THE RUSSIAN MONK
Sergius took a glass of red wine from the old attendant, and said:
"I should like your permission, O Princess, to make a confession."
His manner was that of one unused to the society of women. He was
conscious she was studying him, and spoke to divert her. As she was
slow answering, he added: "That you may not think me disposed to abuse
the acquaintance you honor me with, especially as you have not yet read
the letter of the good Father Hilarion upon which I rely for your
better regard, I ask the permission rather to show the degree of your
kindness to me. It may interest you also to learn of the confirmation
of a certain faith you are perhaps unwittingly lending a novice in the
ways of the world."
She had been studying him, and her first impression was now confirmed.
His head in shape and pose was a poet's; the long, wavy, flaxen hair,
parted in the middle, left small space for the forehead, which was
nevertheless broad and white, with high-arched, well-defined brows for
base. The eyes were gray. In repose they had a dreamy introspectional
expression. The mustache and beard, the first growth of youth spent
entirely indoors, were as yet too light to shade any part of the face.
The nose was not enough _retrousse_ to be irregular. In brief, the monk
was of the type now well known as Russian. Aside from height and
apparent muscularity, he very nearly realized the Byzantine ideal of
Christ as seen in the cartoons excellently preserved in a mosque of
Stamboul not far from the gate anciently San Romain now _Top Kapoussi_.
The appearance of the young monk, so strikingly suggestive of the being
most sacred in the estimation of the Princess, was at the moment less
curious to her than a certain habit observable in him. The look of
brightness attendant upon the thought he was putting into form would,
when the utterance was through, suffer a lapse which, for want of
strictly definite words, may be described as a sombering of the eyes
when they were widest open, a gazing beyond at something else than the
opposite speaker; implying that the soul was become mysteriously
occupied apart from the mind. The effect was as if she had before her
two widely different characters making themselves present at the same
time in one person. Unquestionably, though rarely, there is a duality
of nature in men, by which, to put it extremely, a seeming incapable
may be vastly capable, outward gentleness a mask for a spirit of
Neronian violence, dulness a low-lying cloud surcharged with genius.
What shall be done with such a nature? When may it be relied upon? Who
shall ever come to really know it?
Occupied with the idea, the Princess heard but the conclusion of the
monk's somewhat awkward apology, and she answered:
"The confession must be of something lighter than a sin. I will listen."
"A sin!" he exclaimed, with a blush. "Pardon me, O Princess. It was a
trifle of which I spoke too seriously. I promise thou shalt take from
it nothing worse than a laugh at my simplicity. See thou these things?"
He gave her a glance full of boyish humor, and from a breast pocket of
his cassock drew a bag of coarse yellow silk; thrusting a hand into its
mouth, he then brought out a number of square leathern chips stamped
with sunken letters, and laid them on the table before her.
"This you must know is our money." The Princess examined the pieces,
and said:
"I doubt if our tradesmen would accept them."
"They will not. I am a witness to the fact. Nevertheless they will
carry a traveller, go he either way, from one end of our Great Prince's
realm to the other. When I left the Lavra, setting out on my journey,
Father Hilarion gave me the bag, saying, as he put it into my hand,
'Now upon coming to the port where the ship awaits thee, be sure to
exchange the money with the merchants there for Byzantine gold; else,
unless God come to thy aid, thou wilt be turned into a mendicant.' And
so I fully meant to do; but when I reached the port, I found it a city
large, and full of people and sights wonderful to me, demanding to be
seen. I forgot the injunction. Indeed I never thought of it until this
morning."
Here he laughed at himself, proving he was not yet seriously alive to
the consequences of his negligence. Presently he resumed:
"I landed only last night, and sick from the tossing of the sea, put up
at an inn in the town yonder. I ordered breakfast, and, according to a
custom of my people, offered to pay before tasting. The master of the
house looked at my money, and told me to show him coin of gold; if not
that, then copper or brass, or even iron, in pieces bearing the name of
the Emperor. Being told I had only this, he bade me look elsewhere for
breakfast. Now I had designed going to the great city to kiss the hand
of the Patriarch, of whom I have always heard as the wisest of men,
before coming to thee; but the strait I was in was hard. Could I expect
better of the innkeepers there? I had a button of gold--a memorial of
my entry into the Lavra. That day Father Hilarion blessed it three
times; and it bore a cross upon its face which I thought might make it
acceptable as if it were lettered with the name of Constantine. A
boatman consented to take it for rowing me to thy landing. Behold! Thou
hast my confession!"
His speech to this time had been in Greek singularly pure and fluent;
now he hesitated, while his eyes, open to the full, sombered, as if
from a field in the brain back of them a shadow was being cast through
his face. When next he spoke it was in his native tongue.
The Princess observed her guest with increasing interest; for she was
wholly unused to such artlessness in men. How could Father Hilarion
have intrusted business of importance to an envoy so negligent? His
confession, as he termed it, was an admission, neither more nor less,
that he had no money of the country into which he was come. And
further, how could the habit of lapsing in thought, or more simply, of
passing abruptly from the present subject, be explained except on the
theory of something to which he had so given himself it had become
overmastering and all absorbent? This, she saw intuitively, would prove
the key to the man; and she set about finding it out.
"Your Greek, good Sergius, is excellent; yet I did not understand the
words with which you concluded."
"I beg pardon," he replied, with a change of countenance. "In my
mother's tongue I repeated a saying of the Psalmist, which you shall
have voice and look as Father Hilarion has given it to me oftener than
I am days old." Then his voice lowered into a sweet intensity fitting
the text: "'The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.' Those were the
words, Princess; and who shall say they do not comprehend all there is
of religion?"
The answer was unexpected, the manner affecting; never had she heard
conviction and faith more perfectly affirmed. More than a monk, the
young man might be a preacher! And Father Hilarion might have grown
wiser of his years! Perhaps he knew, though at a vast distance, that
the need of the hour in Constantinople was not a new notable--a bishop
or a legate--so much as a voice with power of persuasion to still the
contentions with which her seven hills were then resounding. The idea,
though a surmise, was strong enough to excite a desire to read the holy
man's letter. She even reproached herself for not having done so.
"The worthy priest gave me the same saying in the same words," she
said, rising, "and they lose nothing of their meaning by thy
repetition. We may speak of them hereafter. For the present, to keep
thee from breakfast were cruel. I will go and make terms with my
conscience by reading what thou hast brought me from the Father. Help
thyself freely as if thou wert the most favored of guests; or rather
"--she paused to emphasize the meaning--"as though I had been bidden to
prepare for thy coining. Should there be failure in anything before
thee, scruple not to ask for more. Lysander will be at thy service. I
may return presently."
The monk arose respectfully, and stood until she disappeared behind the
vases and flowers, leaving in his memory a fadeless recollection of
graciousness and beauty, which did not prevent him from immediately
addressing himself as became a hungry traveller.