Father Sergius
by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy
Published in 1898
Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude
Distributed by The Tolstoy Library
I
In Petersburg in the 1840s a surprising event
occurred. An officer of the Cuirassier Life Guards, a
handsome prince who everyone predicted would become aide-
de-camp to the Emperor Nicholas I and have a brilliant
career, left the service, broke off his engagement to a
beautiful maid of honour, a favourite of the Empress's,
gave his small estate to his sister, and retired to a
monastery to become a monk.
This event appeared extraordinary and inexplicable
to those who did not know his inner motives, but for
Prince Stepan Kasatsky himself it all occurred so
naturally that he could not imagine how he could have
acted otherwise.
His father, a retired colonel of the Guards, had
died when Stepan was twelve, and sorry as his mother was
to part from her son, she entered him at the Military
College as her deceased husband had intended.
The widow herself, with her daughter Varvara, moved
to Petersburg to be near her son and have him with her
for the holidays.
The boy was distinguished both by his brilliant
ability and by his immense self-esteem. He was first
both in his studies -- especially in mathematics, of
which he was particularly fond -- and also in drill and
in riding. Thought of more than average height, he was
handsome and agile, and he would have been an altogether
exemplary cadet had it not been for his quick temper. He
was remarkably truthful, and neither dissipated nor
addicted to drink. The only faults that marred his
conduct were fits of fury to which he was subject and
during which he lost control of himself and became like
a wild animal. He once nearly threw out of the window
another cadet who had begun to tease him about his
collection of minerals. On another occasion he came
almost completely to grief by flinging a whole dish of
cutlets at an officer who was acting as steward,
attacking him and, it was said, striking him for having
broken his word and told a barefaced lie. He would
certainly have been reduced to the ranks had not the
Director of the College hushed up the whole matter and
dismissed the steward.
By the time he was eighteen he had finished his
College course and received a commission as lieutenant in
an aristocratic regiment of the Guards.
The Emperor Nicholas Pavlovich (Nicholas *) had
noticed him while he was still at the College, and
continued to take notice of him in the regiment, and it
was on this account that people predicted for him an
appointment as aide-de-camp to the Emperor. Kasatsky
himself strongly desired it, not from ambition only but
chiefly because since his cadet days he had been
passionately devoted to Nicholas Pavlovich. The Emperor
had often visited the Military College and every time
Kasatsky saw that tall erect figure, with breast expanded
in its military overcoat, entering with brisk step, saw
the cropped side-whiskers, the moustache, the aquiline
nose, and heard the sonorous voice exchanging greetings
with the cadets, he was seized by the same rapture that
he experienced later on when he met the woman he loved.
Indeed, his passionate adoration of the Emperor was even
stronger: he wished to sacrifice something --
everything, even himself -- to prove his complete
devotion. And the Emperor Nicholas was conscious of
evoking this rapture and deliberately aroused it. He
played with the cadets, surrounded himself with them,
treating them sometimes with childish simplicity,
sometimes as a friend, and then again with majestic
solemnity. After that affair with the officer, Nicholas
Pavlovich said nothing to Kasatsky, but when the latter
approached he waved him away theatrically, frowned, shook
his finger, and afterwards when leaving said: "Remember
that I know everything. There are some things I would
rather not know, but they remain here," and he pointed to
his heart.
When on leaving college the cadets were received by
the Emperor, he did not again refer to Kasatsky's
offence, but told them all, as was his custom that they
should serve him and the fatherland loyally, that he
would always be their best friend, and that when
necessary they might approach him direct. All the cadets
were as usual greatly moved, and Kasatsky even shed
tears, remembering the past, and vowed that he would
serve his beloved Tsar with all his soul.
When Kasatsky took up his commission his mother
moved with her daughter first to Moscow then to their
country estate. Kasatsky gave half his property to his
sister and kept only enough to maintain himself in the
expensive regiment he had joined.
To all appearance he was just an ordinary, brilliant
young officer of the Guards making a career for himself;
but intense and complex strivings went on within him.
From early childhood his efforts had seemed to be very
varied, but essentially they were all one and the same.
He tried in everything he took up to attain such success
and perfection as would evoke praise and surprise.
Whether it was his studies or his military exercises, he
took them up and worked at them till he was praised and
held up as an example to others. Mastering one subject
he took up another, and obtained first place in his
studies. For example, while still at College he noticed
in himself an awkwardness in French conversation, and
contrived to master French till he spoke it as well as
Russian, and then he took up chess and became an
excellent player.
Apart from his main vocation, which was the service
of his Tsar and the fatherland, he always set himself
some particular aim, and however unimportant it was,
devoted himself completely to it and lived for it until
it was accomplished.
And as soon as it was attained another aim would
immediately present itself, replacing its predecessor.
this passion for distinguishing himself, or for
accomplishing something in order to distinguish himself,
filled his life. On taking up his commission he set
himself to acquire the utmost perfection in knowledge of
the service, and very soon became a model officer, though
still with the same fault of ungovernable irascibility,
which here in the service again led him to commit actions
inimical to his success. Then he took to reading, having
once in conversation in society felt himself deficient in
general education -- and again achieved his purpose.
Then, wishing to secure a brilliant position in high
society, he learnt to dance excellently and very soon was
invited to all the balls in the best circles, and to some
of their evening gatherings. But this did not satisfy
him: he was accustomed to being first, and in this
society was far from being so.
The highest society then consisted, and I think
always and everywhere does consist, of four sorts of
people: rich people who are received at Court, people
not wealthy but born and brought up in Court circles,
rich people who ingratiate themselves into the Court set,
and people neither rich nor belonging to the Court but
who ingratiate themselves into the first and second sets.
Kasatsky did not belong to the first two sets, but
was readily welcomed in the others. On entering society
he determined to have relations with some society lady,
and to his own surprise quickly accomplished this
purpose. He soon realized, however, that the circles in
which he moved were not the highest, and that though he
was received in the highest spheres he did not belong to
them. They were polite to him, but showed by their whole
manner that they had their own set and that he was not of
it. And Kasatsky wished to belong to that inner circle.
To attain that end it would be necessary to be an aide-
de-camp to the Emperor -- which he expected to become --
or to marry into that exclusive set, which he resolved to
do. And his choice fell on a beauty belonging to the
Court, who not merely belonged to the circle into which
he wished to be accepted, but whose friendship was
coveted by the very highest people and those most firmly
established in that highest circle. this was Countess
Korotkova. Kasatsky began to pay court to her, and not
merely for the sake of his career. She was extremely
attractive and he soon fell in love with her. At first
she was noticeably cool towards him, but then suddenly
changed and became gracious, and her mother gave him
pressing invitations to visit them. Kasatsky proposed
and was accepted. He was surprised at the facility with
which he attained such happiness. But though he noticed
something strange and unusual in the behaviour towards
him of both mother and daughter, he was blinded by being
so deeply in love, and did not realize what almost the
whole town knew -- namely, that his fiancee had been the
emperor Nicholas's mistress the previous year.
Two weeks before the day arranged for the wedding,
Kasatsky was at Tsarskoe Selo at his fiancee's country
place. It was a hot day in May. He and his betrothed
had walked about the garden and were sitting on a bench
in a shady linden alley. Mary's white muslin dress
suited her particularly well, and she seemed the
personification of innocence and love as she sat, now
bending her head, now gazing up at the very tall and
handsome man who was speaking to her with particular
tenderness and self-restraint, as if he feared by word or
gesture to offend or sully her angelic purity.
Kasatsky belonged to those men of the eighteen-
forties (they are now no longer to be found) who while
deliberately and without any conscientious scruples
condoning impurity in themselves, required ideal and
angelic purity in their women, regarded all unmarried
women of their circle as possessed of such purity, and
treated them accordingly. There was much that was false
and harmful in this outlook, as concerning the laxity the
men permitted themselves, but in regard to the women that
old-fashioned view (sharply differing from that held by
young people today who see in every girl merely a female
seeking a mate) was, I think, of value. The girl,
perceiving such adoration, endeavoured with more or less
success to be goddesses.
Such was the view Kasatsky held of women, and that
was how he regarded his fiancee. He was particularly in
love that day, but did not experience any sensual desire
for her. On the contrary he regarded her with tender
adoration as something unattainable.
He rose to his full height, standing before her with
both hands on his sabre.
"I have only now realized what happiness a man can
experience! And it is you, my darling, who have given me
this happiness," he said with a timid smile.
Endearments had not yet become usual between them,
and feeling himself morally inferior he felt terrified at
this stage to use them to such an angel.
"It is thanks to you that I have come to know
myself. I have learnt that I am better than I thought."
"I have known that for a long time. That is why I
began to love you."
Nightingales trilled near by and the fresh leafage
rustled, moved by a passing breeze.
He took her hand and kissed it, and tears came into
his eyes.
She understood that he was thanking her for having
said she loved him. He silently took a few steps up and
down, and then approacher her again and sat down.
"You know...I have to tell you...I was not
disinterested when I began to make love to you. I wanted
to get into society; but later...how unimportant that
became in comparison with you -- when I got to know you.
You are not angry with me for that?"
She did not reply but merely touched his hand. He
understood that this meant: "No, I am not angry."
"You said..." He hesitated. It seemed too bold to
say. "You said that you began to love me. I believe it
-- but there is something that troubles you and checks
your feeling. What is it?"
"Yes -- now or never!" thought she. "He is bound to
know of it anyway. But now he will not forsake me. Ah,
if he should, it would be terrible!" And she threw a
loving glance at his tall, noble, powerful figure. She
loved him now more than she had loved the Tsar, and apart
from the Imperial dignity would not have preferred the
Emperor to him.
"Listen! I cannot deceive you. I have to tell you.
You ask what it is? It is that I have loved before."
She again laid her hand on his with an imploring
gesture. He was silent.
"You want to know who it was? It was -- the
Emperor."
"We all love him. I can imagine you, a schoolgirl
at the Institute..."
"No, it was later. I was infatuated, but it
passed... I must tell you..."
"Well, what of it?"
"No, it was not simply -- " She covered her face
with her hands.
"What? You gave yourself to him?"
She was silent.
"His mistress?"
