章节正文
self-oblivion in consciousness of the fulfilment of duty--a
feeling he always experienced when hearing or reciting in advance
the prayers he had so often heard.
So he stood, crossing and prostrating himself when necessary, and
struggled with himself, now giving way to cold condemnation and
now to a consciously evoked obliteration of thought and feeling.
Then the sacristan, Father Nicodemus--also a great
stumbling-block to Sergius who involuntarily reproached him for
flattering and fawning on the Abbot--approached him and, bowing
low, requested his presence behind the holy gates. Father
Sergius straightened his mantle, put on his biretta, and went
circumspectly through the crowd.
'Lise, regarde a droite, c'est lui!' he heard a woman's voice
say.
'Ou, ou? Il n'est pas tellement beau.'
He knew that they were speaking of him. He heard them and, as
always at moments of temptation, he repeated the words, 'Lead us
not into temptation,' and bowing his head and lowering his eyes
went past the ambo and in by the north door, avoiding the canons
in their cassocks who were just then passing the altar-screen. On
entering the sanctuary he bowed, crossing himself as usual and
bending double before the icons. Then, raising his head but
without turning, he glanced out of the corner of his eye at the
Abbot, whom he saw standing beside another glittering figure.
The Abbot was standing by the wall in his vestments. Having freed
his short plump hands from beneath his chasuble he had folded
them over his fat body and protruding stomach, and fingering the
cords of his vestments was smilingly saying something to a
military man in the uniform of a general of the Imperial suite,
with its insignia and shoulder-knots which Father Sergius's
experienced eye at once recognized. This general had been the
commander of the regiment in which Sergius had served. He now
evidently occupied an important position, and Father Sergius at
once noticed that the Abbot was aware of this and that his red
face and bald head beamed with satisfaction and pleasure. This
vexed and disgusted Father Sergius, the more so when he heard
that the Abbot had only sent for him to satisfy the general's
curiosity to see a man who had formerly served with him, as he
expressed it.
'Very pleased to see you in your angelic guise,' said the
general, holding out his hand. 'I hope you have not forgotten an
old comrade.'
The whole thing--the Abbot's red, smiling face amid its fringe of
grey, the general's words, his well-cared-for face with its
self-satisfied smile and the smell of wine from his breath and of
cigars from his whiskers--revolted Father Sergius. He bowed
again to the Abbot and said:
'Your reverence deigned to send for me?'--and stopped, the whole
expression of his face and eyes asking why.
'Yes, to meet the General,' replied the Abbot.
'Your reverence, I left the world to save myself from
temptation,' said Father Sergius, turning pale and with quivering
lips. 'Why do you expose me to it during prayers and in God's
house?'
'You may go! Go!' said the Abbot, flaring up and frowning.
Next day Father Sergius asked pardon of the Abbot and of the
brethren for his pride, but at the same time, after a night spent
in prayer, he decided that he must leave this monastery, and he
wrote to the starets begging permission to return to him. He
wrote that he felt his weakness and incapacity to struggle
against temptation without his help and penitently confessed his
sin of pride. By return of post came a letter from the starets,
who wrote that Sergius's pride was the cause of all that had
happened. The old man pointed out that his fits of anger were
due to the fact that in refusing all clerical honours he
humiliated himself not for the sake of God but for the sake of
his pride. 'There now, am I not a splendid man not to want
anything?' That was why he could not tolerate the Abbot's
action. 'I have renounced everything for the glory of God, and
here I am exhibited like a wild beast!' 'Had you renounced
vanity for God's sake you would have borne it. Worldly pride is
not yet dead in you. I have thought about you, Sergius my son,
and prayed also, and this is what God has suggested to me. At
the Tambov hermitage the anchorite Hilary, a man of saintly life,
has died. He had lived there eighteen years. The Tambov Abbot
is asking whether there is not a brother who would take his
place. And here comes your letter. Go to Father Paissy of the
Tambov Monastery. I will write to him about you, and you must
ask for Hilary's cell. Not that you can replace Hilary, but you
need solitude to quell your pride. May God bless you!'
Sergius obeyed the starets, showed his letter to the Abbot, and
having obtained his permission, gave up his cell, handed all his
possessions over to the monastery, and set out for the Tambov
hermitage.
There the Abbot, an excellent manager of merchant origin,
received Sergius simply and quietly and placed him in Hilary's
cell, at first assigning to him a lay brother but afterwards
leaving him alone, at Sergius's own request. The cell was a dual
cave, dug into the hillside, and in it Hilary had been buried.
In the back part was Hilary's grave, while in the front was a
niche for sleeping, with a straw mattress, a small table, and a
shelf with icons and books. Outside the outer door, which
fastened with a hook, was another shelf on which, once a day, a
monk placed food from the monastery.
And so Sergius became a hermit.
III
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 wealthylandowner, 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
feeling he always experienced when hearing or reciting in advance
the prayers he had so often heard.
