OF MICE AND MEN

Last night the plashing of the water in the basin awoke

me. I called my wife, thinking that she was washing

herself. She was asleep : it was a mouse that had fallen

into the basin and was struggling to get out.

We have had conflicts before on account of mice, and

these conflicts have caused me to reflect. It would happen

that a mouse would get into a mouse-trap, which somebody

else had set. I take it, to carry it out, and to let the mouse out in the yard.

My wife says, " You had better not touch it : I will

take it out myself and will have it killed."

I leave it to her, knowing that the mouse will be

killed.

But to-day, as I was lying and wanting to go to sleep,

I heard this tiny creature struggle as it was drowning,

and I understood that it was not right, and that I had

done wrong, when I had permitted the mice to be killed,

when I had had the chance to save them.

I saw that I did not do it in order not to violate love, but in order to avoid a small unpleasantness.

Tliis is bad in our situation : we permit not mice,

but men to perish,

doing other people a pleasure,

only to avoid a small unpleasantness.

It is this that we should remember and not forget fo

a minute.

LEO TOLSTOY