Where Love Is, God Is

Martin Avdeitch lived in a basement room with a single window. The window looked out onto the street, but it was set so low that all he could see of the people passing by were their feet.

That did not matter much to Martin. He was a cobbler, and he had mended boots in that town for so long that he knew most of the boots by heart. He would look up and think, I put that sole on. I patched that heel. Through the little window, he watched the town go by, one pair of feet at a time.

A heavy heart

Martin had not always been content. His wife had died while their children were small. One by one the children died too, until only a little boy was left. Martin loved that boy with his whole heart. Then the boy fell ill with a fever, and within a week he was gone as well.

After that, Martin was full of despair. He stopped going to church. He told God that he wanted to die, and asked why an old man like himself should be left alive when a child was taken.

One day an old pilgrim from his home village stopped by. Martin poured out his sorrow. The old man listened, and then told him gently that his grief came from living only for his own happiness. A man should live for God, he said, and for others. He told Martin to read the Gospels, and there he would learn how.

So Martin bought a Bible with large print and began to read a little each evening. Then he read more, and more again. His heart grew lighter. Instead of going to the tavern on holidays, he sat by his lamp and read.

A voice in the night

One evening he was reading the story of a rich man who invited Jesus to his house but gave him no water to wash his feet and no kiss of welcome. Martin put down the book and wondered. If He came to me, he thought, would I be like that man? Or would I know how to welcome Him?

He rested his head on his arms and began to doze.

Suddenly he heard a voice, as if someone were breathing beside his ear. Martin! Look out into the street tomorrow, for I will come.

He woke with a start. Nobody was in the room. He could not tell whether he had been dreaming. But he went to bed with the words still in his mind.

Three visitors

Next morning Martin rose before dawn, lit the stove, put the cabbage soup and porridge on to cook, and sat down at his window to work. But he kept looking up at every pair of boots that passed.

The first feet he recognised belonged to Stepanitch, an old soldier who did odd jobs for a merchant. Stepanitch was clearing snow in front of the window. He was old and weak, and after a while he leaned on his shovel, shivering, to catch his breath.

Martin tapped on the glass and beckoned him in. He gave him a seat by the stove and poured him glass after glass of hot tea. And while the old soldier warmed his hands, Martin told him about the voice, and about the man who had not welcomed Jesus. Stepanitch's eyes filled with tears.

Later, a woman stopped by the wall outside. She was a stranger, poorly dressed in thin summer clothes, with a baby in her arms. She had turned her back to the wind and was trying to wrap the crying child in her thin dress.

Martin hurried up the steps and called her in. He gave her bread and soup at his table and held the baby while she ate. She told him her husband was a soldier, sent far away eight months ago, and that she had pawned her last warm shawl the day before. Martin went to his peg and took down an old cloak. "Take this," he said. "It's worn, but it will do to wrap him up." He gave her a little money too, to get her shawl back.

In the afternoon, an old woman selling apples stopped near the window to rest her basket. A boy in a ragged cap ran past, snatched an apple and tried to run off. The old woman grabbed him by the hair and began to scold, threatening to drag him to the police.

Martin ran out. He begged her to let the boy go. "If we were punished for every wrong we'd done," he said, "what would become of us?" He told the boy to say sorry, and the boy did. Martin paid the old woman for the apple.

Then she began to grumble that children nowadays were spoiled. But as she talked, she softened. She said she had grandchildren of her own. When she lifted her heavy sack to go, the boy jumped forward. "Let me carry it, Granny," he said. "I'm going that way." And off they went down the street together.

It was I

That evening, when it grew too dark to work, Martin put away his tools, lit his lamp and took the Bible down from the shelf. He felt a little sad. The day was over, and the guest he had waited for had not come.

Then he heard footsteps behind him. He turned. In the dark corner there seemed to be people standing.

Martin, said the voice. Don't you know me?

Who is it? asked Martin.

It is I, said the voice. And out of the corner stepped Stepanitch, who smiled and was gone like a cloud.

It is I, said the voice again. And there stood the woman with the baby. The woman smiled, the baby laughed, and they too were gone.

It is I. And the old apple seller and the boy stood there smiling, and then they vanished.

Martin's heart was full of joy. He looked down at the Bible, which had fallen open, and read at the top of the page: For I was hungry, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in.

And lower down: Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Then Martin understood that his guest had come to him that day after all, and that he had welcomed Him.

About this story

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), the great Russian author of War and Peace, wrote a series of simple stories for ordinary readers in the 1880s, many of them about kindness and faith. This one is based on an earlier French tale. This version is a shortened, simplified retelling.