Life of Christ

by Giovanni Papini

And finally one day at noon he arrived in sight of his father’s house; but he did not dare to knock, nor to call any one, nor to go in. He hung around outside to see if any one would come out. And behold, his father appeared on the threshold. His son was no longer the same, was changed, but the eyes of a father even dimmed by weeping could not fail to recognize him. He ran towards him and caught him to his breast, and kissed him and kissed him again, and could not stop from pressing his pale, old lips on that ravaged face, on those eyes whose expression was altered but still beautiful, on that hair, dusty but still waving and soft, on that flesh that was his own.

The son, covered with confusion and deeply moved, did not know how to respond to these kisses, and as soon as he could free himself from his father’s arms he threw himself on the ground and repeated tremulously the speech he had prepared. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son.”

But if the young man had brought himself to the point of refusing the name of son, the old man never felt himself more father than at this moment; he seemed to become a father for a second time, and without even answering, with his eyes still clouded and soft, but with the ringing voice of his best days, he called to the servants:

“Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.”

The son of the master should not return home wretchedly dressed like a beggar. The finest garment should be given him, new shoes, a ring on his finger, and the servants must wait on him because he, too, is a master.

“And bring hither the fatted calf; and kill it, and let us eat and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”

The fatted calf was kept in reserve for great feast days: but what festival can be greater for me than this one? I had wept for my son as dead and here he is alive with me. I had lost him in the world and the world has delivered him back to me. He was far away and now is with me, he was a beggar at the doors of strange houses, and now is master in his own house; he was famished and now he shall be served with a banquet at his own table.

And the servants obeyed him and the calf was killed, skinned, cut up and put to cook. The oldest wine was taken from the wine-cellar, and the finest room was prepared for the dinner in celebration of the return. Servants went to call his father’s friends and others went to summon musicians, that there should be music. And when everything was ready, when the son had been bathed, and his father had kissed him many times more—almost as if to assure himself with his lips that his true son was there with him and it was not the vision of a dream—they commenced the banquet, the wines were mixed and the musicians accompanied the songs of joy.

The older son was in the field, working, and in the evening when he came back and was near to the house he heard shouts and stampings and clapping of hands, and the footsteps of dancers. And he could not understand. “Whatever can have happened? Perhaps my father has gone crazy or perhaps a wedding procession has arrived unexpectedly at our house.”

Disliking noise and new faces, he would not enter and see for himself what it was. But he called to a boy coming out of the house and asked him what all that clatter was.