Alms

Near a large town, along the broad highroad walked an old sick man.

He tottered as he went; his old wasted legs, halting, dragging, stumbling, moved painfully and feebly, as though they did not belong to him; his clothes hung in rags about him; his uncovered head drooped on his breast.... He was utterly worn-out.

He sat down on a stone by the wayside, bent forward, leant his elbows on his knees, hid his face in his hands; and through the knotted fingers the tears dropped down on to the grey, dry dust.

He remembered....

Remembered how he too had been strong and rich, and how he had wasted his health, and had lavished his riches upon others, friends and enemies....
And here, he had not now a crust of bread; and all had forsaken him, friends even before foes.... Must he sink to begging alms? There was bitterness in his heart, and shame.

The tears still dropped and dropped, spotting the grey dust.

Suddenly he heard some one call him by his name; he lifted his weary head, and saw standing before him a stranger.

A face calm and grave, but not stern; eyes not beaming, but clear; a look penetrating, but not unkind.

'Thou hast given away all thy riches,' said a tranquil voice.... 'But thou dost not regret having done good, surely?'

'I regret it not,' answered the old man with a sigh; 'but here I am dying now.'

'And had there been no beggars who held out their hands to thee,' the stranger went on, 'thou wouldst have had none on whom to prove thy goodness; thou couldst not have done thy good works.'

The old man answered nothing, and pondered.

'So be thou also now not proud, poor man,' the stranger began again. 'Go thou, hold out thy hand; do thou too give to other good men a chance to prove in deeds that they are good.'

The old man started, raised his eyes ... but already the stranger had vanished, and in the distance a man came into sight walking along the road.

The old man went up to him, and held out his hand. This man turned away with a surly face, and gave him nothing.

But after him another passed, and he gave the old man some trifling alms.

And the old man bought himself bread with the coppers given him, and sweet to him seemed the morsel gained by begging, and there was no shame in his heart, but the contrary: peace and joy came as a blessing upon him.

May 1878.

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His novel 'Fathers and Sons' is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century fiction. Turgenev's work is often considered a reflection of the social and political atmosphere of his time, marked by his opposition to serfdom and his advocacy of liberal reforms. He spent much of his later life in Western Europe and was a contemporary of fellow Russian literary figures Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

An Eastern Legend

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Simple Poetry

Nature

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Simple Poetry

A Rule Of Life

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Simple Poetry

The Banquet Of The Supreme Being

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Beggar

I was walking along the street ... I was stopped by a decrepit old beggar.

Bloodshot, tearful eyes, blue lips, coarse rags, festering wounds.... Oh, how hideously poverty had eaten into this miserable creature!

He held out to me a red, swollen, filthy hand. He groaned, he mumbled of help.

I began feeling in all my pockets.... No purse, no watch, not even a handkerchief.... I had taken nothing with me. And the beggar was still waiting ... and his outstretched hand feebly shook and trembled.

Confused, abashed, I warmly clasped the filthy, shaking hand ... 'Don't be angry, brother; I have nothing, brother.'

The beggar stared at me with his bloodshot eyes; his blue lips smiled; and he in his turn gripped my chilly fingers.

'What of it, brother?' he mumbled; 'thanks for this, to...

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

The Old Woman

I was walking over a wide plain alone.

And suddenly I fancied light, cautious footsteps behind my back.... Some one was walking after me.

I looked round, and saw a little, bent old woman, all muffled up in grey rags. The face of the old woman alone peeped out from them; a yellow, wrinkled, sharp-nosed, toothless face.

I went up to her.... She stopped.

'Who are you? What do you want? Are you a beggar? Do you seek alms?'

The old woman did not answer. I bent down to her, and noticed that both her eyes were covered with a half-transparent membrane or skin, such as is seen in some birds; they protect their eyes with it from dazzling light.

But in the old woman, the membrane did not move nor uncover the eyes ... from which I concluded she was blind.

'Do you want alms?'...

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

The Old Man

Days of darkness, of dreariness, have come.... Thy own infirmities, the sufferings of those dear to thee, the chill and gloom of old age. All that thou hast loved, to which thou hast given thyself irrevocably, is falling, going to pieces. The way is all down-hill.

What canst thou do? Grieve? Complain? Thou wilt aid not thyself nor others that way....

On the bowed and withering tree the leaves are smaller and fewer, but its green is yet the same.

Do thou too shrink within, withdraw into thyself, into thy memories, and there, deep down, in the very depths of the soul turned inwards on itself, thy old life, to which thou alone hast the key, will be bright again for thee, in all the fragrance, all the fresh green, and the grace and power of its spring!

But beware ... look not forward, poor old man!<...

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

To The Memory Of U. P. Vrevsky

On dirt, on stinking wet straw under the shelter of a tumble-down barn, turned in haste into a camp hospital, in a ruined Bulgarian village, for over a fortnight she lay dying of typhus.

She was unconscious, and not one doctor even looked at her; the sick soldiers, whom she had tended as long as she could keep on her legs, in their turn got up from their pestilent litters to lift a few drops of water in the hollow of a broken pot to her parched lips.

She was young and beautiful; the great world knew her; even the highest dignitaries had been interested in her. Ladies had envied her, men had paid her court ... two or three had loved her secretly and truly. Life had smiled on her; but there are smiles that are worse than tears.

A soft, tender heart ... and such force, such eagerness for sacrifice! To help th...

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

Masha

When I lived, many years ago, in Petersburg, every time I chanced to hire a sledge, I used to get into conversation with the driver.

I was particularly fond of talking to the night drivers, poor peasants from the country round, who come to the capital with their little ochre-painted sledges and wretched nags, in the hope of earning food for themselves and rent for their masters.

So one day I engaged such a sledge-driver.... He was a lad of twenty, tall and well-made, a splendid fellow with blue eyes and ruddy cheeks; his fair hair curled in little ringlets under the shabby little patched cap that was pulled over his eyes. And how had that little torn smock ever been drawn over those gigantic shoulders!

But the handsome, beardless face of the sledge-driver looked mournful and downcast.

I began to...

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

Who Cares?

Down in a cellar cottage
In a dark and lonely street,
Was sat a widow and her boy,
With nothing left to eat.

The night was wild and stormy,
The wind howl'd round the door,
And heavy rain drops from above
Kept dripping to the floor.

They had no candle burning,
The fire was long since dead,
A wretched heap of straw was all
They had to call a bed.

They nestled close together,
On the cold and dampy ground,
And as the storm rush'd past them,
They trembled at the sound.

"Mother," the poor boy whispered,
"May I not go again?
I do not heed the wind, mother,
I'm not afraid of rain.

"May I not go and beg, mother,
For you are very ill;
Some one will give me something,
Mother, I'm sure they will?

...

John Hartley