The first days of my cloistral novitiate were not easy. The bakery was
in the cellar under the refectory; the ceiling was low and vaulted, and
its one window was nailed tightly. The air was suffocating. The dust
from the flour hung in the cellar like a thick mist, in which Misha
trotted back and forth like a bear on a chain. The flame in the oven
burned unclearly; it was a nightmare, not work.
Only we two were down there, for it was seldom that any one was sent as
a punishment to help us.
There was no time even to attend religious services.
Day after day Misha preached his sermon to me, and I felt as if I were
being bound with stout ropes. He was all aflame and burned with wrath
against the world, while I breathed in his words and I felt that my
inmost heart was covered with soot.
"You have nothing more to do with man," he said. "They continue to
commit sins out there in the world, but you have left the world
forever. If you separated from it with your body, then you must also
flee it in spirit. You must forget it. If you think of man, you think
unwillingly of woman. And through woman the world has sunk into
darkness and sin and is bound eternally."
I wanted to say something, but no sooner did I open my mouth than he
shouted at me:
"Keep still! Listen attentively to what an experienced man has to say,
and respect your elders! I know you were going to blab something about
the mother of God again. But it was just on account of her that Christ
died on the crucifix--because He was born of woman, and did not descend
holy and pure from heaven. He was altogether too good to that nasty
woman all his life, and he should have pushed the Samaritan into the
well instead of conversing with her. And He should have been the first
to throw a stone at the sinner. Then the world would have been free."
"That is not a church thought," I said.
"Again I tell _you_, keep still. The church is entirely in the hands
of a pale clergy, who are slaves to all sorts of debauchery and who
themselves go around in silk clothes like women in petticoats. They are
all heretics. They should dance quadrilles, not dictate religious laws.
Moreover, is it possible for a man with a wife to think upon God-like
things with a pure heart? No, he cannot, for he is committing the
terrible sin on account of which the Lord drove him out of the Garden
of Eden. And because of this sin we are damned to eternal punishment;
sentenced to howl and to gnash our teeth, and we are blinded by it so
that we cannot see the countenance of God from one eternity to another.
The clergy themselves help spread this sin, for they have children with
women and encourage the world to follow their bad example. And thus
they change all the laws of God to justify their violations of them."
This man made me feel as if I were surrounded by a stone wall, which
came closer and closer around me. He brought the roof of the cellar
sinking upon my head. I was oppressed and stifled by the dust of his
words.
"But," I said, "did not the Lord say, 'Multiply and increase'?"
Here my superior became blue in the face, stamped his feet on the
ground, and roared like a beast:
"He said! He said! How do you know what he meant by it, you blockhead?
He said: 'Be fruitful and multiply and people the earth. I leave to you
the power of Satan, and may you be damned now, and forever and through
all eternity.' That is what he said. And these cursed debauchees who
call themselves the servants of God turned these words into a law of
God. Do you understand their deceit and their vileness?"
He fell on me like a mountain which crushed me and darkened everything
about me. I could not believe him, yet I could not contradict his
bigotry, and he confused me by the violence of his attacks. If I quoted
a passage from the Scriptures he quoted three others and disarmed me.
The Scriptures are like a field of many-colored flowers. If you desire
red flowers you can find red ones; if white, they, too, are to be had.
I remained silent, oppressed by his torrent of words, while he
triumphed and his eyes glowed like a wolf's. And all the time we toiled
hard at our work. I kneaded and he rolled the dough, pushed the loaves
into the oven, and took them out when they were ready. But I had to put
them on the shelves, which burned my hands.
I was all sticky with dough and covered with flour; I was blind and
deaf and did not understand from sheer weariness what was said to me.
Sometimes the monks came to visit us, said something mockingly and
laughed. Misha barked at them all angrily, and drove them out of the
bakery, and I felt scorched. I was wretched, for I did not like this
being together with Misha, whom I not only did not love, but even
feared. Many times he asked me:
"Do you see naked women in your dreams?"
