Mardarie, the penance monk, lived in a pit in the stone wall behind
the altar. In ancient times this hole was a secret place where the
monastery treasure was hidden from robbers, and there had been a secret
passage to it direct from the altar. The stone vault from this pit had
been taken away, and now it was covered with thick, wooden planks,
and underneath it was built a kind of light cage with a little window
in the ceiling. There was a grating with a railing around it, through
which the pilgrims looked at the ascetic. In a corner was a trap-door,
from which spiral steps led down to Mardarie. It made one dizzy to go
down them. The pit was deep, twelve steps down, and only one ray of
light fell in, and this one did not reach the bottom but melted and
faded away in the damp darkness of this underground dwelling. One had
to look long and steadily through the grating to see somewhere in the
depths of the darkness something still darker which looked like a large
rock or a mound. That was the ascetic, sitting motionless.
To go down to him the warm, odiferous dampness caught one, and for the
first few seconds nothing could be seen. Then from the gloom would
rise an altar and a black coffin, in which sat, bent over, a little,
gray-haired old man in a dark shroud, decorated with white crosses,
hilts, a reed and a lance, which lay helter-skelter and broken on his
dried-up body. In the corner a round stove hid itself, and from it a
pipe crawled out like a thick worm, while on the brick walls grew green
scales of mildew. A ray of light pierced the darkness like a white
sword, then rusted and broke apart.
On a pile of shavings the ascetic swayed back and forth as a shadow,
his hands resting on his knees and fingering a rosary. His head was
sunk on his breast and his back was curved like a yoke.
I remember that I went up to him, fell on my knees and remained silent.
He, too, was silent for a long time, and everything about us seemed
glutted with dead silence. I could not see his face, but only the dark
end of his sharp nose. He whispered to me so that I could hardly hear:
"Well?"
I could not answer. Pity for this man who lay alive in his coffin
oppressed and overcame me. He waited a little while, and then again
asked me:
"What is it? Speak."
He turned his face toward me. It was all dark, no eyes were to be seen;
only white eyebrows and a mustache and beard, which were like mildew
on the agonized and motionless countenance which was effaced by the
darkness. I heard the rustling of his voice:
"You argue up there. Why do you argue? You should serve God humbly.
What is there to argue about with God? You should simply love God."
"I love Him," I answered.
"Well, perhaps. He punishes you, but you must make believe that you see
nothing and say, 'Praise be unto thee, O Lord.' Say that always, and
nothing more."
It was evident that it was difficult for him to speak, either from
weakness or because he was unused to it. His words were hardly alive
and his voice was like the trembling of the wings of a dying bird.
I could not ask the old man anything, for I was sorry to disturb the
peace of his death-waiting, and I feared to startle something; so I
stood there motionless. From above the sound of bells leaked down,
rocking the hair on my head, and I desired ardently to lift up my head
toward the sky and gaze at it, but the darkness pressed down heavily on
my neck and I did not move.
"Pray," he said to me, "and I will pray for you."
He became silent again. All was quiet, and a terrible fear made my
flesh creep and filled my breast with icy coldness. A little later he
whispered to me:
"Are you still here?"
"Yes."
"I can't see. Well, go, and God be with you. Don't argue."
I went out quietly. When I reached the earth above and breathed the
pure air, I was drunk with joy and my head swam. I was all wet as if
I had been in a cave; and he, Mardarie, had been sitting there now the
fourth year!
I was to have five interviews with him, but I kept silent through them
all; I could not speak. When I went down to him he listened, and then
asked me in his unnatural voice:
"Some one came--the same one as yesterday?"
"Yes. It is I."
Then he began to mumble, with interruptions:
"Don't offend God--what do you need? You need nothing. Perhaps a little
piece of bread. But to offend God is a sin. That comes from the devil.
The devils, they lend a hand to every one. I know them. They are
offended and they are malicious. They are offended--that is why they
are malicious. So don't get offended, or you will resemble the devil.
People offend you, but you should say to them: 'Christ save you,' and
then go. Everything is vanity. The main thing is yourself. Let them not
take your soul away. Hide it, so that they cannot take it away."
