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 be 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 what 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 behave!' 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 to-morrow. I cannot do more to-day,'
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 not
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.
To-morrow will be as God wills, but for to-day 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! To-morrow!' 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 "nerastenic" 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 to-day had been a particularly difficult
one. In the morning an 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
till 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 no
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, cut 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.
