But I talked all the time and gazed on the white fingers of Anthony's hands, which were folded on his breast. When I had finished he poured out a little glass of dark sweet wine for me.
"Drink," he said. "I noticed you when you prayed aloud in the church. The monastery doesn't help much, does it?"
"No; but in you I place great hope. Help me. You are a learned man; you must know everything."
"I only know one thing: You go up the mountain, reach the top, and fall—you fall to the very depth of the precipice. But I myself do not follow this law because I am too lazy. Man is a worthless thing, Matvei; but why he is worthless, is not clear. Life is exquisite and the world enchanting. So many pleasures are given to man, and man is worthless. Why? This is a puzzle I cannot solve, and I do not even wish to think about it."
Vespers rang. He started and said:
"Go, and God be with you. I am tired, and I must attend service."
Had I been wiser I would have left him that very day, for then I would have preserved a pleasant memory of him. But I did not understand the meaning of his words.
I went to my room, lay down, and noticed the little book which lay at my side. I struck a light and began to read it out of gratitude for my superior. I read how the cavalier I mentioned above deceived husbands, climbing to their wives at night through the windows, and how the husbands spied on him; how they wished to pierce him with their swords and how he escaped.
And all this was very stupid and unintelligible to me; that is, I understood well enough that a young fellow might enjoy it, but I could not understand why it was written about, and I could not fathom why I had read such nonsense.
And again I began to think: "How did I suddenly come upon the thought that Anthony was my father?" This thought ate my soul as rust eats iron. Then I fell asleep.
In my dream I felt that some one touched me. I jumped up. He stood near me.
"I rang and rang for you," he said.
"Forgive me," I said, "in Christ's name. I have worked very hard."
"I know," he answered. But he did not say, "God forgive you."
"I am going to the Father Abbot. Make everything ready, as it should be. Ah, you have read the book! It is too bad you have begun it. It is not quite for you. You were right; you need another kind."
I prepared his bed. The linen was thin, the cover soft; everything was rich and new to me; and a delicate, pleasant odor emanated from all.
And so I began to live in this intoxicating world, as in a dream. I saw no one but Anthony. But even he seemed as if he were in a shadow and moved in shadows. He spoke in a friendly tone, but his eyes mocked. He seldom used the word God; instead of God he said soul; instead of devil, nature.
But for me the meaning of his words did not change. He made fun of the monks and of the church orders. He drank very much wine, but he never staggered in walking, only his forehead became a bluish-white and his eyes glowed with a dark fire, and his red lips grew darker and drier.
It happened often that he came back from the Abbot at midnight or even later, and he woke me and ordered that I bring him wine. He sat and drank, spoke to himself in his low voice long and uninterruptedly, sitting there sometimes till matins were called.
It was difficult for me to understand his words, and I have forgotten many of them, but I remember how at first they frightened me, as if they had suddenly opened some terrible abyss in which the whole face of the earth was swallowed up. Often a feeling of emptiness and misery came over me because of his words, and I was ready to ask him:
"And you, are you not the devil?"
He was gloomy, spoke in a tone of command, and when he was drunk his eyes became even more mysterious, sinking far into his head. On his face a smile twitched continually, and his fingers, which were thin and long, opened and closed and pulled at his blue-black beard. A coldness emanated from him. He was terrifying.
As I have said, I did not believe in the devil, and I knew that it was written that the devil was strong in his pride; that he fought continually; that his passion and his skill lay in tempting people.
But Father Anthony in no way tempted me. He clothed life in gray, showed it to me as something insane, and people for him were only a herd of crazy swine who were dashing to the abyss with varying rapidity.
"But you have said that life is beautiful," I said.
"Yes, if it recognizes me it is beautiful," he answered.
Only his laugh remained with me. He seemed to me to gaze upon everything from his corner as if he had been driven away from everywhere and was not even hurt at being driven away.
His thoughts were sharp and penetrating, subtle like a snake, but powerless to conquer me, for I did not believe them, although often I was ravished by their cleverness and by the great leaps of the human mind.
At times, though this happened seldom, he became angry with me.
"I am a nobleman!" he shouted. "A descendant of a great race of people! My fathers founded Russia! They are historical figures, and this lout—this dirty lout dares to interrupt me! The beautiful dies, only the worms remain, and only one man of a distinguished family among them."
