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 Paussy Velichkovsky.
To this Abbot Kasatsky submitted himself as to his chosen
director. Here in the monastery, besides the feeling of
ascendency 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 sin, 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 tranquillity.
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 fulfilment 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 eye 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. Go 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 afterwards
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.
