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.