in a Storm" are obviously intended for older people, but there is nothing reprehensible in them. And then!..
No you look at fabulous names. A Christmas carol, a miracle, a gift... and the BEAT OF CHILDREN. I was hooked even at a cursory acquaintance with the content. But I thought it was nothing. Surely we will come to Jesus and his miracles, but, really, we have Christmas stories. But no matter how. It's a natural beating detailed description of killing poor children. They killed everyone - period. Merry Christmas! No, I, as a lover of tin, even quite liked the story. But what he does in this collection, I personally do not understand. And the faint of heart, in my opinion, should not be read, even if the author and Maurice Maeterlinck (please remember that he is not only famous for the Blue Bird, but even worse).
It all ends with Chesterton's "God in the Cave", which is rather not a story, but a philosophical essay that does little to correct the impression after the hacked children.
On the other hand, those who read the Bible without abbreviations, and it is precisely to its events that almost all stories are referred, have nothing to fear. After that, there is nothing to fear. Therefore - to create a Christmas atmosphere is recommended!
"Christmas tale"
Translated by Sofia Ivanchina-Pisareva
Dr. Bonanfant began to rummage through his memory, repeating in an undertone:
Christmas story?.. Christmas story?..
And suddenly he exclaimed:
Well, yes! I have one memory and even a very unusual one. This fantasy story. I saw a miracle. Yes, ladies, a miracle on Christmas night.
Does it surprise you that you hear this from me, a man who does not believe in anything? And yet, I saw a miracle! I tell you, I saw him, I saw him with my own eyes, I saw him.
Did it surprise me? Far from it: if I do not believe in your dogmas, then I believe in the existence of faith and I know that it moves mountains. I could give many examples. But I am afraid to arouse indignation in you and weaken the effect of my story.
First of all, I confess that if I was not convinced by everything I saw, then in any case I was very excited, and I will try to tell you all this ingenuously with the naive credulity of an Auvernetz.
I was then a village doctor and lived in a place called Rolleville, in the wilderness of Normandy.
The winter was severe that year. Since the end of November, after a week of frosts, snow has fallen. Already from afar one could see heavy clouds approaching from the north, then thick white flakes began to fall.
In one night the whole valley was covered with a white shroud.
Lonely farms, standing among square courtyards, behind a curtain of large trees, covered with frost, seemed to fall asleep under this dense and light cover.
No sound disturbed the silence of the village. Only flocks of crows drew long patterns across the sky in a vain search for food and, descending in a cloud on dead fields, pecked at the snow with their large beaks.
Nothing could be heard but the soft and continuous rustle of frozen dust, which continued to fall without end.
This went on for a whole week, then the snow stopped. The ground was wrapped in a blanket five feet thick.
For the next three weeks, the sky, clear as blue crystal during the day, and at night all strewn with stars, like frost on a cold, harsh surface, stretched over an even veil of hard and shiny snow.
The valley, the hedges, the elms behind the fence - everything seemed to be dead, killed by a cold. Neither people nor animals appeared on the street; only pipes sticking out of huts in white snowdrifts testified to hidden life thin, straight wisps of smoke rising in the icy air.
From time to time the crackling of trees was heard, as if their wooden arms were breaking under the bark: a thick branch sometimes separated and fell, because the cold froze the tree juices and tore apart the icy fibers.
The dwellings, scattered here and there among the fields, seemed to be separated from each other by a hundred leagues. They lived as they should. I alone tried to visit my closest patients, incessantly risking being buried in some pit.
Soon I noticed that the whole area was seized with a mysterious fear. It was interpreted that such a disaster could not be a natural phenomenon. They assured that voices, a sharp whistle, someone's screams are heard at night.
These cries and whistles were undoubtedly issued by flocks of birds flying south at dusk. But try to convince the distraught people. Horror seized the souls, and everyone was waiting for some extraordinary event.
Uncle Vatinel's forge stood at the end of the village of Epivan, on high road, in those days swept with snow and deserted. And when the workers ran out of bread, the blacksmith decided to go to the village. He spent several hours talking, visiting half a dozen houses that made up the local center, got bread, heard a lot of news and became infected with the fear that reigned in the village.
Before dark, he went home.
Passing along some kind of fence, he suddenly noticed an egg in the snow, yes, no doubt, an egg, white, like everything around. He leaned over: indeed, an egg. Where is it from? What kind of chicken could come out of the chicken coop and lay down in this place? The surprised blacksmith did not understand anything. However, he took the egg and brought it to his wife.
Hey mistress, I brought you an egg. Found it on the road.
The wife shook her head...
Egg on the road? In this kind of weather! Yes, you seem to be drunk.
No, mistress, it was lying near the fence and was still warm, not frozen. Here it is, I put it in my bosom so that it does not get cold. Eat it at lunch.
The egg was lowered into the cauldron, where the soup was being cooked, and the blacksmith began to retell what was being talked about in the village.
