Page:More Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/257

Rh hence; such sinners cannot live together with us in Heaven.”

And the sinner said: “My Lord, I hear thy voicer but thy face I see not, and I do not know thy name.”

And the voice said to him: “I am King David the Prophet.” And the sinner did not despair, and did not depart from the door of Heaven, and began to say: “Have pity upon me, King David, and remember human weakness and the mercy of God. God loved thee and exalted thee in the eyes of the people. Everything was thine—dominion and glory and riches and wives and children; and thou didst behold from thy roof the wife of a poor man, and sin awakened in thee, and thou didst take the wife of Uriah and didst slay Uriah himself with the sword of the Ammonites. Thou, the rich man, didst take from the poor man his last little lamb, and destroyed the man himself. So it hath been with me.

“And remember how, afterwards, thou didst repent and say: ‘I acknowledge my faults, and my sins are ever before me.’ So it hath been with me. Thou can'st not but let me in.” And the voice behind the door was hushed.

And in a little while the sinner again began to knock at the door and beg to be admitted into the Kingdom of Heaven. And for the third time a voice was heard behind the door saying: “Who is this man, and how hath he lived his life in the world?” And the voice of the Accuser answered for the third time, and recounted all the evil deeds of the man, and named no good deeds at all.