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 flirtation3 with her.
‘And then where?’
‘Then on to L——, past the Monastery4.’
‘Where that Father Sergius lives?’
‘Yes.’
‘Kasatsky, the handsome hermit2?’
‘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 omnipotence5 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 DISCRETION6!’
‘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 tinkled7 and the sledge8-runners squeaked9 over the snow.
The sledge swayed hardly at all. The shaft-horse, with his tightly bound tail under his decorated breechband, galloped10 smoothly11 and briskly; the smooth road seemed to run rapidly backwards12, while the driver dashingly shook the reins13. 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 monk14? 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 dissuade15 her, but she grew irritable16 and ordered them to go on.
When the sledges17 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 recluse18, and he was now forty-nine. His life in solitude19 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 lust21 of the flesh. And these two enemies always appeared together. It seemed to him that they were two foes22, but in reality they were one and the same. As soon as doubt was gone so was the lustful23 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 renounced24? 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 horrified25 and filled with disgust at himself. ‘Vile creature! And it is you who wish to become a saint!’ he upbraided26 himself, and he began to pray. But as soon as he started to pray he saw himself vividly27 as he had been at the Monastery, in a majestic28 post in biretta and mantle29, and he shook his head. ‘No, that is not right. It is deception30. 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 prostrating31 himself. ‘Can it be that this couch will be my bier?’ he read. And it seemed as if a devil whispered to him: ‘A solitary32 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 precepts33 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 equilibrium34, 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 joyful35. 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 slumber36 he seemed to hear the tinkling37 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 spat38 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 habitual39 manner which of itself gave him consolation40 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 psalm41 old Father Pimon had told him warded42 off temptation. He easily raised his light and emaciated43 body on his strong sinewy44 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 rustling45 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 scattered46...’
‘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 literally47!’ She laughed. ‘I am frozen and beg for shelter.’
He pressed his face to the window, but the little icon48-lamp was reflected by it and shone on the whole pane49. 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, kindly50 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 Saviour51 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
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