Page:Leo Tolstoi - Life Is Worth Living and Other Stories - tr. Adolphus Norraikow (1892).djvu/80

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Life is Worth Living.
73

pleaded for the sake of these children that her soul might remain in her body, and I believed her when she said that without father and mother it would be impossible for them to live.

"Yet this strange woman has fed and clothed them and brought them up, and when her heart was moved with pity for the children she shed tears. I saw at once that God lived in her, and then I understood what sustains life. Through these little ones I learned that God had revealed to me the third truth, and also that I was at last forgiven. I smiled, therefore, for the third time."