He sowed his quiet words, and they spread themselves over me like ashes
from a far-off fire. They were not necessary to me, and they did not
touch my soul. It seemed to me I saw a black dream, which I could not
understand and which wearied me very much.
"You are silent," he said thoughtfully. "That is good. Let them do what
they want, but you keep quiet. Others come to me and they talk--they
talk very much. But I cannot understand what they want. They even talk
about women. What is that to me? They talk about everything. But what
they say about everything, I cannot understand. But you are right to
keep silent. I also would not speak, but the Abbot up there said:
'Console him; he needs to be consoled.' Well, all right. But I myself
would much rather not talk.
"Oh, God, forgive them all! Everything was taken from me--only prayers
remained to me. Whoever tortures you, take no notice of him. It is the
devils who torture you. They tortured me, too. My own brother, he beat
me, and my wife gave me rat's poison. Evidently I was only a rat to
her. They stole all I had from me, then said that I set fire to the
village. They wanted to throw me into the fire. And I sat in prison.
Everything happened to me. I was judged--sat some more. God be with
them. I pardoned every one--I was not guilty, yet I pardoned. That was
for my own sake.
"A whole mountain of injury lay on me. I could not breathe. Then I
pardoned them and it went away. The mountain was no more. The devils
were offended and they went away. So you, too, pardon every one. I need
nothing. It will be the same with you."
At the fourth interview he asked me:
"Bring me a crumb of bread. I will suck it. I am weak. Pardon me, in
Christ's name."
My heart ached with pity for him. I listened to his ravings and I
thought:
"Why is that necessary, O Lord, why?"
But he still rustled his dry tongue:
"My bones ache. Night and day they draw. If I sucked a crumb it would
be better perhaps; but this way my bones itch. It disturbs me--it
disturbs my prayers. It is necessary to pray every second, even in
one's dreams. If not, the devil immediately reminds one. He reminds one
of one's name and where one lived, and everything. There he sits on the
stove. It doesn't matter to him if it is hot--sometimes red hot. He
is used to it. He sits himself there, a little, gray thing, opposite
me, and just sits. I cross myself and do not look at him, and he gets
tired. Then he crawls on the wall like a spider, or sometimes he floats
in the air like a gray rag. He can do anything, my devil. He gets bored
with an old man, but he has got to watch me, he has orders to.
"Of course, it is not pleasant for him to watch an old man. I am not
offended with him. The devil doesn't do it of his own free will, and I
am used to him. 'Well,' I say to him, 41 am tired of you,' and I don't
look at him. He is not bad or evil, only he continually reminds me of
my name."
Then the old man lifted his head and said loudly:
"They called me Michail Petrov Viakhiref."
And then he sank down in his coffin again and whispered:
"Thus the devil tempts me. Oh, you devil! Are you still here, brother?
Go, and God be with you."
I could have cried with anger that day. What was the use of this old
man? What beauty was there in his deed? I could not understand it. All
day and many days afterward I thought of him, and I felt that a devil
mocked me and made grimaces at me.
The last time that I went to him I filled my pockets with soft bread,
and I brought that bread to him, with pain and anger against all
mankind. When I gave it to him he whispered:
"Oh, it is still warm. Oh!"
He moved in his coffin. The shavings creaked underneath him while he
hid his bread, whispering:
"Oh, oh."
The darkness and the mildewed wall--everything around us moved,
reechoing the low groans of the ascetic--"Oh."
Four times a week they brought him food. Of course, he was starved.
This last time he said nothing to me, only sucked the bread. He
evidently had not a tooth left in his head.
I stood there for some time. Then I said:
"Well, pardon me, in Christ's name, Father Mardarie. I am going now,
and I won't return again. Let me thank you."
"Yes, yes," he answered eagerly. "It is I who thank you; it is I who
thank you. But don't tell the monks about the bread. They will take it
away. They are jealous, the monks are. No doubt the devils know them,
too. The devils know everything and everybody--say nothing about it."
Soon after this he became ill and died. They buried him with solemnity.
The Bishop came from the city with all his clergy, and they held a
Cathedral Mass. Afterward I heard that under the tombstone of the old
man a little blue fire burns of itself at night.
How pitiful it all was and how disgraceful to man!