She did not answer.
He sprang up and stood before her with trembling
jaws, pale as death. He now remembered how the Emperor,
meeting him on the Nevsky, had amiably congratulated him.
"O God, what have I done! Stiva!"
"Don't touch me! Don't touch me! Oh, how it
pains!"
He turned away and went to the house. There he met
her mother.
"What is the matter, Prince? I ... " She became
silent on seeing his face. The blood had suddenly rushed
to his head.
"You knew it, and used me to shield them! If you
weren't a woman...!" he cried, lifting his enormous fist,
and turning aside he ran away.
Had his fiancee's lover been a private person he
would have killed him, but it was his beloved Tsar.
Next day he applied both for furlough and his
discharge, and professing to be ill, so as to see no one,
he went away to the country.
He spent the summer at his village arranging his
affairs. When summer was over he did not return to
Petersburg, but entered a monastery and there became a
monk.
His mother wrote to try to dissuade him from this
decisive step, but he replied that he felt God's call
which transcended all other considerations. Only his
sister, who was as proud and ambitious as he, understood
him.
She understood that he had become a monk in order to
be above those who considered themselves his superior.
And she understood him correctly. By becoming a monk he
showed contempt for all that seemed most important to
others and had seemed so to him while he was in the
service, and he now ascended a height from which he could
look down on those he had formerly envied.... But it was
not this alone, as his sister Varvara supposed, that
influenced him. There was also in him something else --
a sincere religious feeling which Varvara did not know,
which intertwined itself with the feeling of pride and
the desire for pre-eminence, and guided him. His
disillusionment with Mary, whom he had thought of angelic
purity, and his sense of injury, were so strong that they
brought him to despair, and the despair led him -- to
what? To God, to his childhood's faith which had never
been destroyed in him.
II
Kasatsky entered the monastery on the feast of the
Intercession of the Blessed Virgin. The Abbot of that
monastery was a gentleman by birth, a learned writer and
a *starets*, that is, he belonged to that succession of
monks originating in Walachia who each choose a director
and teacher whom they implicitly obey. This superior had
been a disciple of the *starets* Ambrose, who was a
disciple of Makarius, who was a disciple of the *starets*
Leonid, who was a disciple of Paissy Velichkovsky.
To this Abbot Kasatsky submitted himself as to his
chosen director. Here in the monastery, besides the
feeling of ascendancy over others that such a life gave
him, he felt much as he had done in the world: he found
satisfaction in attaining the greatest possible
perfection outwardly as well as inwardly. As in the
regiment he had been not merely an irreproachable officer
but had even exceeded his duties and widened the borders
of perfection, so also as a monk he tried to be perfect,
and was always industrious, abstemious, submissive, and
meek, as well as pure both in deed and in thought, and
obedient. This last quality in particular made life far
easier for him. If many of the demands of life in the
monastery, which was near the capital and much
frequented, did not please him and were temptations to
him, they were all nullified by obedience: "It is not
for me to reason; my business is to do the task set me,
whether it be standing beside the relics, singing in the
choir, or making up accounts in the monastery guest-
house." All possibility of doubt about anything was
silenced by obedience to the *starets*. Had it not been
for this, he would have been oppressed by the length and
monotony of the church services, the bustle of the many
visitors, and the bad qualities of the other monks. As
it was, he not only bore it all joyfully but found in it
solace and support. "I don't know why it is necessary to
hear the same prayers several times a day, but I know
that it is necessary; and knowing this I find joy in
them." His director told him that as material food is
necessary for the maintenance of the life of the body, so
spiritual food -- the church prayers -- is necessary for
the maintenance of the spiritual life. He believed this,
and though the church services, for which he had to get
up early in the morning, were a difficulty, they
certainly calmed him and gave him joy. this was the
result of his consciousness of humility, and the
certainty that whatever he had to do, being fixed by the
*starets*, was right.
The interest of his life consisted not only in an
ever greater and greater subjugation of his will, but in
the attainment of all the Christian virtues, which at
first seemed to him easily attainable. He had given his
whole estate to his sister and did not regret it, he had
no personal claims, humility towards his inferiors was
not merely easy for him but afforded him pleasure. Even
victory over the sins of the flesh, greed and lust, was
easily attained. His director had specially warned him
against the latter sit, but Kasatsky felt free from it
and was glad.
One thing only tormented him -- the remembrance of
his fiancee; and not merely the remembrance but the vivid
image of what might have been. Involuntarily he recalled
a lady he knew who had been a favourite of the Emperor's,
but had afterwards married and become an admirable wife
and mother. The husband had a high position, influence
and honour, and a good and penitent wife.
In his better hours Kasatsky was not disturbed by
such thoughts, and when he recalled them at such times he
was merely glad to feel that the temptation was past.
But there were moments when all that made up his present
life suddenly grew dim before him, moments when, if he
did not cease to believe in the aims he had set himself,
he ceased to see them and could evoke no confidence in
them but was seized by a remembrance of, and -- terrible
to say -- a regret for, the change of life he had made.
The only thing that saved him in that state of mind
was obedience and work, and the fact that the whole day
was occupied by prayer. He went through the usual forms
of prayer, he bowed in prayer, he even prayed more than
usual, but it was lip-service only and his soul was not
in it. This condition would continue for a day, or
sometimes for two days, and would then pass of itself.
But those days were dreadful. Kasatsky felt that he was
neither in his own hands nor in God's, but was subject to
something else. all he could do then was to obey the
*starets*, to restrain himself, to undertake nothing, and
simply to wait. In general all this time he lived not by
his own will but by that of the *starets*, and in this
obedience he found a special tranquility.
So he lived in his first monastery for seven years.
At the end of the third year he received the tonsure and
was ordained to the priesthood by the name of Sergius.
The profession was an important event in his inner life.
He had previously experienced a great consolation and
spiritual exaltation when receiving communion, and now
when he himself officiated, the performance of the
preparation filled him with ecstatic and deep emotion.
But subsequently that feeling became more and more
deadened, and once when he was officiating in a depressed
state of mind he felt that the influence produced on him
by the service would not endure. and it did in fact
weaken till only the habit remained.
In general in the seventh year of his life in the
monastery Sergius grew weary. He had learnt all there
was to learn and had attained all there was to attain,
there was nothing more to do and his spiritual drowsiness
increased. During this time he heard of his mother's
death and his sister Varvara's marriage, but both events
were matters of indifference to him. His whole attention
and his whole interest were concentrated on his inner
life.
In the fourth year of his priesthood, during which
the Bishop had been particularly kind to him, the
*starets* told him that he ought not to decline it if he
were offered an appointment to higher duties. Then
monastic ambition, the very thing he had found so
repulsive in other monks, arose within him. He was
assigned to a monastery near the metropolis. He wished
to refuse but the *starets* ordered him to accept the
appointment. He did so, and took leave of the *starets*
and moved to the other monastery.
The exchange into the metropolitan monastery was an
important event in Sergius's life. There he encountered
many temptations, and his whole will-power was
concentrated on meeting them.
In the first monastery, women had not been a
temptation to him, but here that temptation arose with
terrible strength and even took definite shape. There
was a lady known for her frivolous behaviour who began to
seek his favour. She talked to him and asked him to
visit her. Sergius sternly declined, but was horrified
by the definiteness of his desire. He was so alarmed
that he wrote about it to the *starets*. And in
addition, to keep himself in hand, he spoke to a young
novice and, conquering his sense of shame, confessed his
weakness to him, asking him to keep watch on him and not
let him go anywhere except to service and to fulfil his
duties.
Besides this, a great pitfall for Sergius lay in the
fact of his extreme antipathy to his new Abbot, a cunning
worldly man who was making a career for himself in the
Church. Struggle with himself as he might, he could not
master that feeling. He was submissive to the Abbot, but
in the depths of his soul he never ceased to condemn him.
and in the second year of his residence at the new
monastery that ill-feeling broke out.
The Vigil service was being performed in the large
church on the eve of the feast of the Intercession of the
Blessed Virgin, and there were many visitors. The Abbot
himself was conducting the service. Father Sergius was
standing in his usual place and praying: that is, he was
in that condition of struggle which always occupied him
during the service, especially in the large church when
he was not himself conducting the service. This conflict
was occasioned by his irritation at the presence of fine
folk, especially ladies. He tried not to see them or to
notice all that went on: how a soldier conducted them,
pushing the common people aside, how the ladies pointed
out the monks to one another -- especially himself and a
monk noted for his good looks. He tried as it were to
keep his mind in blinkers, to see nothing but the light
of the candles on the altar-screen, the icons, and those
conducting the service. he tried to hear nothing but the
prayers that were being chanted or read, to feel nothing
but self-oblivion in consciousness of the fulfillment of
duty -- a feeling he always experienced when hearing or
reciting in advance the prayers he had so often heard.
So he stood, crossing and prostrating himself when
necessary, and struggled with himself, now giving way to
cold condemnation and now to a consciously evoked
obliteration of thought and feeling. Then the sacristan,
Father Nicodemus -- also a great stumbling-block to
Sergius who involuntarily reproached him for flattering
and fawning on the Abbot -- approached him and, bowing
low, requested his presence behind the holy gates.
Father Sergius straightened his mantle, put on his
biretta, and went circumspectly through the crowd.
"Lise, regarde a droite, c'est lui!" he heard a
woman's voice say.
"Ou, ou? Il n'est pas tellement beau."
He knew that they were speaking of him. He heard
them and, as always at moments of temptation, he repeated
the words, "Lead us not into temptation", and bowing his
head and lowering his eyes went past the ambo and in by
the north door, avoiding the canons in their cassocks who
were just then passing the altar-screen. On entering the
sanctuary he bowed, crossing himself as usual and bending
double before the icons. Then, raising his head but
without turning, he glanced out of the corner of his eye
at the Abbot, whom he saw standing beside another
glittering figure.
The Abbot was standing by the wall in his vestments.
Having freed his short plump hands from beneath his
chasuble he had folded them over his fat body and
protruding stomach, and fingering the cords of his
vestments was smilingly saying something to a military
man in the uniform of a general of the Imperial suite,
with its insignia and shoulder-knots which Father
Sergius's experienced eyes at once recognized. this
general had been the commander of the regiment in which
Sergius had served. He now evidently occupied an
important position, and Father Sergius at once noticed
that the Abbot was aware of this and that his red face
and bald head beamed with satisfaction and pleasure.
