it?'
'Yes--now or never!' thought she. 'He is bound to know of it

anyway. But now he will not forsake me. Ah, if he should, it
would be terrible!' And she threw a loving glance at his tall,

noble, powerful figure. She loved him now more than she had
loved the Tsar, and apart from the Imperial dignity would not

have preferred the Emperor to him.
'Listen! I cannot deceive you. I have to tell you. You ask

what it is? It is that I have loved before.'
She again laid her hand on his with an imploring gesture. He was

silent.
'You want to know who it was? It was--the Emperor.'

'We all love him. I can imagine you, a schoolgirl at the
Institute . . .'

'No, it was later. I was infatuated, but it passed . . . I must
tell you . . .'

'Well, what of it?'
'No, it was not simply--' She covered her face with her hands.

'What? You gave yourself to him?'
She was silent.

'His mistress?'
She did not answer.

He sprang up and stood before her with trembling jaws, pale as
death. He now remembered how the Emperor, meeting him on the

Nevsky, had amiably congratulated him.
'O God, what have I done! Stiva!'

'Don't touch me! Don't touch me! Oh, how it pains!'
He turned away and went to the house. There he met her mother.

'What is the matter, Prince? I . . .' She became silent on
seeing his face. The blood had suddenly rushed to his head.

'You knew it, and used me to shield them! If you weren't a woman
. . . !' he cried, lifting his enormous fist, and turning aside

he ran away.
Had his fiancee's lover been a private person he would have

killed him, but it was his beloved Tsar.
Next day he applied both for furlough and his discharge, and

professing to be ill, so as to see no one, he went away to the
country.

He spent the summer at his village arranging his affairs. When
summer was over he did not return to Petersburg, but entered a

monastery and there became a monk.
His mother wrote to try to dissuade him from this decisive step,

but he replied that he felt God's call which transcended all
other considerations. Only his sister, who was as proud and

ambitious as he, understood him.
She understood that he had become a monk in order to be above

those who considered themselves his superiors. And she understood
him correctly. By becoming a monk he showed contempt for all

that seemed most important to others and had seemed so to him
while he was in the service, and he now ascended a height from

which he could look down on those he had formerly envied. . . .
But it was not this alone, as his sister Varvara supposed, that

influenced him. There was also in him something else--a sincere
religious feeling which Varvara did not know, which intertwined

itself with the feeling of pride and the desire for pre-eminence,
and guided him. His disillusionment with Mary, whom he had

thought of angelicpurity, and his sense of injury, were so
strong that they brought him to despair, and the despair led

him--to what? To God, to his childhood's faith which had never
been destroyed in him.

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 learnedwriter 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" target="_blank" title="n.达到；得到；造诣">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