Father Sergius | Page 8

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