This vexed and disgusted Father Sergius, the more so when
he heard that the Abbot had only sent for him to satisfy
the general's curiosity to see a man who had formerly
served with him, as he expressed it.
"Very pleased to see you in your angelic guise,"
said the general, holding out his hand. "I hope you have
not forgotten an old comrade."
The whole thing -- the Abbot's red, smiling face
amid its fringe of grey, the general's words, his well-
cared-for face with its self-satisfied smile and the
smell of wine from his breath and of cigars from his
whiskers -- revolted Father Sergius. He bowed again to
the Abbot and said:
"Your reverence deigned to send for me?" -- and
stopped, the whole expression of his face and eyes asking
why.
"Yes, to meet the General," replied the Abbot.
"Your reverence, I left the world to save myself
from temptation," said Father Sergius, turning pale and
with quivering lips. "why do you expose me to it during
prayers and in God's house?"
"You may go! Go!" said the Abbot, flaring up and
frowning.
Next day Father Sergius asked pardon of the Abbot
and of the brethren for his pride, but at the same time,
after a night spent in prayer, he decided that he must
leave this monastery, and he wrote to the *starets*
begging permission to return to him. He wrote that he
felt his weakness and incapacity to struggle against
temptation without his help, and penitently confessed his
sin of pride. By return of post came a letter from the
*starets*, who wrote that Sergius's pride was the cause
of all that had happened. The old man pointed out that
his fits of anger were due to the fact that in refusing
all clerical honours he humiliated himself not for the
sake of God but for the sake of his pride. "There now,
am I not a splendid man not to want anything?" That was
why he could not tolerate the Abbot's action. "I have
renounced everything for the glory of God, and here I am
exhibited like a wild beast!" "Had you renounced vanity
for God's sake you would have borne it. Worldly pride is
not yet dead in you. I have thought about you, Sergius
my son, and prayed also, and this is what God has
suggested to me. At the Tambov hermitage the anchorite
Hilary, a man of saintly life, has died. He had lived
there eighteen years. The Tambov Abbot is asking whether
there is not a brother who would take his place. And
here comes your letter. Got to Father Paissy of the
Tambov Monastery. I will write to him about you, and you
must ask for Hilary's cell. Not that you can replace
Hilary, but you need solitude to quell your pride. May
God bless you!"
Sergius obeyed the *starets*, showed his letter to
the Abbot, and having obtained his permission, gave up
his cell, handed all his possessions over to the
monastery, and set out for the Tambov hermitage.
There the Abbot, an excellent manager of merchant
origin, received Sergius simply and quietly and placed
him in Hilary's cell, at first assigning to him a lay
brother but after wards leaving him alone, at sergius's
own request. The cell was a dual cave, dug into the
hillside, and in it Hilary had been buried. In the back
part was Hilary's grave, while in the front was a niche
for sleeping, with a straw mattress, a small table, and
a shelf with icons and books. Outside the outer door,
which fastened with a hook, was another shelf on which,
once a day, a monk placed food from the monastery.
And so Sergius became a hermit.
III
At Carnival time, in the sixth year of Sergius's
life at the hermitage, a merry company of rich people,
men and women from a neighbouring town, made up a troyka-
party, after a meal of carnival-pancakes and wine. The
company consisted of two lawyers, a wealthy landowner, an
officer, and four ladies. One lady was the officer's
wife, another the wife of the landowner, the third was
his sister -- a young girl -- and the fourth a divorcee,
beautiful, rich and eccentric, who amazed and shocked the
town by her escapades.
The weather was excellent and the snow-covered road
smooth as a floor. They drove some seven miles out of
town, and then stopped and consulted as to whether they
should turn back or drive farther.
"But where does this road lead to?" asked Makovkina,
the beautiful divorcee.
"To Tambov, eight miles from here," replied one of
the lawyers, who was having a flirtation with her.
"And then where?"
"Then on to L---, past the Monastery."
"Where that Father Sergius lives?"
"Yes."
"Kasatsky, the handsome hermit?"
"Yes."
"mesdames and messieurs, let us drive on and see
Kasatsky! We can stop at Tambov and having something to
eat."
"But we shouldn't get home tonight!"
"Never mind, we will stay at Kasatsky's."
"Well, there is a very good hostelry at the
Monastery. I stayed there when I was defending Makhin."
"No, I shall spend the night at Kasatsky's!"
"Impossible! Even your omnipotence could not
accomplish that!"
"Impossible? Will you bet?"
"All right! If you spend the night with him, the
stake shall be whatever you like."
"A discretion!"
"But on your side too!"
"Yes, of course. Let us drive on."
Vodka was handed to the drivers, and the party got
out a box of pies, wine, and sweets for themselves. The
ladies wrapped up in their white dogskins. the drivers
disputed as to whose troyka should go ahead, and the
youngest, seating himself sideways with a dashing air,
swung his long knout and shouted to the horses. The
troyka-bells tinkled and the sledge-runners squeaked over
the snow.
The sledges swayed hardly at all. The shaft-horse,
with his tightly bound tail under his decorated
breechband, galloped smoothly and briskly; the smooth
road seemed to run rapidly backwards, while the driver
dashingly shook the reins. One of the lawyers and the
officer sitting opposite talked nonsense to Makovkina's
neighbour, but Makovkina herself sat motionless and in
thought, tightly wrapped in her fur. "Always the same
and always nasty! The same red shiny faces smelling of
wine and cigars! The same talk, the same thoughts, and
always about the same things! And they are all satisfied
and confident that it should be so, and will go on living
like that till they die. But I can't. It bores me. I
want something that would upset it all and turn it upside
down. Suppose it happened to us as to those people -- at
Saratov was it? -- who kept on driving and froze to death
.... What would our people do? How would they behave?
Basely, for certain. Each for himself. And I too should
act badly. But I at any rate have beauty. They all know
it. And how about that monk? Is it possible that he has
become indifferent to it? No! That is the one thing
they all care for -- like that cadet last autumn. What
a fool he was!"
"Ivan Nikolaevich!" she said aloud.
"what are your commands?"
"How old is he?"
"Who?"
"Kasatsky."
"Over forty, I should think."
"And does he receive all visitors?"
"Yes, everybody, but not always."
"Cover up my feet. Not like that -- how clumsy you
are! No! More, more -- like that! but you need not
squeeze them!"
So they came to the forest where the cell was.
Makovkina got out of the sledge, and told them to
drive on. they tried to dissuade her, but she grew
irritable and ordered them to go on.
When the sledges had gone she went up the path in
her white dogskin coat. the lawyer got out and stopped
to watch her.
It was Father Sergius's sixth year as a recluse, and
he was now forty-nine. His life in solitude was hard --
not on account of the fasts and prayers (they were no
hardship to him) but on account of an inner conflict he
had not at all anticipated. The sources of that conflict
were two: doubts, and the lust of the flesh. And these
two enemies always appeared together. It seemed to him
that they were two foes, but in reality they were one and
the same. As soon as doubt was gone so was the lustful
desire. But thinking them to be two different fiends he
fought them separately.
"O my God, my god!" thought he. "why does thou not
grant me faith? There is lust, of course: even the
saints had to fight that -- Saint Anthony and others.
But they had faith, while I have moments, hours, and
days, when it is absent. Why does the whole world, with
all its delights, exist if it is sinful and must be
renounced? Why has Thou created this temptation?
Temptation? Is it not rather a temptation that I wish to
abandon all the joys of earth and prepare something for
myself there where perhaps there is nothing?" And he
became horrified and filled with disgust at himself.
"Vile creature! And it is you who wish to become a
saint!" he upbraided himself, and he began to pray. But
as soon as he started to pray he saw himself vividly as
he had been at the Monastery, in a majestic post in
biretta and mantle, and he shook his head. "No, that is
not right. It is deception. I may deceive others, but
not myself or God. I am not a majestic man, but a
pitiable and ridiculous one!" And he threw back the
folds of his cassock and smiled as he looked at his thin
legs to their underclothing.
Then he dropped the folds of the cassock again and
began reading the prayers, making the sign of the cross
and prostrating himself. "Can it be that this couch will
be my bier?" he read. And it seemed as if a devil
whispered to him: "A solitary couch is itself a bier.
Falsehood!" And in imagination he saw the shoulders of
a widow with whom he had lived. He shook himself, and
went on reading. Having read the precepts he took up the
gospels, opened the book, and happened on a passage he
often repeated by heart: "Lord, I believe. Help thou my
unbelief!" -- and he put away all the doubts that had
arisen. As one replaces an object of insecure
equilibrium, so he carefully replaced his belief on its
shaky pedestal and carefully stepped back from it so as
not to shake or upset it. The blinkers were adjusted
again and he felt tranquillized, and repeating his
childhood's prayer: "Lord, receive me, receive me!" he
felt not merely at ease, but thrilled and joyful. He
crossed himself and lay down on the bedding on his narrow
bench, tucking the summer cassock under his head. He
fell asleep at once, and in his light slumber he seemed
to hear the tinkling of sledge bells. He did not know
whether he was dreaming or awake, but a knock at the door
aroused him. He sat up, distrusting his senses, but the
knock was repeated. Yes, it was a knock close at hand,
at his door, and with it the sound of a woman's voice.
"My god! Can it be true, as I have read in the
*Lives of the Saints*, that the devil takes on the form
of a woman? Yes -- it is a woman's voice. And a tender,
timid, pleasant voice. Phui!" And he spat to exorcise
the devil. "No, it was only my imagination," he assured
himself, and he went to the corner where his lectern
stood, falling on his knees in the regular and habitual
manner which of itself gave him consolation and
satisfaction. He sank down, his hair hanging over his
face, and pressed his head, already going bald in front,
to the cold damp strip of drugget on the draughty floor.
He read the psalm old Father Pimon had told him warded
off temptation. He easily raised his light and emaciated
body on his strong sinewy legs and tried to continue
saying his prayers, but instead of doing so he
involuntarily strained his hearing. He wished to hear
more. All was quiet. From the corner of the roof
regular drops continued to fall into the tub below.