His expressions did not interest me. I, too, perhaps, came from a distinguished family. But surely strength did not lie in ancestry, but in truth, and though the evening will surely not come again, the morrow comes.
He sat in his armchair and talked, his face bloodless.
"Again the monks have won from me, Matvei. What is a monk? A man who wishes to hide from his fellow men his own vileness and who is afraid of its power over him. Or, perhaps, a man who is overcome by his weakness, and flees from the world in fear, that the world may not devour him. Such monks are the better and more interesting; but the others are only homeless men, dust of the earth, or still-born children."
"What are you among them?" I asked.
I might have asked this ten times or more straight to his face, but he answered me always in this way:
"Man is a child of accident on this earth, everywhere and forever."
His God, too, was a mystery to me. I tried to ask him about God when he was sober, but he only laughed and answered with some well-known quotation.
But God was higher to me than anything that was ever written about Him.
I asked him when he was drunk how he saw God then. But even drunk, Anthony was firm.
"Ah, you are cunning, Matvei," he answered. "Cunning and obstinate. I am sorry for you."
I, too, was sorry for him, for I saw his solitude and I valued the abundance of his thoughts, and I was sorry that they were being sown at random in his cell. But though I was sorry for him, still I persisted firmly in my questions, and once he said, unwillingly:
"I no more see God than you, Matvei."
"Though I do not see God," I answered, "still I feel Him and do not question His existence, but only try to understand His laws, upon which our earth is based."
"As for the laws," he said, "look in the book on Canonical Rights, and if you feel God then—I shall congratulate you."
He poured out some wine, clinked glasses with me and drank. I noticed that, though his face was as grave as that of a corpse, the beautiful eyes of the gentleman mocked at me. The fact that he was a gentleman began to lessen my feelings for him, for he unfolded his birth to me so often that he made me boil with anger.
When he was somewhat drunk, he liked to speak about women.
"Nature," he would say, "has kept us in an evil and heavy bondage through woman, its sweetest allurement; and had we not this carnal temptation, which saps out the best from the soul of man, he could have attained immortality."
Since Brother Misha had spoken about the same theme, though more heatedly, I was disgusted by this time with such thoughts. Misha had renounced woman with hatred and defamed her furiously; but Father Anthony adjudged her without any feelings and tiresomely.
"Do you remember," he said, "I once gave you a book? If you read it you must have seen how woman in her whole make-up is cunning and full of lies, and debauched to the very bottom."
It was strange, and it hurt me to hear man, born of woman and nourished with her life, besmirch and trample upon his own mother, denying her everything but the flesh; degrading her to a senseless animal. At times I expressed my thoughts to him, though vaguely; not so distinctly. He became outraged and shouted.
"Idiot! Was I talking about my own mother?"
"Every woman is a mother," I answered.
"There are some," he shouted, "who are only loose women all their lives."
"Well," I answered, "there are some who are hunchbacked; but that is not the law for all."
"Get out of here, fool!"
Evidently the officer was not dead in him.
Several times when I asked about God, we wrangled with each other. He angered me with his sly wit, and one evening I went at him with all my might. My character grew bad, for I passed through great suffering at this time. I circled around Anthony like a hungry man around a locked pantry; he smells the bread through the door, and it only tends to madden him. And the night to which I refer, his evasions enraged me. I caught up the knife from the table and cried:
"Tell me everything you believe or I will cut my throat, come what may!"
He became frightened, grabbed my hand, wrenched the knife from me and grew very much excited—not at all like himself.
"You should be punished for this," he said, "but no punishment ever helps fanaticism."
And then he added, and his words were like nails beaten into my head:
"This is what I will tell you: only man exists. Everything else is an opinion. Your God is a dream of your soul. You can only know yourself, and even that not certainly."
His words shook me like a storm and ravaged me. He spoke for a long time, and though I did not understand everything, I felt that in this man was no sorrow or joy or fear, or sensitiveness, or pride. He was like an old church-yard priest, reading the mass for the dead, near a tomb. He knew the words well, but they did not touch his soul. His words were frightful to me at first, but later I understood that the doubt in them was without force, for they were dead.
It was May, the window was open, and the night in the garden was filled with a warm perfume of flowers. The apple trees were like young girls going to communion—a delicate blue in the silver moonlight.
The watchman beat the hours, and in the stillness the bronze resounded lugubriously.
