As pointed out in comments, you probaly want this.
#!/bin/bash
from_directory="first_directory"
to_directory="second_directory"
rsync --archive $from_directory $to_directory; ls -R $to_directory/$from_directory
And if $from_directory
and $to_directory
are both absolute paths, $to_directory/$from_directory
does not make sense. Might as well just do ls -R $to_directory
.