Outside was a mist and fog eating into the snow that lay
on the ground. It was still, very still. And suddenly
there was a rustling at the window and a voice -- that
same tender, timid voice, which could only belong to an
attractive woman -- said:
"Let me in, for Christ's sake!"
It seemed as though his blood had all rushed to his
heart and settled there. He could hardly breathe. "Let
God arise and let his enemies be scattered..."
"but I am not a devil!" It was obvious that the
lips that uttered this were smiling. "I am not a devil,
but only a sinful woman who has lost her way, not
figuratively but literally!" She laughed. "I am frozen
and beg for shelter."
He pressed his face to the window, but the little
icon-lamp was reflected by it and shone on the whole
pane. He put his hands to both sides of his face and
peered between them. Fog, mist, a tree, and -- just
opposite him -- she herself. Yes, there, a few inches
from him, was the sweet, kindly, frightened face of a
woman in a cap and a coat of long white fur, leaning
towards him. their eyes met with instant recognition:
not that they had ever known one another, they had never
met before, but by the look they exchanged they -- and he
particularly -- felt that they knew and understood one
another. After that glance to imagine her to be a devil
and not a simple, kindly, sweet, timid woman, was
impossible.
"Who are you? Why have you come?" he asked.
"Do please open the door!" she replied, with
capricious authority. "I am frozen. I tell you I have
lost my way."
"But I am a monk -- a hermit."
"Oh, do please open the door -- or do you wish me to
freeze under your window while you say your prayers?"
"But how have you..."
"I shan't eat you. for God's sake let me in! I am
quite frozen."
She really did feel afraid, and said this in an
almost tearful voice.
He stepped back from the window and looked at an
icon of the Saviour in His crown of thorns. "Lord, help
me! Lord, help me!" he exclaimed, crossing himself and
bowing low. Then he went to the door, and opening it
into the tiny porch, felt for the hook that fastened the
outer door and began to lift it. He heard steps outside.
she was coming from the window to the door. "Ah!" she
suddenly exclaimed, and he understood that she had
stepped into the puddle that the dripping from the roof
had formed at the threshhold. His hands trembled, and he
could not raise the hook of the tightly closed door.
"Oh, what are you doing? Let me in! I am all wet.
I am frozen! You are thinking about saving your soul and
letting me freeze to death..."
He jerked the door towards him, raised the hook, and
without considering what he was doing, pushed it open
with such force that it struck her.
"Oh -- *pardon*!" he suddenly exclaimed, reverting
completely to his old manner with ladies.
She smiled on hearing that *pardon*. "He is not
quite so terrible, after all," she thought. "It's all
right. It is you who must pardon me," she said, stepping
past him. "I should never have ventured, but such an
extraordinary circumstance..."
"If you please!" he uttered, and stood aside to let
her pass him. A strong smell of fine scent, which he had
long not encountered, struck him. She went through the
little porch into the cell where he lived. He closed the
outer door without fastening the hook, and stepped in
after her.
"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a
sinner! Lord, have mercy on me a sinner!" he prayed
unceasingly, not merely to himself but involuntarily
moving his lips. "If you please!" he said to her again.
She stood in the middle of the room, moisture dripping
from her to the floor as she looked him over. Her eyes
were laughing.
"Forgive me for having disturbed your solitude. but
you see what a position I am in. It all came about from
our starting from town for a sledge-drive, and my making
a bet that I would walk back by myself from the Vorobevka
to the town. But then I lost my way, and if I had not
happened to come upon your cell..." she began lying, but
his face confused her so that she could not continue, but
became silent. she had not expected him to be at all
such as he was. He was not as handsome as she had
imagined, but was nevertheless beautiful in her eyes:
his greyish hair and beard, slightly curling, his fine,
regular nose, and his eyes like glowing coal when he
looked at her, made a strong impression on her.
He saw that she was saying.
"Yes...so," said he, looking at her and again
lowering his eyes. "I will go in there, and this place
is at your disposal."
And taking down the little lamp, he lit a candle,
and bowing low to her went into the small cell beyond the
partition, and she heard him begin to move something
about there. "Probably he is barricading himself in from
me!" she thought with a smile, and throwing off her white
dogskin cloak she tried to take off her cap, which had
become entangled in her hair and in the woven kerchief
she was wearing under it. She had not got at all wet
when standing under the window, and had said so only as
a pretext to get him to let her in. but she really had
stepped into the puddle at the door, and her left foot
was wet up to the ankle and her overshoe full of water.
She sat down on his bed -- a bench only covered by a bit
of carpet -- and began to take off her boots. The little
cell seemed to her charming. The narrow little room,
some seven feet by nine, was as clean as glass. There
was nothing in it but the bench on which she was sitting,
the book-shelf above it, and a lectern in the corner. A
sheepskin coat and a cassock hung on nails by the door.
Above the lectern was the little lamp and an icon of
Christ in His crown of thorns. The room smelt strangely
of perspiration and of earth. It all pleased her -- even
that smell. Her wet feet, especially one of them, were
uncomfortable, and she quickly began to take off her
boots and stockings without ceasing to smile, pleased not
so much at having achieved her object as because she
perceived that she had abashed that charming, strange,
striking, and attractive man. "He did not respond, but
what of that?" she said to herself.
"Father Sergius! Father Sergius! Or how does one
call you?"
"What do you want?" replied a quiet voice.
"Please forgive me for disturbing your solitude, but
really I could not help it. I should simply have fallen
ill. And I don't know that I shan't now. I am all wet
and my feet are like ice."
"Pardon me," replied the quiet voice. "I cannot be
of any assistance to you."
"I would not have disturbed you if I could have
helped it. I am only here till daybreak."
He did not reply and she heard him muttering
something, probably his prayers.
"You will not be coming in here?" she asked,
smiling. "For I must undress to dry myself."
He did not reply, but continued to read his prayers.
"Yes, that is a man!" thought she, getting her
dripping boot off with difficulty. She tugged at it, but
could not get it off. The absurdity of it struck her and
she began to laugh almost inaudibly. But knowing that he
would hear her laughter and would be moved by it just as
she wished him to be, she laughed louder, and her
laughter -- gay, natural, and kindly -- really acted on
him just in the way she wished.
"Yes, I could love a man like that -- such eyes and
such a simple noble face, and passionate, too despite all
the prayers he mutters!" thought she. "You can't deceive
a woman in these things. As soon as he put his face to
the window and saw me, he understood and knew. The
glimmer of it was in his eyes and remained there. He
began to love and desired me. Yes -- desired!" said she,
getting her overshoe and her boot off at last and
starting to take off her stockings. To remove those long
stockings fastened with elastic it was necessary to raise
her skirts. She felt embarrassed and said:
"Don't come in!"
But there was no reply from the other side of the
wall. The steady muttering continued and also a sound of
moving.
"He is prostrating himself to the ground, no doubt,"
thought she. "But he won't bow himself out of it. He is
thinking of me just as I am thinking of him. He is
thinking of these feet of mine with the same feeling that
I have!" And she pulled off her wet stockings and put
her feet up on the bench, pressing them under her. She
say a while like that with her arms round her knees and
looking pensively before her. "But it is a desert, here
in this silence. No one would ever know...."
She rose, took her stockings over to the stove, and
hung them on the damper. It was a queer damper, and she
turned it about, and then, stepping lightly on her bare
feet, returned to the bench and sat down there again with
her feet up.
There was complete silence on the other side of the
partition. She looked at the tiny watch that hung round
her neck. It was two o'clock. "Our party should return
about three!" She had not more than an hour before her.
"Well, am I to sit like this all alone? What nonsense!
I don't want to. I will call him at once."
"Father Sergius, Father Sergius! Sergey Dmitrich!
Prince Kasatsky!"
Beyond the partition all was silent.
"Listen! This is cruel. I would not call you if it
were not necessary. I am ill. I don't know what is the
matter with me!" she exclaimed in a tone of suffering.
"Oh! Oh!" she groaned, falling back on the bench. And
strange to say she really felt that her strength was
failing, that she was becoming faint, that everything in
her ached, and that she was shivering with fever.
"Listen! Help me! I don't know what is the matter
with me. Oh! Oh!" She unfastened her dress, exposing
her breast, and lifter her arms, bare to the elbow. "Oh!
Oh!"
All this time he stood on the other side of the
partition and prayed. Having finished all the evening
prayers, he now stood motionless, his eyes looking at the
end of his nose, and mentally repeated with all his soul:
"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me!"
But he had heard everything. He had heard how the
silk rustled when she took off her dress, how she stepped
with bare feet on the floor, and had heard how she rubbed
her feet with her hand. He felt his own weakness, and he
might be lost at any moment. That was why he prayed
unceasingly. He felt rather as the hero in the fairy-
tale must have felt when he had to go on and on without
looking round. So Sergius heard and felt that danger and
destruction were there, hovering above and around him,
and that he could only save himself by not looking in
that direction for an instant. But suddenly the desire
to look seized him. At the same instant she said:
"This is inhuman. I may die...."
"Yes, I will go to her, but like the Saint who laid
one hand on the adulteress and thrust his other into the
brazier. But there is no brazier here." He looked
round. The lamp! He put his finger over the flame and
frowned, preparing himself to suffer. And for a rather
long time, as it seemed to him, there was no sensation,
but suddenly -- he had not yet decided whether it was
painful enough -- he writhed all over, jerked his hand
away, and waved it in the air. "No, I can't stand that!"
"For God's sake come to me! I am dying! Oh!"
"Well -- shall I perish? No, no so!"
"I will come to you directly," he said, and having
opened his door, he went without looking at her through
the cell into the porch where he used to chop wood.
There he felt for the block and for an axe which leant
against the wall.
"Immediately!" he said, and taking up the axe with
his right hand he laid the forefinger of his left hand on
the block, swung the axe, and struck with it below the
second joint. The finger flew off more lightly than a
stick of similar thickness, and bounding up, turned over
on the edge of the block and then fell to the floor.