Before me sat a man with a face of stone, calmly emitting bloodless words—words which vanished and were gray like ashes. They were offensive and painful to me, for I saw brass where I had expected gold.
"Go now," said Anthony to me.
I went into the garden, and when early mass was rung I entered the church, went into a dark corner and stood there, thinking, what need of God had a man who was half dead?
The brothers assembled. One would say it was the moonlight which broke the shadows of night into a thousand fragments and which noiselessly crawled into the temple to hide.
From this time something incomprehensible happened. Anthony began speaking to me in the tone of a gentleman, dry and crossly, and he never called me to him in a friendly way. All the books which he had given me to read he took away. One of them was a Russian history which had many surprises for me, but I got no chance to finish it. I tried to fathom in what way I had offended this gentleman of mine, but I could not.
The beginning of his speech was engraven in my memory and lived uppermost in my mind, though not troubling my other thoughts: "God is the dream of your soul," I repeated to myself. But I did not feel the necessity of debating this; it was an easy thought.
Soon a woman came to him. It was late at night. Anthony rang for me and cried:
"Quick—the samovar!"
When I brought it in I saw a woman sitting on the divan, in a wide pink dress, blonde disheveled curls hanging over her shoulders, and a little pink face, like a doll's, with light-blue eyes. She seemed to me modest and sad.
I placed the dishes on the table, and Anthony hurried me all the while.
"Do it quicker—hurry."
"He is aflame," I said to myself.
I liked his love affairs, for it was pleasant to see how skilful Anthony was even in love—a thing which is not very difficult.
As for myself, love left me cold at this time, and the looseness of the monks kept me away from it. But what kind of a monk was Father Anthony?
The woman was pretty in her way, a delicate little thing, like a new toy.
In the morning I went into the room to set it to rights. But he was not there, having gone to the Abbot. She sat on the divan, her feet under her, uncombed and half dressed. She asked me what I was called. I told her. Then she asked me if I had been in the monastery a long time, and I answered that question also.
"Don't you get bored here?"
"No," I answered.
"That's strange—if it's true."
"Why should it not be true?" I asked.
"You are so young and good-looking."
"Is the monastery only for cripples?"
She laughed and put out a bare foot from the divan. She looked at me and let herself be seen immodestly; exposed, her arms bare to the shoulder and her gown unfastened at the breast.
"You do that in vain," I thought. "You should keep your charms for your lover."
And the little fool asked me:
"Don't women bother you?"
"I don't see them," I answered. "How can they bother me?"
"What do you mean by 'how'?" And she laughed.
Anthony appeared in the door and asked angrily:
"What is this, Zoia?"
"Oh," she cried, "he is so funny—that one!" And she began to chatter and tell how "funny" I was.
But Anthony did not listen to her, and commanded me sternly:
"Go and unpack the trunks and the bags. Then take part of the provisions to the Abbot."
Even before dinner both of them had taken enough wine, and in the evening, after tea, the woman was entirely drunk, and Anthony, too, seemed more drunk than usual. They drove me from one corner to the other—to bring this, to carry that; to heat the wine, then to cool it.
I ran about like a waiter in a drinking place, and they became more and more free before me. The young lady was hot and took off some of her clothes, and the gentleman suddenly asked me:
"Matvei, isn't she pretty?"
"Pretty enough," I answered.
"But look at her well."
She laughed, drunk.
I wanted to go out, but Anthony called out, wildly:
"Where are you going? Stay here! Zoiaka, show yourself naked!"
I thought I had not heard rightly, but she pulled off a gown she had on and stood upon her feet, swaying. I looked at Anthony and he looked back at me. My heart beat loudly, for I pitied this man. Vulgarities did not quite fit him, and I was ashamed for the woman. Then he shouted:
"Get out of here, you lout!"
"You are a lout yourself!" I retorted.
He jumped up, overthrowing the bottles on the table. The dishes fell to the ground with a crash; something began to flow hastily, like a lonely stream. I went out into the garden and lay down. My heart ached like a bone that is frozen. In the stillness I heard Anthony cry out:
"Out with you!"
And a woman's voice whined:
"Don't you dare, you fool!"
Soon the harnessing of horses was heard in the courtyard, and their dissatisfied neighing and stampings on the dry earth. Doors were slammed, the wheels of a carriage rattled, and then the large gates creaked.
Anthony walked through the garden, calling low:
"Matvei, where are you?"
