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.