He heard it fall before he felt any pain, but before
he had time to be surprised he felt a burning pain and
the warmth of flowing blood. He hastily wrapped the
stump in the skirt of his cassock, and pressing it to his
hip went back into the room, and standing in front of the
woman, lowered his eyes and asked in a low voice: "What
do you want?"
She looked at his pale face and his quivering left
cheek, and suddenly felt ashamed. She jumped up, seized
her fur cloak, and throwing it round her shoulders,
wrapped herself up in it.
"I was in pain...I have caught cold...I...Father
Sergius...I..."
He let his eyes, shining with a quiet light of joy,
rest upon her, and said:
"Dear sister, why did you wish to ruin your immortal
soul? Temptations must come into the world, but woe to
him by whom temptation comes. Pray that God may forgive
us!"
She listened and looked at him. Suddenly she heard
the sound of something dripping. She looked down and saw
that blood was flowing from his hand and down his
cassock.
"What have you done to your hand?" She remembered
the sound she had heard, and seizing the little lamp ran
out into the porch. There on the floor she saw the
bloody finger. She returned with her face paler than his
and was about to speak to him, but he silently passed
into the back cell and fastened the door.
"Forgive me!" "How can I atone for my sin?"
"Go away."
"Let me tie up your hand."
"Go away from here."
She dressed hurriedly and silently, and when ready
sat waiting in her furs. The sledge-bells were heard
outside.
"Father Sergius, forgive me!"
"Go away. God will forgive."
"Father Sergius! I will change my life. Do not
forsake me!"
"Go away."
"forgive me -- and give me your blessing!"
"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Ghost!" -- she heard his voice from behind the
partition. "Go!"
She burst into sobs and left the cell. The lawyer
came forward to meet her.
"Well, I see I have lost the bet. It can't be
helped. Where will you sit?"
"It is all the same to me."
She took a seat in the sledge, and did not utter a
word all the way home.
A year later she entered a convent as a novice, and
lived a strict life under the direction of the hermit
Arseny, who wrote letters to her at long intervals.
IV
Father Sergius lived as a recluse for another seven
years.
At first he accepted much of what people brought him
-- tea, sugar, white bread, milk, clothiing, and fire-
wood. But as time went on he led a more and more austere
life, refusing everything superfluous, and finally he
accepted nothing but rye-bread once a week. Everything
else that was brought him he gave to the poor who came to
him. He spent his entire time in his cell, in prayer or
in conversation with callers, who became more and more
numerous as time went on. Only three times a year did he
go out to church, and when necessary he went out to fetch
water and wood.
The episode with Makovkina had occurred after five
hears of his hermit life. That occurrence soon became
generally known -- her nocturnal visit, the change she
underwent, and her entry into a convent. From that time
Father Sergius's fame increased. More and more visitors
came to see him, other monks settled down near his cell,
and a church was erected there and also a hostelry. His
fame, as usual exaggerating his feats, spread ever more
and more widely. People began to come to him from a
distance, and began bringing invalids to him whom they
declared he cured.
His first cure occurred in the eighth year of his
life as a hermit. It was the healing of a fourteen-year-
old boy, whose mother brought him to Father Sergius
insisting that he should lay his hand on the child's
head. It had never occurred to Father Sergius that he
could cure the sick. He would have regarded such a
thought as a great sin of pride; but the mother who
brought the boy implored him insistently, falling at his
feet and saying: "Why do you, who heal others, refuse to
help my son?" She besought him in christ's name. When
Father Sergius assured her that only God could heal the
sick, she replied that she only wanted him to lay his
hands on the boy and pray for him. Father Sergius
refused and returned to his cell. But next day (it was
in autumn and the nights were already cold) on going out
for water he saw the same mother with her son, a pale boy
of fourteen, and was met by the same petition.
He remembered the parable of the unjust judge, and
though he had previously felt sure that he ought to
refuse, he now began to hesitate and having hesitated,
took to prayer and prayed until a decision formed itself
in his soul. This decision was, that he ought to accede
to the woman's request and that her faith might save her
son. As for himself, he would in this case be but an
insignificant instrument chosen by God.
And going out to the mother he did what she asked --
laid his hand on the boy's head and prayed.
The mother left with her son, and a month later the
boy recovered, and the fame of the holy healing power of
the *starets* Sergius (as they now called him) spread
throughout the whole district. After that, not a week
passed without sick people coming, riding or on foot, to
Father Sergius; and having acceded to one petition he
could not refuse others, and he laid his hands on many
and prayed. Many recovered, and his fame spread more and
more.
So seven years passed in the Monastery and thirteen
in his hermit's cell. He now had the appearance of an
old man: his beard was long and grey, but his hair,
though thin, was still black and curly.
V
For some weeks Father Sergius had been living with
one persistent thought: whether he was right in
accepting the position in which he had not so much placed
himself as been placed by the Archimandrite and the
Abbot. That position had begun after the recovery of the
fourteen-year-old boy. From that time, with each month,
week, and day that passed, Sergius felt his own inner
life wasting away and being replaced by external life.
It was as if he had been turned inside out.
Sergius saw that he was a means of attracting
visitors and contributions to the monastery, and that
therefore the authorities arranged matters in such a way
as to make as much use of him as possible. For instance,
they rendered it impossible for him to do any manual
work. He was supplied with everything he could want, and
they only demanded of him that he should not refuse his
blessing to those who came to seek it. For his
convenience they appointed days when he would receive.
They arranged a reception-room for men, and a place was
railed in so that he should not pushed over by the crowds
of women visitors, and so that he could conveniently
bless those who came.
They told him that people needed him, and that
fulfilling Christ's law of love he could not refuse their
demand to see him, and that to avoid them would be cruel.
He could not but agree with this, but the more he gave
himself up to such a life the more he felt that what was
internal became external, and that the fount of living
water within him dried up, and that what he did now was
done more and more for men and less and less for God.
Whether he admonished people, or simply blessed
them, or prayed for the sick, or advised people about
their lives, or listened to expressions of gratitude from
those he had helped by precepts, or alms, or healing (as
they assured him) -- he could not help being pleased at
it, and could not be indifferent to the results of his
activity and to the influence he exerted. He thought
himself a shining light, and the more he felt this the
more was he conscious of a weakening, a dying down of the
divine light of truth that shone within him.
"In how far is what I do for God and in how far is
it for men?" That was the question that insistently
tormented him and to which he was not so much unable to
give himself an answer as unable to face the answer.
In the depth of his soul he felt that the devil had
substituted an activity for men in place of his former
activity for God. He felt this because, just as it had
formerly been hard for him to be torn from his solitude
so now that solitude itself was hard for him. he was
oppressed and wearied by visitors, but at the bottom of
his heart he was glad of their presence and glad of the
praise they heaped upon him.
There was a time when he decided to go away and
hide. He even planned all that was necessary for that
purpose. He prepared for himself a peasant's shirt,
trousers, coat, and cap. He explained that he wanted
these to give to those who asked. And he kept these
clothes in his cell, planning how he would put them on,
cut his hair short, and go away. First he would go some
three hundred versts by train, then he would leave the
train and walk from village to village. He asked an old
man who had been a soldier how he tramped: what people
gave him and what shelter they allowed him. the soldier
told him where people were most charitable, and where
they would take a wanderer in for the night, and Father
Sergius intended to avail himself of this information.
he even put on those clothes one night in his desire to
go, but he could not decide was best -- to remain or to
escape. At first he was in doubt, but afterwards this
indecision passed. He submitted to custom and yielded to
the devil, and only the peasant garb reminded him of the
thought and feeling he had had.
Every day more and more people flocked to him and
less and less time was left him for prayer and for
renewing his spiritual strength. Sometimes in lucid
moments he thought he was like a place where there had
once been a spring. "There used to be a feeble spring of
living water which flowed quietly from me and through me.
That was true life, the time when she tempted me!" (He
always thought with ecstasy of that night and of her who
was now Mother Agnes.) She had tasted of that pure
water, but since then there had not been time for it to
collect before thirsty people came crowding in and
pushing one another aside. and they had trampled
everything down and nothing was left but mud.
So he thought in rare moments of lucidity, but his
usual state of mind was one of weariness and a tender
pity for himself because of that weariness.
It was in spring, on the eve of the mid-Pentecostal
feast. Father Sergius was officiating at the vigil
Service in his hermitage church, where the congregation
was as large as the little church could hold -- about
twenty people. They were all well-to-do proprietors or
merchants. Father Sergius admitted anyone, but a
selection was made by the monk in attendance and by an
assistant who was sent to the hermitage every day from
the monastery. A crowd of some eighty people -- pilgrims
and peasants, and especially peasant-women -- stood
outside waiting for Father Sergius to come out and bless
them. Meanwhile he conducted the service, but at the
point at which he went out to the tomb of his
predecessor, he staggered and would have fallen had he
not been caught by a merchant standing behind him and by
the monk acting as deacon.
"What is the matter, Father Sergius? Dear man! O
Lord!" exclaimed the women. "He is as white as a sheet!"
But Father Sergius recovered immediately, and though
very pale, he waved the merchant and the deacon aside and
continued to chant the service.
Father Seraphim, the deacon, the acolytes, and sofya
Ivanovna, a lady who always lived near the hermitage and
tended Father Sergius, begged him to bring the service to
an end.
"No, there's nothing the matter," said Father
Sergius, slightly smiling from beneath his moustache and
continuing the service. "Yes, that is the way the Saints
behaved!" thought he.
"A holy man -- an angel of God!" he heard just then
the voice of Sofya Ivanovna behind him, and also of the
merchant who had supported him. He did not heed their
entreaties, but went on with the service. Again crowding
together they all made their way by the narrow passages
back into the little church, and there, though
abbreviating it slightly, Father Sergius completed
vespers.
Immediately after the service Father Sergius, having
pronounced the benediction on those present, went over to
the bench under the elm tree at the entrance to the cave.
He wished to rest and breathe the fresh air -- he felt in
need of it. But as soon as he left the church the crowd
of people rushed to him soliciting his blessing, his
advice and his help. There were pilgrims who constantly
tramped from one holy place to another and from one
*starets* to another, and were always entranced by every
shrine and every *starets*. Father Sergius knew this
common, cold, conventional, and most irreligious type.