His tall figure moved among the apple trees and he caught at the branches and let fall the perfumed snow of flowers, muttering:
"Oh, the fool!"
And behind him, dragging along the ground, was his thick, heavy shadow.
I lay in the garden until morning, and then went to Father Isador.
"Give me back my passport. I am going away."
He was so startled that he jumped up.
"Why? Where?"
"Somewhere—in the world. I don't know where," I answered.
He began to question me.
"I will not explain anything," I said.
I went out from his cell and sat down near it on the bench underneath the old pine tree. I sat there on purpose, for it was the bench on which those who were driven away, or went of their own free will, sat, as if to announce the fact of their departure.
The brothers passed me, and looked at me sideways; some even spat at me. I forgot to say that there had been a rumor that Anthony had taken me as his lover. The Neophytes envied me and the monks envied that gentleman of mine. And they slandered both of us.
The brothers passed, saying to each other:
"Ah, they have driven him away; thanked be the Lord!"
Father Assaf, a sly and malicious old man, who acted as the Abbot's spy, and was known in the monastery as a half-witted hypocrite, attacked me with vile words, so that I said to him:
"Go away, old man. If not I will take you by the ear and put you away."
Although he was half-witted, as I said, he understood my words.
The head of the monastery called me to him and spoke in a friendly tone:
"I told you, Matvei, my son, that it would have been better to have entered the office, and I was right. Old men always know more. Do you think with your obstinate nature that you could act as a servant? Here you have shamefully insulted the revered Father Anthony."
"He told you that?"
"Who, then? You have not said anything."
"Did he tell you that he showed me a naked woman?"
The Father Abbot made a cross over me from holy fright and said, shaking his hands:
"What is the matter with you? What is the matter with you? God be with you! What kind of a woman? That is some dream of yours, coming from the flesh; a creation of the devil. Oh, oh, oh! You should think of your words. How can a woman be in a monastery of men?"
I wanted to calm him.
"Who, then, brought you the port wine, and the cheese, and the caviar last night?"
"What are you saying? Christ save you. How can you think up such things?"
It was disgusting and enough to drive one insane.
At noon I crossed the lake, sat down on the bank and gazed at the monastery where I had slaved for over two years.
The wood spread out before me with its green wings and disclosed the monastery on its breast. The scalloped white walls, the blue head of the old church, the golden cupola of the new cathedral and the striped red roofs stood out clearly from the splendid green. The crosses glowed, shining and inviting, and above them the blue bell of heaven sounded the joyful peace of spring, while the sun rejoiced in its victory.
In this beauty which inflated the soul with its keen splendor, black men in long garments hid themselves and rotted away, living empty days without love, without joy in senseless labor and in mire.
I pitied them and myself, too, so that I almost wept. I arose and went on.
Perfume was over all, the earth and all that lived sang, the sun drew forth the flowers in the field and they lifted themselves up toward the sky and made their obeisance to the sun. The young trees whispered and swayed, the birds twittered and love burned everywhere on the fruitful earth which was drunk with its own strength.
I met a peasant and greeted him, but he hardly nodded. I met a woman and she evaded me. And all the time I had a great desire to speak with people, and I would have spoken to them with a friendly heart.
I spent the first night of my freedom in the woods. I lay long, gazed up at the sky and sang low to myself and fell asleep. In the early morning I awoke from cold, and walked on, racing to meet my new life as if on wings. Each step took me farther away, and I was ready to outrun the distance.
The people whom I met looked suspiciously at me and stepped aside. The black dress of the monk was disgusting and inimical to the peasants, but I could not take it off. My passport had expired, but the Abbot made a note under it which said that I was a novice of the monastery of Savateffsky and that I was on my way to visit holy places.
So I directed my steps to these places together with those wanderers who fill our monastery by hundreds on holidays. The brothers were indifferent or hostile to them, calling them parasites and robbing them of every penny they had. They forced them to do the monastery work and imposed on them and treated them with contempt. I was always busied with my own affairs and seldom met the newcomers. I did not seek to meet them, for I considered myself something quite extraordinary and placed my own inner self above everything else.
I saw gray figures with knapsacks on their backs and staffs in their hands creeping and swaying along the roads and paths, going not hurriedly but depressed, with heads bent low, walking humbly and thoughtfully, with credulous, opened hearts. They flowed together in one place, looked about them, prayed silently and worked a bit. If a wise and virtuous man happened to be there they talked with him low about something, and again spread out upon the paths going to other places with sad steps.