"No," I answered, "never."
"You're lying! Why do you lie?"
He became enraged, showed his teeth and threatened me with his fist.
"You're a liar and a rascal," he shouted.
I was only astonished. What is he saying there about naked women? A man
works from three o'clock in the morning till ten at night and then lies
down to sleep with bones aching like a beggar's in winter--and he talks
of women. Such were my thoughts.
Once I went into the ante-room for yeast. It was a dark room in the
cellar, opposite the bakery. I found the door unlocked and a lantern
burning. I opened the door and saw Misha crawling on the ground on his
stomach, and crying out:
"Send them away, I implore Thee, Lord! Send them away! Deliver me!"
Of course, I immediately went out, but I could not guess what it was
about.
He always spoke hatefully and insultingly about women, called all
womankind vulgar and in real peasant fashion spat at them, clutching
the air with his fingers as if in his mind's eye he were tearing and
pulling a woman's body apart.
I could not bear to hear him talk. I remembered my own wife and our
happy tears the first night of our marriage, and the quiet, inner
wonder with each other, and our great joy. Is it not Thy sweet gift to
man, O Lord? I remembered Tatiana's good heart and her simplicity, and
I was hurt to tears for womankind. I thought to myself:
"When the Abbot will call me for an interview, I shall tell him
everything."
But he did not call me. The days passed one after another, like blind
people in a wood along a narrow path, each one stumbling upon the
other, and still the Abbot did not call me. Darkness was within me. At
that time, in my twenty-second year, my first gray hair came.
I wanted to speak with the handsome monk, but I saw him rarely and only
for an instant. Now and then his proud countenance came before me and
then vanished and my longing for him followed him like an invisible
shadow. I asked Misha about him.
"Oh," Misha cried, "that one! That animal! He was sent away from the
military for gambling in cards and from the seminary for his scandals
with women. A learned one, yes! He fell into the seminary from the
military, cheated all the monks in the monastery of Chudoff; then came
here, bought himself in with seven and a half thousand rubles, donated
land and so won great respect. Here, too; they play cards. The Abbot,
the steward and the treasurer, they all play with him. There is a girl
who visits him--oh, the pigs! He has a separate apartment, and there he
lives just as he pleases. The great filth of it!"
I did not believe him; I could not. One day I asked the steward, Father
Isador, to help me gain an interview with the Abbot.
"An interview about what?"
"About faith."
"What do you mean, 'about faith'?"
"I have various questions."
He looked me over from head to toe. He was a head taller than I, thin,
angular, with wise, smiling eyes, a long, crooked nose and a pointed
beard.
"Speak plainly; your flesh masters you?"
Always of the flesh! Though I did not want to, nevertheless I told him
of some of my doubts in a few words. He frowned, then smiled.
"For this, my son, you should pray. By means of prayer you can heal the
suffering of your soul. Still, in consideration of your love for labor,
and because your request is so unusual, I will place the matter before
the Abbot. Wait."
The word "unusual" surprised me. I felt that the expression was
frivolous and there was hostility in it toward me.
Then I was summoned to come before the Father Abbot, and he looked at
me sternly as I bowed before him. He said in a tone of authority:
"Father Isador told me of your desire to discuss the faith with me."
"I did not mean to argue," I said.
"Do not interrupt the speech of your elders. Every discussion which two
people have about a subject is an argument, and every question is a
seducer of thought, unless, of course, it is a subject which concerns
itself with the daily life of the brotherhood--: some commonplace
subject. Here we have a working community. We work to subjugate the
flesh, so that the soul, which lives in it temporarily, may devote
itself wholly to the Lord, and thus pray and receive His mercy for the
sins of the world. Our lot is not to gain cleverness, but to work.
Cleverness is not necessary to us, only simplicity of soul.
"Your discussions with Brother Misha are known to me, and I cannot
approve of them. Limit the boldness of your thought so that you do not
fall into temptation, for the aimless thoughts which are not bound
down by faith are the keenest weapons of the devil. The mind comes
from the flesh; bold thoughts from the devil; but the strength of the
soul is a part of the spirit of God, and open-heartedness is given the
righteous through meditation.