There were pilgrims, for the most part discharged
soldiers, unaccustomed to a settled life, poverty-
stricken, and many of them drunken old men, who tramped
from monastery to monastery merely to be fed. And there
were rough peasants and peasant-women who had come with
their selfish requirements, seeking cures or to have
doubts about quite practical affairs solved for them:
about marrying off a daughter, or hiring a shop, or
buying a bit of land, or how to atone for having overlaid
a child or having an illegitimate one.
All this was an old story and not in the least
interesting to him. He knew he would hear nothing new
from these folk, that they would arouse no religious
emotion in him; but he liked to see the crowd to which
his blessing and advice was necessary and precious, so
while that crowd oppressed him it also pleased him.
Father Seraphim began to drive them away, saying that
Father Sergius was tired. But Father Sergius,
remembering the words of the Gospel: "Forbid them"
(children) "not to come unto me," and feeling tenderly
towards himself at this recollection, said they should be
allowed to approach.
He rose, went to the railing beyond which the crowd
had gathered, and began blessing them and answering their
questions, but in a voice so weak that he was touched
with pity for himself. Yet despite his wish to receive
them all he could not do it. things again grew dark
before his eyes, and he staggered and grasped the
railings. He felt a rush of blood to his head and first
went pale and then suddenly flushed.
"I must leave the rest till tomorrow. I cannot do
more today," and, pronouncing a general benediction, he
returned to the bench. The merchant again supported him,
and leading him by the arm helped him to be seated.
"Father!" came voices from the crowd. "Dear Father!
Do no forsake us. Without you we are lost!"
The merchant, having seated Father Sergius on the
bench under the elm, took on himself police duties and
drove the people off very resolutely. It is true that he
spoke in a low voice so that Father Sergius might not
hear him, but his words were incisive and angry.
"Be off, be off! He has blessed you, and what more
do you want? Get along with you, or I'll wring your
necks! Move on there! Get along, you old woman with
your dirty leg-bands! Go, go! where are you shoving to?
You've been told that it is finished. Tomorrow will be
as god wills, but for today he has finished!"
"Father! Only let my eyes have a glimpse of his dear
face!" said an old woman.
"I'll glimpse you! Where are you shoving to?"
Father Sergius noticed that the merchant seemed to
be acting roughly, and in a feeble voice told the
attendant that the people should not be driven away. He
knew that they would be driven away all the same, and he
much desired to be left alone and to rest, but he sent
the attendant with that message to produce an impression.
"All right, all right! I am not driving them away.
I am only remonstrating with them," replied the merchant.
"You know they wouldn't hesitate to drive a man to death.
They have no pity, they only consider themselves....
You've been told you cannot see him. Go away!
tomorrow!" And he got rid of them all.
He took all these pains because he liked order and
liked to domineer and drive the people away, but chiefly
because he wanted to have Father Sergius to himself. He
was a widower with an only daughter who was an invalid
and unmarried, and whom he had brought fourteen hundred
versts to Father Sergius to be healed. For two years
past he had been taking her to different places to be
cured: first to the university clinic in the chief town
of the province, but that did no good; then to a peasant
in the province of Samara, where she got a little better;
then to a doctor in Moscow to whom he paid much money,
but this did no good at all. Now he had been told that
Father Sergius wrought cures, and had brought her to him.
So when all the people had been driven away he approached
Father Sergius, and suddenly falling on his knees loudly
exclaimed:
"Holy Father! Bless my afflicted offspring that she
may be healed of her malady. I venture to prostrate
myself at your holy feet."
And he placed one hand on the other, cup-wise. He
said and did all this as if he were doing something
clearly and firmly appointed by law and usage -- as if
one must and should ask for a daughter to be cured in
just this way and no other. He did it with such
conviction that it seemed even to Father Sergius that it
should be said and done in just that way, but
nevertheless he bade him rise and tell him what the
trouble was. The merchant said that his daughter, a girl
of twenty-two had fallen ill two years ago, after her
mother's sudden death. She had moaned (as he expressed
it) and since then had not been herself. And now he had
brought her fourteen hundred versts and she was waiting
in the hostelry till Father Sergius should give orders to
bring her. She did not go out during the day, being
afraid of the light, and could only come after sunset.
"Is she very weak?" asked Father Sergius.
"No, she has no particular weakness. she is quite
plump, and is only 'neurasthenic' the doctors say. If
you will only let me bring her this evening, Father
Sergius, I'll fly like a spirit to fetch her. Holy
Father! Revive a parent's heart, restore his line, save
his afflicted daughter by your prayers!" And the
merchant again threw himself on his knees and bending
sideways, with his head resting on his clenched fists,
remained stock still. Father Sergius again told him to
get up, and thinking how heavy his activities were and
how he went through with them patiently notwithstanding,
he sighed heavily and after a few seconds of silence,
said:
"Well, bring her this evening. I will pray for her,
but now I am tired..." and he closed his eyes. "I will
send for you."
The merchant went away, stepping on tiptoe, which
only made his boots creak the louder, and Father Sergius
remained alone.
His whole life was filled by Church services and by
people who came to see him, but today had been a
particularly difficult one. In the morning and important
official had arrived and had had a long conversation with
him; after that a lady had come with her son. this son
was a sceptical young professor whom the mother, an
ardent believer and devoted to Father Sergius, had
brought that he might talk to him. The conversation had
been very trying. The young man, evidently not wishing
to have a controversy with a monk, had agreed with him in
everything as with someone who was mentally inferior.
Father Sergius saw that the young man did not believe but
yet was satisfied, tranquil, and at ease, and the memory
of that conversation now disquieted him.
"Have something to eat, Father," said the attendant.
"All right, bring me something."
The attendant went to a hut that had been arranged
some ten paces from the cave, and Father Sergius remained
alone.
The time was long past when he had lived alone doing
everything for himself and eating only rye bread, or
rolls prepared for the Church. He had been advised long
since that he had no right to neglect his health, and he
was given wholesome, though Lenten, food. He ate
sparingly, though much more than he had done, and often
he ate with much pleasure, and not as formerly with
aversion and a sense of guilt. So it was now. He had
some gruel, drank a cup of tea, and ate half a white
roll.
The attendant went away, and Father Sergius remained
alone under the elm tree.
It was a wonderful May evening, when the birches,
aspens, elms, wild cherries, and oaks, had just burst
into foliage.
The bush of wild cherries behind the elm tree was in
full bloom and had not yet begun to shed its blossoms,
and the nightingales -- one quite near at hand and two or
three others in the bushes down by the river -- burst
into full song after some preliminary twitters. From the
river came the far-off songs of peasants returning, no
doubt, from their work. The sun was setting behind the
forest, its last rays glowing through the leaves. All
that side was brilliant green, the other side with the
elm tree was dark. The cockchafers flew clumsily about,
falling to the ground when they collided with anything.
After supper Father Sergius began to repeat a silent
prayer: "O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy
upon us!" and then he read a psalm, and suddenly in the
middle of the psalm a sparrow flew out from the bush,
alighted on the ground, and hopped towards him chirping
as it came, but then it took fright at something and flew
away. He said a prayer which referred to his abandonment
of the world, and hastened to finish it in order to send
for the merchant with the sick daughter. She interested
him in that she presented a distraction, and because both
she and her father considered him a saint whose prayers
were efficacious. Outwardly he disavowed that idea, but
in the depths of his soul he considered it to be true.
He was often amazed that this had happened, that he,
Stepan Kasatsky, had come to be such an extraordinary
saint and even a worker of miracles, but of the fact that
he was such there could not be the least doubt. He could
not fail to believe in the miracles he himself witnessed,
beginning with the sick boy and ending with the old woman
who had recovered her sight when he had prayed for her.
Strange as it might be, it was so. Accordingly the
merchant's daughter interested him as a new individual
who had faith in him, and also as a fresh opportunity to
confirm his healing powers and enhance his fame. "They
bring people a thousand versts and write about it in the
papers. The Emperor knows of it, and they know of it in
europe, in unbelieving Europe" -- thought he. And
suddenly he felt ashamed of his vanity and again began to
pray. "Lord, King of Heaven, Comforter, Soul of Truth!
Come and enter into me and cleanse me from all sin and
save and bless my soul. Cleanse me from the sin of
worldly vanity that troubles me!" he repeated, and he
remembered how often he had prayed about this and how
vain now his prayers had been in that respect. His
prayers worked miracles for others, but in his own case
God had not granted him liberation from this petty
passion.
He remembered his prayers at the commencement of his
life at the hermitage, when he prayed for purity,
humility, and love, and how it seemed to him then that
God heard his prayers. He had retained his purity and
had chopped off his finger. And he lifted the shrivelled
stump of that finger to his lips and kissed it. It
seemed to him now that he had been humble then when he
had always seemed loathsome to himself on account of his
sinfulness; and when he remembered the tender feelings
with which he had then met an old man who was bringing a
drunken soldier to him to ask alms; and how he had
received *her*, it seemed to him that he had then
possessed love also. But now? And he asked himself
whether he loved anyone, whether he loved Sofya Ivanovna,
or Father Seraphim, whether he had any feeling of love
for all who had come to him that day -- for that learned
young man with whom he had had that instructive
discussion in which he was concerned only to show off his
own intelligence and that he had not lagged behind the
times in knowledge. He wanted and needed their love, but
felt none towards them. He now had neither love nor
humility nor purity.
He was pleased to know that the merchant's daughter
was twenty-two, and he wondered whether she was good-
looking. When he inquired whether she was weak, he
really wanted to know if she had feminine charm.
"Can I have fallen so low?" he thought. "Lord, help
me! Restore me, my Lord and God!" and he clasped his
hands and began to pray.
The nightingales burst into song, a cockchafer
knocked against him and crept up the back of his neck.
He brushed it off. "But does He exist? What if I am
knocking at a door fastened from outside? The bar is on
the door for all to see. Nature -- the nightingales and
the cockchafers -- is that bar. Perhaps the young man
was right." And he began to pray aloud. He prayed for
a long time till these thoughts vanished and he again
felt calm and confident. He rang the bell and told the
attendant to say that the merchant might bring his
daughter to him now.