So he stood, crossing and prostrating himself when necessary, and
struggled with himself, now giving way to cold condemnation and
now to a consciously evoked obliteration of thought and feeling.
Then the sacristan, Father Nicodemus--also a great
stumbling-block to Sergius who involuntarily reproached him for
flattering and fawning on the Abbot--approached him and, bowing
low, requested his presence behind the holy gates. Father
Sergius straightened his mantle, put on his biretta, and went
circumspectly through the crowd.
'Lise, regarde a droite, c'est lui!' he heard a woman's voice
say.
'Ou, ou? Il n'est pas tellement beau.'
He knew that they were speaking of him. He heard them and, as
always at moments of temptation, he repeated the words, 'Lead us
not into temptation,' and bowing his head and lowering his eyes
went past the ambo and in by the north door, avoiding the canons
in their cassocks who were just then passing the altar-screen. On
entering the sanctuary he bowed, crossing himself as usual and
bending double before the icons. Then, raising his head but
without turning, he glanced out of the corner of his eye at the
Abbot, whom he saw standing beside another glittering figure.
The Abbot was standing by the wall in his vestments. Having freed
his short plump hands from beneath his chasuble he had folded
them over his fat body and protruding stomach, and fingering the
cords of his vestments was smilingly saying something to a
military man in the uniform of a general of the Imperial suite,
with its insignia and shoulder-knots which Father Sergius's
experienced eye at once recognized. This general had been the
commander of the regiment in which Sergius had served. He now
evidently occupied an important position, and Father Sergius at
once noticed that the Abbot was aware of this and that his red
face and bald head beamed with satisfaction and pleasure. This
vexed and disgusted Father Sergius, the more so when he heard
that the Abbot had only sent for him to satisfy the general's
curiosity to see a man who had formerly served with him, as he
expressed it.
'Very pleased to see you in your angelic guise,' said the
general, holding out his hand. 'I hope you have not forgotten an
old comrade.'
The whole thing--the Abbot's red, smiling face amid its fringe of
grey, the general's words, his well-cared-for face with its
self-satisfied smile and the smell of wine from his breath and of
cigars from his whiskers--revolted Father Sergius. He bowed
again to the Abbot and said:
'Your reverence deigned to send for me?'--and stopped, the whole
expression of his face and eyes asking why.
'Yes, to meet the General,' replied the Abbot.
'Your reverence, I left the world to save myself from
temptation,' said Father Sergius, turning pale and with quivering
lips. 'Why do you expose me to it during prayers and in God's
house?'
'You may go! Go!' said the Abbot, flaring up and frowning.
Next day Father Sergius asked pardon of the Abbot and of the
brethren for his pride, but at the same time, after a night spent
in prayer, he decided that he must leave this monastery, and he
wrote to the starets begging permission to return to him. He
wrote that he felt his weakness and incapacity to struggle
against temptation without his help and penitently confessed his
sin of pride. By return of post came a letter from the starets,
who wrote that Sergius's pride was the cause of all that had
happened. The old man pointed out that his fits of anger were
due to the fact that in refusing all clerical honours he
humiliated himself not for the sake of God but for the sake of
his pride. 'There now, am I not a splendid man not to want
anything?' That was why he could not tolerate the Abbot's
action. 'I have renounced everything for the glory of God, and
here I am exhibited like a wild beast!' 'Had you renounced
vanity for God's sake you would have borne it. Worldly pride is
not yet dead in you. I have thought about you, Sergius my son,
and prayed also, and this is what God has suggested to me. At
the Tambov hermitage the anchorite Hilary, a man of saintly life,
has died. He had lived there eighteen years. The Tambov Abbot
is asking whether there is not a brother who would take his
place. And here comes your letter. Go to Father Paissy of the
Tambov Monastery. I will write to him about you, and you must
ask for Hilary's cell. Not that you can replace Hilary, but you
need solitude to quell your pride. May God bless you!'
Sergius obeyed the starets, showed his letter to the Abbot, and
having obtained his permission, gave up his cell, handed all his
possessions over to the monastery, and set out for the Tambov
hermitage.
There the Abbot, an excellent manager of merchant origin,
received Sergius simply and quietly and placed him in Hilary's
cell, at first assigning to him a lay brother but afterwards
leaving him alone, at Sergius's own request. The cell was a dual
cave, dug into the hillside, and in it Hilary had been buried.
In the back part was Hilary's grave, while in the front was a
niche for sleeping, with a straw mattress, a small table, and a
shelf with icons and books. Outside the outer door, which
fastened with a hook, was another shelf on which, once a day, a
monk placed food from the monastery.
And so Sergius became a hermit.