They walked, old and young, women and children, as if one voice called them, and I felt from this crossing and recrossing of the earth a strength arise from the paths which caught me also, and alarmed me and promised to open my soul. This restless and humble wandering seemed strange to me after my motionless life.
It was as if earth herself tore man from her breast and pushed him forth, ordering him imperiously, "Go, find out, learn." And man goes obediently and carefully, seeks and looks and listens attentively, then goes on farther again. The earth resounds under the feet of the searchers and drives them farther over streams and mountains and through forests and over seas, still farther wherever the monasteries stand solitary, offering some miracle, and wherever a hope breathes of something other than this bitter, difficult and narrow life.
The quiet agitation of the lonely souls surprised me and made me human, and I began to wonder,
"What are these people seeking?" Everything about me swayed, frightened and wandering like myself.
Many like myself sought God, but did not know where to go and strewed their souls on the paths of their seeking, and were going on only because they did not have strength enough to stop, acting like the seed of the dandelion in the wind, light and purposeless.
Others unable to shake off their laziness carried it on their shoulders, lowering themselves and living by lies, while still others were enthralled by the desire to see everything, but had no strength in them to love.
I saw many empty men and degraded rascals, shameless parasites, greedy like roaches. I saw many such, but they were only the dust behind the great crowd filled with the desire of finding God.
Irresistibly this crowd dragged me along with it.
And around it like gulls over the sea various winged people circled noisily and greedily, who astonished me with their monstrous deformities.
Once in Bielo-ozer I saw a middle-aged man with a haughty mien. He was cleanly dressed and evidently a man of means.
He had seated himself in the shade of a tree, and had pieces of cloth, a box of salve and a copper basin near him, and kept crying out:
"Orthodox, those with sore feet from overstraining, come here; I will heal them. I heal free because of a vow I have taken upon myself in the name of the Lord."
It was a church holiday in Bielo-ozer and the pilgrims had flocked there in great numbers. They came up to him, sat down, unwound the wrappings on their feet, while he washed them, spread salve on the wounds and lectured them.
"Eh, brother, you are not over-wise. Your sandal is too large for your foot. How can you walk like this?" The man with the large sandal answered in a low voice, "It was given to me in charity."
"He who gave it to you has pleased God, but that you should walk in it is your own foolishness, and there is nothing great about your deed. God will not count it to your credit."
Well, I thought, here is a man who knows God's meanings.
A woman came up to him, limping.
"Oh, young one," he called out, "you have no corn, but the French sickness, permit me to tell you. This, Orthodox, is a contagious disease. Whole families die from it, and it is hard to get rid of." The woman became confused, rose and went away with her eyes lowered, and he continued calling:
"Come here, Orthodox, in the name of St. Cyril."
People went up to him, unwound their feet and groaned, and said "Christ save you!" while he washed them.
I noticed that his refined face twitched as in a cramp and his skilful hands trembled. Soon he closed up his pious shop and ran off somewhere quickly.
At night a little old monk led me to a shed, and there I saw the same man. I lay down next to him and began to speak low:
"How is it, sir, that you spend the night together with these common people? To judge by your clothes, your place is in the inn."
"I have taken an oath to be among the lowest of the low for three months. I want to fulfil my pious work to the very end, and let myself be eaten up by lice with the rest of them. I really cannot bear to see wounds—they make me sick; still, no matter how disgusting it is to me, I wash the feet of the pilgrims every day. It is a difficult service to the Lord, but my hope in His mercy is great."
I lost my desire to speak to him, and, making believe I had fallen asleep, I lay thinking, "his sacrifice to God is not over great."
The straw underneath my neighbor rustled. He arose carefully, knelt down and prayed, at first silently, but later I heard his whispered words:
"Oh, thou, St. Cyril, intercede before God for me, a sinner, and make Him heal me of my wounds and sores as I have healed the wounds of men. All-seeing God, value my labors and help me. My life is in Thy hands. I know that my passions were violent, but Thou hast already punished me enough. Do not abandon me like a dog, and let not Thy people drive me away, I beg of Thee, and let my prayers arise toward Thee like the smoke of incense." Here was a man who had mistaken God for a doctor. It was unbearable to me, and I closed my ears with my hands.