The merchant came, leading his daughter by the arm.
He led her into the cell and immediately left her.
she was a very fair girl, plump and very short, with
a pale, frightened, childish face and a much developed
feminine figure. Father Sergius remained seated on the
bench at the entrance and when she was passing and
stopped beside him for his blessing he was aghast at
himself for the way he looked at her figure. As she
passed by him he was acutely conscious of her femininity,
though he saw by her face that she was sensual and
feeble-minded. He rose and went into the cell. She was
sitting on a stool waiting for him, and when he entered
she rose.
"I want to go back to Papa," she said.
"Don't be afraid," he replied. "What are you
suffering from?"
"I am in pain all over," she said, and suddenly her
face lit up with a smile.
"You will be well," said he. "Pray!"
"What is the use of praying? I have prayed and it
does not good" -- and she continued to smile. "I want
you to pray for me and lay your hands on me. I saw you
in a dream."
"How did you see me?"
"I saw you put your hands on my breast like that."
She took his hand and pressed it to her breast. "Just
here."
He yielded his right hand to her.
"What is your name?" he asked, trembling all over
and feeling that he was overcome and that his desire had
already passed beyond control.
"Marie. Why?"
She took his hand and kissed it, and then put her
arm round his waist and pressed him to herself.
"What are you doing?" he said. "Marie, you are a
devil!"
"Oh, perhaps. What does it matter?"
And embracing him she sat down with him on the bed.
At dawn he went out into the porch.
"Can this all have happened? Her father will come
and she will tell him everything. She is a devil! What
am I to do? Here is the axe with which I chopped off my
finger." He snatched up the axe and moved back towards
the cell.
The attendant came up.
"Do you want some wood chopped? Let me have the
axe."
Sergius yielded up the axe and entered the cell.
She was lying there asleep. He looked at her with
horror, and passed on beyond the partition, where he took
down the peasant clothes and put them on. Then he seized
a pair of scissors, but off his long hair, and went out
along the path down the hill to the river, where he had
not been for more than three years.
A road ran beside the river and he went along it and
walked till noon. Then he went into a field of rye and
lay down there. Towards evening he approached a village,
but without entering it went towards the cliff that
overhung the river. There he again lay down to rest.
It was early morning, half an hour before sunrise.
All was damp and gloomy and a cold early wind was blowing
from the west. "Yes, I must end it all. There is no
God. But how am I to end it? Throw myself into the
river? I can swim and should not drown. Hang myself?
Yes, just throw this sash over a branch." This seemed so
feasible and so easy that he felt horrified. As usual at
moments of despair he felt the need of prayer. But there
was no one to pray to. There was no God. He lay down
resting on his arm, and suddenly such a longing for sleep
overcame him that he could no longer support his head on
his hand, but stretched out his arm, laid his head upon
it, and fell asleep. But that sleep lasted only for a
moment. He woke up immediately and began not to dream
but to remember.
He saw himself as a child in his mother's home in
the country. A carriage drives up, and out of it steps
Uncle Nicholas Sergeevich, with his long, spade-shaped,
black beard, and with him Pashenka, a thin little girl
with large mild eyes and a timid pathetic face. And into
their company of boys Pashenka is brought and they have
to play with her, but it is dull. She is silly, and it
ends by their making fun of her and forcing her to show
how she can swim. She lies down on the floor and shows
them, and they all laugh and make a fool of her. She
sees this and blushes red in patches and becomes more
pitiable than before, so pitiable that he feels ashamed
and can never forget that crooked, kindly, submissive
smile. And Sergius remembered having seen her since
then. Long after, just before he became a monk, she had
married a landowner who squandered all her fortune and
was in the habit of beating her. She had had two
children, a son and a daughter, but the son had died
while still young. And Sergius remembered having seen
her very wretched. Then again he had seen her in the
monastery when she was a widow. She had been still the
same, not exactly stupid, but insipid, insignificant, and
pitiable. She had come with her daughter and her
daughter's fiance. They were already poor at that time
and later on he had heard that she was living in a small
provincial town and was very poor.
"Why am I thinking about her?" he asked himself, but
he could not cease doing so. "Where is she? How is she
getting on? Is she still as unhappy as she was then when
she had to show us how to swim on the floor? But why
should I think about her? What am I doing? I must put
an end to myself."
And again he felt afraid, and again, to escape from
that thought, he went on thinking about Pashenka.
So he lay for a long time, thinking now of his
unavoidable end and now of Pashenka. She presented
herself to him as a means of salvation. At last he fell
asleep, and in his sleep he saw an angel who came to him
and said: "Go to Pashenka and learn from her what you
have to do, what your sin is, and wherein lies your
salvation."
He awoke, and having decided that this was a vision
sent by God, he felt glad, and resolved to do what had
been told him in the vision. He knew the town where she
lived. It was some three hundred versts (two hundred
miles) away, and he set out to walk there.
VI
Pashenka had already long ceased to be Pashenka and
had become old, withered, wrinkled Praskovya Mikhaylovna,
mother-in-law of that failure, the drunken official
Mavrikyev. she was living in the country town where he
had had his last appointment, and there she was
supporting the family: her daughter, her ailing
neurasthenic son-in-law, and her five grandchildren. she
did this by giving music lessons to tradesmen's
daughters, giving four and sometimes five lessons a day
of an hour each, and earning in this was some sixty
rubles (œ6) a month. So they lived for the present, in
expectation of another appointment. She had sent letters
to all her relations and acquaintances asking them to
obtain a post for her son-in-law, and among the rest she
had written to Sergius, but that letter had not reached
him.
It was a Saturday, and Praskovya Mikhaylovna was
herself mixing dough for currant bread such as the serf
cook on her father's estate used to make so well. She
wished to give her grandchildren a treat on the Sunday.
Masha, her daughter, was nursing her youngest child,
the eldest boy and girl were at school, and her son-in-
law was asleep, not having slept during the night.
Praskovya Mikhaylovna had remained awake too for a great
part of the night, trying to soften her daughter's anger
against her husband.
She saw that it was impossible for her son-in-law,
a weak creature, to be other than he was, and realized
that his wife's reproaches could do no good -- so she
used all her efforts to soften those reproaches and to
avoid recrimination and anger. Unkindly relations
between people caused her actual physical suffering. It
was so clear to her that bitter feelings do not make
anything better, but only make everything worse. She did
not in fact think about this: she simply suffered at the
sight of anger as she would from a bad smell, a harsh
noise, or from blows on her body.
She had -- with a feeling of self-satisfaction --
just taught Lukerya how to mix the dough, when her six-
year-old grandson Misha, wearing an apron and with darned
stockings on his crooked little legs, ran into the
kitchen with a frightened face.
"Grandma, a dreadful old man wants to see you."
Lukerya looked out at the door.
"There is a pilgrim of some kind, a man..."
Praskovya Mikhaylovna rubbed her thin elbows against
one another, wiped her hands on her apron and went
upstairs to get a five-kopek piece [about a penny] out of
her purse for him, but remembering that she had nothing
less than a ten-kopek piece she decided to give him some
bread instead. She returned to the cupboard, but
suddenly blushed at the thought of having grudged the
ten-kopek piece, and telling Lukerya to cut a slice of
bread, went upstairs again to fetch it. "It serves you
right," she said to herself. "You must now give twice
over."
She gave both the bread and the money to the
pilgrim, and when doing so -- far from being proud of her
generosity -- she excused herself for giving so little.
The man had such an imposing appearance.
Though he had tramped two hundred versts as a
beggar, though he was tattered and had grown thin and
weather-beaten, though he had cropped his long hair and
was wearing a peasant's cap and boots, and though he
bowed very humbly, Sergius still had the impressive
appearance that made him so attractive. But Praskovya
Mikhaylovna did not recognize him. She could hardly do
so, not having seen him for almost twenty years.
"Don't think ill of me, Father. Perhaps you want
something to eat?"
He took the bread and the money, and Praskovya
Mikhaylovna was surprised that he did not go, but stood
looking at her.
"Pashenka, I have come to you! Take me in..."
His beautiful black eyes, shining with the tears
that started in them, were fixed on her with imploring
insistence. and under his greyish moustache his lips
quivered piteously.
Praskovya Mikhaylovna pressed her hands to her
withered breast, opened her mouth, and stood petrified,
staring at the pilgrim with dilated eyes.
"It can't be! Stepa! Sergey! Father Sergius!"
"Yes it is I," said Sergius in a low voice. "Only
not Sergius, or Father Sergius, but a great sinner,
Stepan Kasatsky -- a great and lost sinner. Take me in
and help me!"
"It's impossible! How have you so humbled yourself?
But come in."
She reached out her hand, but he did not take it and
only followed her in.
But where was she to take him? The lodging was a
small one. Formerly she had had a tiny room, almost a
closet, for herself, but later she had given it up to her
daughter, and Masha was now sitting there rocking the
baby.
"Sit here for the present," she said to Sergius,
pointing to a bench in the kitchen.
He sat down at once, and with an evidently
accustomed movement slipped the straps of his wallet
first off one shoulder and then off the other.
"My God, my God! How you have humbled yourself,
Father! such great fame, and now like this..."
Sergius did not reply, but only smiled meekly,
placing his wallet under the bench on which he sat.
"Masha, do you know who this is?" -- and in a
whisper Praskovya Mikhaylovna told her daughter who he
was, and together they then carried the bed and the
cradle out of the tiny room and cleared it for Sergius.
Praskovya Mikhaylovna led him into it.
"Here you can rest. Don't take offence ... but I
must go out."
"Where to?"
"I have to go to a lesson. I am ashamed to tell
you, but I teach music!"
"Music? But that is good. Only just one thing,
Praskovya Mikhaylovna, I have come to you with a definite
object. When can I have a talk with you?"
"I shall be very glad. Will this evening do?"
"Yes. But one thing more. Don't speak about me, or
say who I am. I have revealed myself only to you. No
one knows where I have gone to. It must be so."
"Oh, but I have told my daughter."
"Well, ask her not to mention it."
And Sergius took off his boots, lay down, and at
once fell asleep after a sleepless night and a walk of
nearly thirty miles.