III
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 wealthylandowner, 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
- standing [´stændiŋ]
n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词) - stomach [´stʌmək] n.胃；胃口，食欲 (初中英语单词)
- imperial [im´piəriəl] a.帝国的；庄严的 (初中英语单词)
- regiment [´redʒimənt] n.团；一大群 (初中英语单词)
- satisfaction [,sætis´fækʃən] n.满意；满足 (初中英语单词)
- formerly [´fɔ:məli] ad.从前，以前 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- expose [ik´spəuz] vt.揭露，暴露；陈列 (初中英语单词)
- pardon [´pɑ:dən] n.&vt.原谅；饶恕；赦免 (初中英语单词)
- permission [pə´miʃən] n.允许；同意；许可 (初中英语单词)
- weakness [´wi:knis] n.虚弱；弱点，缺点 (初中英语单词)
- pointed [´pɔintid] a.尖(锐)的；中肯的 (初中英语单词)
- replace [ri´pleis] vt.放回；复置；取代 (初中英语单词)
- manager [´mænidʒə] n.经理；管理人；干事 (初中英语单词)
- hillside [´hilsaid] n.山腰 (初中英语单词)
- sleeping [´sli:piŋ] n.&a.睡着(的) (初中英语单词)
- wealthy [´welθi] a.富有的；丰富的 (初中英语单词)
- lawyer [´lɔ:jə] n.律师；法学家 (初中英语单词)
- account [ə´kaunt] vi.说明 vt.认为 n.帐目 (初中英语单词)
- conflict [´kɔnflikt, kən´flikt] n.&vi.战斗；抵触 (初中英语单词)
- reality [ri´æliti] n.现实(性)；真实；逼真 (初中英语单词)
- absent [´æbsənt, əb´sent] a.不在的 vt.使缺席 (初中英语单词)
- abandon [ə´bændən] vt.抛弃，放弃，离弃 (初中英语单词)
- deceive [di´si:v] vt.欺骗，欺诈 (初中英语单词)
- consciousness [´kɔnʃəsnis] n.意识；觉悟；知觉 (高中英语单词)
- hearing [´hiəriŋ] n.听力；听证会；审讯 (高中英语单词)
- mantle [´mæntl] n.斗蓬 v.覆盖；笼罩 (高中英语单词)
- temptation [temp´teiʃən] n.引诱，诱惑(物) (高中英语单词)
- repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- fringe [´frindʒ] n.穗；边缘；刘海 (高中英语单词)
- reverence [´revərəns] n.尊敬；敬畏；尊严 (高中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- monastery [´mɔnəstri] n.修道院；庙宇 (高中英语单词)
- hermitage [´hə:mitidʒ] n.隐居生活(的地方) (高中英语单词)
- solitude [´sɔlitju:d] n.孤独；寂寞；荒凉 (高中英语单词)
- mattress [´mætris] n.床垫 (高中英语单词)
- sledge [sledʒ] n.雪橇；大锤 (高中英语单词)
- nonsense [´nɔnsəns] n.胡说 int.胡说!废话 (高中英语单词)
- motionless [´məuʃənləs] a.静止的；固定的 (高中英语单词)
- tightly [´taitli] ad.紧，紧密地 (高中英语单词)
- confident [´kɔnfidənt] a.有信心的，自信的 (高中英语单词)
- clumsy [´klʌmzi] a.笨拙的；粗俗的 (高中英语单词)
- squeeze [skwi:z] v.&n.压榨，榨取 (高中英语单词)
- hardship [´hɑ:dʃip] n.受苦，吃苦；苦难 (高中英语单词)
- majestic [mə´dʒestik] a.雄伟的；崇高的 (高中英语单词)
- experienced [ik´spiəriənst] a.有经验的；熟练的 (英语四级单词)
- sanctuary [´sæŋktʃuəri] n.圣殿；寺院；避难所 (英语四级单词)
- tolerate [´tɔləreit] vt.忍受；宽容 (英语四级单词)
- worldly [´wə:ldli] a.现世的；世俗的 (英语四级单词)
- briskly [´briskli] ad.轻快地；活泼地 (英语四级单词)
- upside [´ʌpsaid] n.上边，上段，上部 (英语四级单词)
- fulfilment [ful´filmənt] n.完成，成就 (英语六级单词)
- condemnation [,kɔndem´neiʃən] n.谴责；定罪；征用 (英语六级单词)
- involuntarily [in´vɔləntərili] ad.不 自觉地 (英语六级单词)
- speaking [´spi:kiŋ] n.说话 a.发言的 (英语六级单词)
- angelic [æn´dʒelik] a.天使(般)的 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- clerical [´klerikəl] a.牧师的；教士的 (英语六级单词)
- landowner [´lændəunə] n.土地的主人 (英语六级单词)
- eccentric [ik´sentrik] a.古怪的；离心的 (英语六级单词)
- dashing [´dæʃiŋ] a.勇猛的；生气勃勃的 (英语六级单词)
- irritable [´iritəbəl] a.急躁的；过敏的 (英语六级单词)
- vividly [´vividli] ad.活泼地；生动地 (英语六级单词)
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