When he had finished praying he took out something to eat from his bag and chewed for a long time, like a boar.
I have met many such people. At night they creep before their God, while in the day they walk pitilessly over the breasts of men. They lower God to do the duty of hiding their vile actions, and they bribe him and bargain with him.
"Do not forget, O Lord, how much I have given Thee."
Blind slaves of greed, they place it high above themselves and bow down to this hideous idol of the dark and cowardly souls and pray to it.
"O Lord, do not judge me in Thy severity nor punish me in Thy wrath."
They walk upon earth like spies of God and judges of men, and watch sharply for any violation of the church laws. They bustle and flock together, accusing and complaining. "Faith is being extinguished in the hearts of people; woe unto us!"
One man especially amused me with his zeal. We walked together from Perejaslavlja to Rostoff, and the whole way he kept crying out to me, "Where are the holy laws of Feodor Studite?"
He was well fed, healthy, with a black beard and rosy cheeks; had money, and at night mixed with the women in the inns.
"When I saw how the laws were violated and the people depraved," he said to me, "all the peace of my soul went from me. I gavemybusiness, which was a brick factory, to my sons to manage, and here I am, wandering about for four years, watching everything, and horror fills my soul. Rats have crawled into the Holy Sacristy, and have gnawed with their sharp teeth the holy laws, and the people are angry with the church, and have fallen away from her breast into vile heresies and sects. And what does the church militant do against this? It increases its wealth and lets its enemies grow. The church should live in poverty, like poor Lazarus, so that the people might see what true holiness poverty is, as Christ preached it. The people on seeing this would stop complaining and desiring the wealth of others. What other task has the church but to hold back the people with strong reins?"
Those sticklers for the law cannot hide their thoughts when they see its weakness, and they shamelessly disclose their secret selves.
On the Holy Hill a certain merchant, who was a noted traveler and who described his pilgrimages in holy places in clerical papers, was preaching to the crowd humility, patience and kindness.
He spoke warmly, even to tears. He entreated and he threatened, and the crowd listened, silent and with bowed heads.
I interrupted his speech and asked him "if open lawlessness should be suffered also."
"Suffer it, my friend," he cried; "undoubtedly suffer it. Christ himself suffered for us and for our salvation."
"How then," I answered, "about the martyrs and the fathers of the church? For instance, take St. John Chrysostom, who was bold and accused even kings."
He became enraged, flared up at me and stamped his feet. "What are you chattering there, you blunderer? Whom did they accuse? Heathens!"
"Was Eudoxia a heathen, or Ivan the Terrible?"
"That is not the point," he cried, waving his arms like a volunteer at a Are. "Do not speak about kings, but about the people—the people, that's the important thing. They are all sophisticated, and have no fear. They are serpents which the church ought to crush; that is her duty."
Although he spoke simply, I did not understand at this time what all this anxiety about the people was, and though his words caused me fear, I still did not understand them, for I was spiritually blind and did not see the people.
After my discussion with this writer several men came up and spoke to me, as if they did not expect anything good from me.
"There is another fellow here; don't you want to meet him?"
Toward vespers a meeting was arranged for me with this young man in the wood near the lake. He was dark, as if blasted by lightning. His hair was cut short, and his look was dry and sharp; his face was all bone, from which two brown eyes burned brightly. The young man coughed continually and trembled. He looked at me hostilely and, breathing with difficulty, said: "They told me about you—that you scoff at patience and kindness. Why? Explain."
I do not remember what I said to him, but as I argued I only noticed his tortured face and his dying voice when he cried to me: "We are not for this life, but for the next. Heaven is our country. Do you hear it?"
A lame soldier, who had lost his leg in the Tekinsky War, stood opposite him and said gloomily: "My opinion, Orthodox, is this: Wherever there is less fear there is more truth," and turning to the young man he said: "If you are afraid of death that is your affair, but do not frighten the others. We have been frightened enough without you. Now you, red-head, speak."
The young man vanished soon after, but the people remained—a crowd of about half a hundred—to listen to me. I do not know with what I attracted their attention, but I was pleased that they heard me, and I spoke for a long time in the twilight, among the tall pines and the serious people.
I remember that all their faces fused into one long, sorrowful face, thoughtful and strong-willed, dumb in words but bold in secret thoughts, and in its hundred eyes I saw an unquenchable fire which was related to my soul.