When Praskovya Mikhaylovna returned, Sergius was
sitting in the little room waiting for her. He did not
come out for dinner, but had some soup and gruel which
Lukerya brought him.
"How is it that you have come back earlier than you
said?" asked Sergius. "Can I speak to you now?"
"How is it that I have the happiness to receive such
a guest? I have missed one of my lessons. That can
wait... I had always been planning to go to see you. I
wrote to you, and now this good fortune has come."
"Pashenka, please listen to what I am going to tell
you as to a confession made to God at my last hour.
Pashenka, I am not a holy man, I am not even as good as
a simple ordinary man; I am a loathsome, vile, and proud
sinner who has gone astray, and who, if not worse than
everyone else, is at least worse than most very bad
people."
Pashenka looked at him at first with staring eyes.
But she believed what he said, and when she had quite
grasped it she touched his hand, smiled pityingly, and
said:
"Perhaps you exaggerate, Stiva?"
"No, Pashenka. I am an adulterer, a murderer, a
blasphemer, and a deceiver."
"My God! How is that?" exclaimed Praskovya
Mikhaylovna.
"But I must go on living. And I, who thought I knew
everything, who taught others how to live -- I know
nothing and ask you to teach me."
"What are you saying, Stiva? You are laughing at
me. Why do you always make fun of me?"
"Well, if you think I am jesting you must have it as
you please. but tell me all the same how you live, and
how you have lived your life."
"I? I have lived a very nasty, horrible life, and
now God is punishing me as I deserve. I live so
wretchedly, so wretchedly..."
"How was it with your marriage? How did you live
with your husband?"
"It was all bad. I married because I fell in love
in the nastiest way. Papa did not approve. But I would
not listen to anything and just got married. Then
instead of helping my husband I tormented him by my
jealousy, which I could not restrain."
"I heard that he drank..."
"Yes, but I did not give him any peace. I always
reproached him, though you know it is a disease! He
could not refrain from it. I now remember how I tried to
prevent his having it, and the frightful scenes we had!"
And she looked at Kasatsky with beautiful eyes,
suffering from the remembrance.
Kasatsky remembered how he had been told that
Pashenka's husband used to beat her, and now, looking at
her thin withered neck with prominent veins behind her
ears, and her scanty coil of hair, half grey half auburn,
he seemed to see just how it had occurred.
"Then I was left with two children and no means at
all."
"But you had an estate!"
"Oh, we sold that wild Vasya was still alive, and
the money was all spent. We had to live, and like all
our young ladies I did not know how to earn anything. I
was particularly useless and helpless. So we spent all
we had. I taught the children and improved my own
education a little. And then Mitya fell ill when he was
already in the fourth form, and God took him. Masha fell
in love with Vanya, my son-in-law. And -- well, he is
well-meaning but unfortunate. He is ill."
"Mamma!" -- her daughter's voice interrupted her --
"Take Mitya! I can't be in two places at once."
Praskovya Mikhaylovna shuddered, but rose and went
out of the room, stepping quickly in her patched shoes.
She soon came back with a boy of two in her arms, who
threw himself backwards and grabbed at her shawl with his
little hands.
"Where was I? Oh yes, he had a good appointment
here, and his chief was a kind man too. But Vanya could
not go on, and had to give up his position."
"What is the matter with him?"
"Neurasthenia -- it is a dreadful complaint. We
consulted a doctor, who told us he ought to go away, but
we had no means....I always hope it will pass of itself.
He has no particular pain, but..."
"Lukerya!" cried and angry and feeble voice. "She
is always sent away when I want her. Mamma..."
"I'm coming!" Praskovya Mikhaylovna again
interrupted herself. "He has not had his dinner yet. He
can't eat with us."
She went out and arranged something, and came back
wiping her thin dark hands.
"So that is how I live. I always complain and am
always dissatisfied, but thank God the grandchildren are
all nice and healthy, and we can still live. But why
talk about me?"
"But what do you live on?"
"Well, I earn a little. How I used to dislike
music, but how useful it is to me now!" Her small hand
lay on the chest of drawers beside which she was sitting,
and she drummed an exercise with her thin fingers.
"How much do you get for a lesson?"
"Sometimes a ruble, sometimes fifty kopeks, or
sometimes thirty. They are all so kind to me."
"And do your pupils get on well?" asked Kasatsky
with a slight smile.
Praskovya Mikhaylovna did not at first believe that
he was asking seriously, and looked inquiringly into his
eyes.
"Some of them do. One of them is a splendid girl --
the butcher's daughter -- such a good kind girl! If I
were a clever woman I ought, of course, with the
connexions Papa had, to be able to get an appointment for
my son-in-law. But as it is I have not been able to do
anything, and have brought them all to this -- as you
see."
"Yes, yes," Kasatsky, lowering his head. "And how
is it, Pashenka -- do you take part in Church life?"
"Oh, don't speak of it. I am so bad that way, and
have neglected it so! I keep the fasts with the children
and sometimes go to church, and then again sometimes I
don't go for months. I only send the children."
"But why don't you go yourself?"
"To tell the truth" (she blushed) "I am ashamed, for
my daughter's sake and the children's, to go there in
tattered clothes, and I haven't anything else. Besides,
I am just lazy."
"And do you pray at home?"
"I do. But what sort of prayer is it? Only
mechanical. I know it should not be like that, but I
lack real religious feeling. The only thing is that I
know how bad I am...."
"Yes, yes, that's right!" said Kasatsky, as if
approvingly.
"I'm coming! I'm coming!" she replied to a call
from her son-in-law, and tidying her scanty plait she
left the room.
But this time it was long before she returned. When
she came back, Kasatsky was sitting in the same position,
his elbows resting on his knees and his head bowed. But
his wallet was strapped on his back.
When she came in, carrying a small tin lamp without
a shade, he raised his fine weary eyes and sighed very
deeply.
"I did not tell them who you are," she began
timidly. "I only said that you are a pilgrim, a
nobleman, and that I used to know you. Come into the
dining-room for tea."
"No...."
"Well then, I'll bring some to you here."
"No, I don't want anything. God bless you,
Pashenka! I am going now. If you pity me, don't tell
anyone that you have seen me. For the love of God don't
tell anyone. Thank you. I would bow to your feet but I
know it would make you feel awkward. Thank you, and
forgive me for Christ's sake!"
"Give me your blessing."
"God bless you! forgive me for Christ's sake!"
He rose, but she would not let him go until she had
given him bread and butter and rusks. He took it all and
went away.
It was dark, and before he had passed the second
house he was lost to sight. She only knew he was there
because the dog at the priest's house was barking.
"So that is what my dream meant! Pashenka is what
I ought to have been but failed to be. I lived for men
on the pretext of living for God, while she lives for God
imagining that she lives for men. Yes, one good deed --
a cup of water given without thought of reward -- is
worth more than any benefit I imagined I was bestowing on
people. But after all was there not some share of
sincere desire to serve God?" he asked himself, and the
answer was: "Yes, there was, but it was all soiled and
overgrown by desire for human praise. Yes, there is no
God for the man who lives, as I did, for human praise.
I will now seek Him!"
And he walked from village to village as he had done
on his way to Pashenka, meeting and parting from other
pilgrims, men and women, and asking for bread and a
night's rest in Christ's name. Occasionally some angry
housewife scolded him, or a drunken peasant reviled him,
but for the most part he was given food and drink and
even something to take with him. His noble bearing
disposed some people in his favour, while others on the
contrary seemed pleased at the sight of a gentleman who
had come to beggary.
But his gentleness prevailed with everyone.
Often, finding a copy of the Gospels in a hut he
would read it aloud, and when they heard him the people
were always touched and surprised, as at something new
yet familiar.
When he succeeded in helping people, either by
advice, or by his knowledge of reading and writing, or by
settling some quarrel, he did not wait to see their
gratitude but went away directly afterwards. And little
by little God began to reveal Himself within him.
Once he was walking along with two old women and a
soldier. They were stopped by a party consisting of a
lady and gentleman in a gig and another lady and
gentleman on horseback. The husband was on horseback
with his daughter, while in the gig his wife was driving
with a Frenchman, evidently a traveller.
The party stopped to let the Frenchman see the
pilgrims who, in accord with a popular Russian
superstition, tramped about from place to place instead
of working.
They spoke French, thinking that the others would
not understand them.
"Demandez-leur," said the Frenchman, "s'ils sont
bien sur de ce que leur pelerinage est agreable a Dieu."
The question was asked, and one old woman replied:
"As God takes it. Our feet have reached the holy
places, but our hearts may not have done so."
They asked the soldier. He said that he was alone
in the world and had nowhere else to go.
They asked Kasatsky who he was.
"A servant of God."
"Qu'est-ce qu'il dit? In ne repond pas."
"Il dit qu'il est un serviteur de Dieu. Cela doit
etre un fils de pretre. Il a de la race. Avez-vous de
la petite monnaie?"
The Frenchman found some small change and gave
twenty kopeks to each of the pilgrims.
"Mais dites-leur que ce n'est pas pour les cierges
que je leur donne, mais pour qu'ils se regalent de the.
Chay, chay pour vous, mon vieux!" he said with a smile.
And he patter Kasatsky on the shoulder with his gloved
hand.
"May Christ bless you," replied Kasatsky without
replacing his cap and bowing his bald head.
He rejoiced particularly at this meeting, because he
had disregarded the opinion of men and had done the
simplest, easiest thing -- humbly accepted twenty kopeks
and given them to his comrade, a blind beggar. The less
importance he attached to the opinion of men the more did
he feel the presence of God within him.
For eight months Kasatsky tramped on in this manner,
and in the ninth month he was arrested for not having a
passport. This happened at a night-refuge in a
provincial town where he had passed the night with some
pilgrims. He was taken to the police-station, and when
asked who he was and where was his passport, he re;lied
that he had no passport and that he was a servant of God.
He was classed as a tramp, sentenced, and sent to live in
Siberia.
In Siberia he has settled down as the hired man of
a well-to-do peasant, in which capacity he works in the
kitchen-garden, teaches children, and attends to the
sick.
(
geocities.com/cmcarpenter28)