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 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 et messieurs, let us drive on and see Kasatsky! We can
stop at Tambov and have something to eat.'
'But we shouldn't get home to-night!'
'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 sledge 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 the 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 dost 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 hast 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 in
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 and knew 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 his 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 threshold. 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 are 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 lying.
'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 me 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 sat 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 lifted
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 that 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, not 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!' she said. '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.