The wife listened, turning pale.
By God, last night I heard a whistle: it even seemed to me that it was coming from a pipe.
We sat at the table. First they ate the soup, then, while the husband was spreading butter on the bread, the wife took the egg and examined it suspiciously.
What if there is something in this egg?
What do you think might be there?
How much do I know!
It will be for you... Eat and don't be stupid.
She broke the egg. It was the most ordinary and very fresh.
She began to eat it hesitantly, now biting off a piece, then leaving it, then again taking it. Husband asked:
Well, what does it taste like?
She did not answer and, having swallowed the remains of the egg, suddenly stared at her husband with a fixed, gloomy and insane look: throwing her hands, she. clenched them into fists and fell to the ground, writhing in convulsions and emitting terrible cries.
All night long she struggled in a terrible fit, trembling with death, disfigured by disgusting convulsions. The blacksmith, unable to cope with her, was forced to tie her up.
Without stopping for a moment, she screamed in a wild voice:
It's in my stomach!... It's in my stomach!...
They called me the next day. I tried without any result all sedatives. The woman has lost her mind.
With incredible speed, despite the impenetrable snowdrifts, the news spread through all the farms, amazing news:
The blacksmith's wife was possessed by a demon!
Curious people came from everywhere, but did not dare to enter the house. They listened to her terrible cries from a distance: it was hard to believe that this loud howl belonged to a human being.
Let the village priest know. It was an old, simple-hearted abbot. He came running in a surplice, as if for parting words to a dying man, and, holding out his hands, uttered an incantatory formula, while four men held a woman writhing on the bed and splashing foam.
But the demon was never cast out.
Christmas came and the weather was the same.
The curé came to me the previous morning.
I want, - he said, - that this unfortunate woman was present at the evening service today. Perhaps the Lord will work a miracle for her at the very hour when he himself was born of a woman.
I answered him:
I fully approve of you, monsieur abbot. If it is affected by worship - and this the best remedy touch her, she can be healed without medicine.
The old priest muttered:
You, doctor, are not a believer, but you will help me, won't you? Are you willing to deliver it?
I promised him my help.
Evening came, then night. rang church bell, dropping a sad ringing into the dead space, onto the white and frozen snow surface.
Obedient to the copper call, groups of black figures slowly stretched out. The full moon illuminated the horizon bright and pale, further emphasizing the dull whiteness of the fields.
I took four strong men and went to the blacksmith.
The Possessed was still howling, tied to the bed. Despite wild resistance, she was carefully dressed and carried.
The church, cold but lit, was now full of people; the choristers sang a monotonous motive; the organ wheezed; a small bell in the hands of an attendant tinkled, controlling the movements of the faithful.
I locked the woman with her watchmen in the kitchen church house and began to wait for a favorable, in my opinion, minute.
I chose the moment after communion. All the peasants, men and women, having communed, communed with their god in order to soften his severity. While the priest performed the sacrament, a deep silence reigned in the church.
At my command, the door was opened, and my four assistants brought in the mad woman.
As soon as she saw the light, the kneeling crowd, the illuminated choirs and the golden ark, she thrashed with such force that she almost escaped our hands, and began to scream so piercingly that a tremor of horror swept through the church. All heads went up, many of the worshipers ran away.
She lost her human form, writhing and writhing in our hands, with a distorted face and crazy eyes.
They dragged her to the steps of the kliros and forced her to the floor.
The priest stood and waited. When she was seated, he took the monstrance, at the bottom of which lay a white wafer, and, taking a few steps, raised it with both hands above the head of the demoniac, so that she could see her...
She was still howling, fixing her gaze on the shiny object.
The abbot continued to stand so still that he could be mistaken for a statue.
It dragged on for a long, long time.
The woman seemed to be seized with fear: she, as if spellbound, without looking up, looked at the bowl, still shaking with terrible trembling from time to time, and continued to scream, but in a less heart-rending voice.
And it also took a long time.
It seemed that she could not take her eyes off the monstrance and was only moaning, her tense body weakened and drooped.
The whole crowd fell on their faces.
Now the possessed one quickly lowered her eyelids, then raised them again, as if unable to bear the sight of her god. She no longer screamed. I soon noticed that she had closed her eyes. She slept the sleep of a somnambulist, mesmerized - excuse me, pacified - by the close contemplation of the gleaming gold cup, struck down by Christ the conqueror.
She was carried away exhausted, and the priest returned to the altar.
Shocked bystanders thundered "Te deum" to the glory of God's mercy.
The blacksmith's wife slept for forty hours in a row, then woke up, remembering nothing about either the illness or the healing.
Here, ladies, is the miracle I have seen.
Dr. Bonanfant fell silent, then added with annoyance:
I was compelled to witness the miracle in writing.
Guy de Maupassant - A Christmas Tale, read text
See also Guy de Maupassant - Prose (stories, poems, novels...):
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