Later this single face disappeared from my memory, and only long after I understood that it was this centralization of the will of the people into one thought which arouses the anxiety of the guardians of the law and makes them fear. Even if this thought is not yet born or developed, still the spirit is enriched by the doubt in the indestructibility of hostile laws—whence the worry of the guardians of the law. They see this firm-willed, questioning look; they see the people wander upon the earth, quiet and silent, and they feel the unseeing rays of their thoughts, and they understand that the secret fire of their dumb councils can turn their laws into ashes, and that other laws are possible.
They have a fine ear for this, like thieves who hear the careful movements of the awakened owner whose house they have come to rob in the night, and they know that when the people shall open its eyes life will change and its face turn toward heaven.
The people have no God so long as they live divided and hostile to one another. And of what good is a living God to a satisfied man? He seeks only a justification for his full stomach amid the general starvation around him.
His lone life is pitiful and grotesque, surrounded on all sides by horror.
One time I noticed that a little, old, gray man, clean like a scraped bone, watched me eagerly. His eyes were set deep in his head, as if they had been frightened back. He was shriveled up, but strong like a buck and quick on his feet. He used to sidle up toward people and was always in the center of a crowd. He marched and scrutinized each face as if looking for an acquaintance. He seemed to want something from me but did not dare ask for it, and I pitied his timidity.
I was going to Lubin, to the sitting Aphanasia, and he followed me silently, leaning on his white staff. I asked him, "Have you been wandering long, Uncle?"
He grew happy, shook his head and tittered.
"Nine years already, my boy, nine years."
"You must be carrying a great sin," I said.
"Where is there measure or weight for sin? Only God knows my sins."
"Nevertheless, what have you done?" I laughed and he smiled.
"Nothing," he answered. "I have lived on the whole as every one else. I am a Siberian from beyond Tobolsk. I was a driver in my youth and later had an inn with a saloon and also kept a store."
"You've robbed some one." The old man started.
"Why, what is the matter with you? God save me from it."
"I was only joking," I said. "I saw a little man trotting along, and I thought to myself, how could such a little man commit a big sin." The old man stopped and shook his head.
"All souls have the same size," he answered, "and they are all equally acceptable to the devil. But tell me, what do you think about death? You have spoken in the shelters about life, always about life. But where is death?"
"Here somewhere," I answered.
He threatened me with his finger jokingly and said: "It is here. That's it, it is always here."
"Well, what if it is?" I asked.
"It is here," and rising on his tiptoes he whispered into my ear, "Death is all powerful. Even Christ could not escape it. 'Let this cup pass from me,' He said, but the Heavenly Father did not let it pass. He could not. There is a saying, 'Death appears and the sun disappears,' you see."
The little, old man began to talk like a stream rushing down a mountain. "Death circles around us all and man walks along as if he were crossing a precipice on a tightrope; one push with Death's wing and man is no more. O Lord, by Thy force Thou hast strengthened the world, but how has He strengthened it if death is placed above everything? You can be bold in thought, steeped in learning, but you will only live as long as death permits you." He smiled, but his eyes were full of tears.
What could I say to him? I had never thought of death and now I had no time.
He skipped along beside me, looking into my face with his faded eyes, his beard trembling and his left hand hid in the bosom of his cloak. He kept looking about him as if he expected death to jump out from some bush and catch him by the hand and throw him into hell.
I looked at him astonished.
Around us all life surged. The earth was covered with the emerald foam of the grass, unseen larks sang, and everything grew toward the sun in many colored brilliant shouts of gladness.
"How did you get such thoughts?" I asked my traveling companion. "Have you been very sick?"
"No," he said. "Up to my forty-seventh year I lived peacefully and contentedly, and then my wife died and my daughter-in-law hanged herself. Both were lost in the same year."
"Maybe you yourself drove her to the noose."
"No, it was from her own depravity that she killed herself. I did not bother her, though even if I had lived with her, it would have been forgiven in a widower. I am no priest, and she was no stranger to me. Even when my wife was alive I lived like a widower. She was sick for four years and did not once come down from the stove. When she died I crossed myself. 'Thank God,' I said, 'I am free.' I wanted to marry again when suddenly the thought occurred to me I live well, I am contented, but yet I have to die. Why should it be so? I was overcome. I gave everything I had to my son and began my wandering. I thought that on the road I would not notice that I was going to the grave, for everything about me was gay and shining and seemed to lead away from the graveyard. However, it is all the same."