"Brother Misha, your superior, is a strict monk, a true ascetic and
brother, beloved by all for his work. I will punish you with a penance.
After your day's labor is done read the Acathistus to Christ at the
altar on the left in front of the Crucifixion, three times during the
night, for ten successive nights.
"Added to this, you will also have to have interviews with the penance
monk, Mardarie. The time and the number will be told you later.
"You were a clerk on an estate, were you not? Go in peace. I will think
about you. It seems that you have no relatives on this earth. Well, go,
I will pray for you. We will hope for the best."
I returned to the bakery and began to weigh his words in my mind. That
was easily done. Perhaps the mind does become scattered in its search.
Still, to live like a sheep is hardly worthy nor right for man. At
that time I understood "meditation in prayer" as a sinking into the
depths of my own soul, where all the roots lay, and from which thoughts
strove to grow upward, as fruit trees. I could not find anything in my
soul which was hostile or not to be understood. All that was not to
be understood I felt was in God, and all that was hostile was in the
world--that is--outside of me.
That the brothers loved Misha I knew to be absolutely untrue, for
although I kept myself apart from all and did not mix in their
conversations, still I noticed everything and saw that the vested monks
as well as the novices disliked Misha and feared him and abhorred him.
I saw also that the monastery was laid out on a purely business basis.
They sold wood, they rented land to peasants and the right to fish on
the lake; they had a mill, vegetable gardens, large orchards, and sold
apples, berries and cabbages. Seventy horses stood in the stables, and
the brotherhood was composed of a little over fifty men, all strong and
hard workers. There were a few old men--only for parade--to show off
before the pilgrims. The monks drank wine and mixed much with women.
The young ones spent their nights in the village; and women came to the
cells of the older ones, ostensibly to wash the floors; and of course
the pilgrims were made use of also.
But all this was not my affair and I could not judge them. I saw no sin
in it, only a disgusting lie.
Many novices came to the monastery, but the tests were so difficult
that they could not endure them and deserted. During the two years that
I spent in this holy place, eleven brothers escaped. They remained one
or two months and fled. It seemed the life in the monastery was too
difficult.
For the pilgrims who came to the monastery there were, of course, all
kinds of attractions. There were the chains of the deceased pious
brother Joseph, which were a cure for rheumatism, and his little cap
which, when put on the head, cured headaches. And there was a very cold
spring in the wood, whose water was good for sickness in general. An
image of the Assumption of the Virgin contained all kinds of wonders
for believers, and the pious penance brother, Mardarie, could foretell
the future and comfort the unhappy. Everything was as it should be, and
in the spring, in the month of May, the people streamed here in crowds.
After my conversation with the Abbot, I wanted to find another
monastery, which would be simpler and where I need not work so hard,
and where the monks would stand nearer to their real task--the
understanding of the sins of this world. But several things happened
which kept me back.
One day I made the acquaintance of a novice named Grisha, who was
employed in the office of the monastery. I had noticed him before. He
walked quickly and noisily among the brothers, wore smoked glasses, had
an insignificant face, an under-sized body, and walked with his head
bent forward, as if he wanted to see nothing but his own path.
The day after my conversation with the Abbot, Grisha came into the
bakery. Misha had just gone to the brother treasurer to give his
accounts. Grisha came in, greeted me low, and asked:
"You were at the Abbot's, brother?"
"Yes."
"Did you talk with him?"
"No."
"He sent you away?"
"Why should he?"
Grisha fixed his glasses, became confused and said.
"I beg your pardon, in Christ's name."
"Did he ever send you away?" I asked.
He nodded affirmatively and sat down on the edge of the flour bin,
bent forward, coughed dryly and beat the bin with a hook while I told
him what the Abbot had said to me. Suddenly he jumped up, straightened
to his full height as if on springs, and began to speak in his loud,
plaintive, excited voice:
"Why do they call this a place for the salvation of the soul when
everything here is based upon money; when we live here for money,
just as in the world outside? I fled to save myself from the sin of
business, and again I fell upon business here. Where shall I flee now?"
His whole body trembled, and he told me quickly the history of his
life. He was the son of a merchant who owned a bakery, had graduated
from a school of commerce, and was placed by his father in his business.
"Were it some little nonsense," he said, "then, perhaps, I could deal
in it. But with bread it was unpleasant and shameful to me. Bread is
indispensable to all. One should not own it to make it the means of
trade for human need. Perhaps my father would have broken me had his
avarice not broken him. I had a sister, an academy student, gay and
proud, who read books and was friendly with all the students. Suddenly
my father said to her:
"Stop your studying, Elizabeth. I have found a husband for you."
'I don't want him,' she answered.
"But my father pulled her hair until my little sister gave in. The
bridegroom was the-son of a rich tea merchant--a cross-eyed, large
man, vulgar and continually boasting of his wealth. Liza, next to him,
looked like a mouse next to a dog. He disgusted her. But my father said:
"'You fool, he has shops in many cities on the Volga.'
"Well, they were married, and during the wedding supper she went to her
room and shot herself in the breast. I found her still living, and she
said to me:
"'Good-by, Grisha. I want to live very much, but it is impossible! It
is terrible! I can't! I can't!'" I remember that he talked very, very
fast, as if he were running away from the past, while I listened and
looked at the stove. Its brow was before me and it looked like some
ancient and blind face whose black mouth licked with flames ate up
the whistling and hissing wood. I saw Grisha's sister in the fire and
thought bitterly:
"Why do people violate and destroy one another?"
Grisha's thick words fell one upon the other like dry leaves in autumn:
"My father almost went out of his senses. He stamped his feet and
cried: 'She has insulted her parents! Her soul is lost.' Only after the
burial, when he saw that all of Kazan followed Liza's body and laid
wreaths upon her tomb, did he come to himself. 'If all the people are
for her,' he said, 'it means that I behaved like a scoundrel toward my
child!'"
Grisha wept and dried his glasses, and his hands trembled.
"Even before this misfortune befell us I wanted to enter a monastery,
and I had said to my father:
"'Let me.'
"But he swore at me and beat me. Nevertheless, I said firmly:
"'I will not do business. Let me go.'
"He was frightened by Liza's death, and gave me freedom, and now, in
these four years, I have lived in three monasteries, and everywhere
there is barter, and I have no place for my soul. They sell God's earth
and God's word, His honey and His miracles. I cannot stand it any
longer!"
His story awoke my soul again, for I did little thinking while I lived
in the monastery. I was so worn out by my labors, that _my_ rebellious
thought slumbered. Suddenly his words woke me. I asked Grisha:
"Where, then, is our God? There is nothing around us but the arbitrary
and mad foolishness of man; nothing but the petty deceptions from which
misfortunes arise. Where, then, is God?"
But here Misha appeared and drove us out. From that day Grisha came
to me often, and I told him my thoughts, which horrified him, and he
counseled humility:
"But why do people suffer so?" I asked.
"For their sins," he answered.
To him everything came from the hands of God--famine, fire, violent
death and floods--everything.
"Can it be that God is the sower of misfortune on earth?" I asked.
"Remember Job, insane one," he whispered to me.
"Job has nothing to do with me," I answered. "I in his place would
have said to God, 'Do not frighten me, but answer me clearly: Where is
the way that leads to Thee? Am I not Thy son, made in Thy image? Don't
lower Thyself to repulse Thy child.'"
Often Grisha wept at the foolishness of my audacity, and embracing me,
he said:
"My dear brother, I am frightened for you--terribly frightened. Your
words and your reasonings are from the devil."
"I do not believe in the devil, for God is all-powerful."
Then he became even more excited. He was a pure and tender man, and I
loved him.