"Your heart is heavy, Uncle?" I asked him.
"Oh, my son, it is so terrible I cannot describe it. In the daytime I try to be among people that I may hide behind them. Death is blind, perhaps it might not see me or make a mistake and take some one else, but at night, when each one remains unprotected, it is terrible to lie awake without sleep. It seems to me then that a black hand sweeps over me, feeling my breast and searching, 'Are you here? 'It plays with my heart like a cat with a mouse and my heart becomes frightened and beats. I get up and look about me. There are people lying down, but who knows whether they will arise? It happens that death takes away in crowds. In our village it took a whole family, a husband, a wife and two daughters who died of coal smoke in the bath house."
His mouth twitched in a vain effort to smile, but tears flowed from his eyes.
"If one would only die within a little hour, or in sleep, but first there comes sickness to eat one away little by little."
He frowned and his face contracted and looked like mildew. He walked quickly, almost skipping, but the light went out of his eyes, and he kept muttering in a low voice, neither to me nor to himself: "Oh, Lord, let me be a mosquito, only to live on the earth! Do not kill me, Lord; let me be a bug or even a little spider!"
"How pitiable!" I thought.
At the station, among people, he seemed to revive again, and he talked about his mistress, Death, but with courage. He preached to the people. "You will die," he said; "You will be destroyed on an unknown day and in an unknown hour. Perhaps three versts from here the lightning will strike you down."
He made some sad and others angry, and they quarreled with him. One young woman called out: "You have nothing the matter with you, and yet death bothers you."
She said it with such anger that I noticed her, and even the old man stopped his eulogy on death.
All the way to Lubin he comforted me, until he bored me to death. I have seen many such people who run away from death and foolishly play hide-and-seek with it. Even among the young there are some struck by fear, and they are worse than the old. They are all Godless; their souls are black within, like the pipe of a stove, and fear whistles through them even in the fairest weather. Their thoughts are like old pilgrims who patter on the earth, walking without knowing whither and blindly trampling under foot the living things in their path. They have the name of God on their lips, but they love no one and have no desire for anything. They are occupied with only one thing: To pass on their fears to others, so that people will take them up, the beggars, and comfort them.
They do not go to people to get honey, but that they may pour into another soul the deadly poison of their putrid selves. They love themselves and are without shame in their poverty, and resemble crippled beggars who sit on the road on the way to church and disclose their wounds and their sores and their deformities to people, that they may awaken pity and receive a copper.
They wander, sowing everywhere the gloomy seeds of unrest, and groan aloud, with the desire to hear their groans reecho. But around them surges a mighty wave—the wave of humble seekers for God and human suffering surrounds them many colored. For instance, like that of the young woman, the little Russian, who had talked up to the old man. She walked silent, her lips compressed, her face sunburnt and angry, and her eyes burning with a keen fire.. If spoken to she answered sharply, as if she wanted to stick you with a knife.
"Rather than getting angry," I said to her, "you had better tell me your trouble. You might feel better afterward."
"What do you want of me?"
"I don't want anything; don't be afraid."
"I am not afraid; but you are disgusting to me." "Why am I disgusting?"
"Stop insisting or I will call the people." And so she struck out at every one—old and young, and women, too.
"I do not need you," I answered. "I need your pain, for I want to know why people suffer."
She looked at me sideways and answered, "Go to others. They are all in need, the devil take them." "Why curse them?"
"Because I want to."
She seemed to me like one possessed.
"For whom are you making this pilgrimage?" I asked.
A smile spread over her face. She slackened her pace and she talked, though not to me:
"Last spring my husband went down the Dneiper to float lumber, and he never came back. Perhaps he was drowned, or perhaps he found another wife—who knows? My father-in-law and mother-in-law are very poor and very bad. I have two children-a boy and a girl—and how was I to feed them? I was ready to work—to break myself in two working—? but there was no work. And what can a woman earn? My father-in-law scolded. 'You and your children are a millstone around our necks, with your eating and drinking.' My mother-in-law nagged, 'You are young yet; go to the monastery; the monks desire women, and you can earn much money.' I could not stand the hunger of the children, and so I went. Should I have drowned them? I went."
She talked as in her sleep, through her teeth and indistinctly, and her eyes cried out with the pain of motherhood.
"My son is already in his fourth year; his name is Ossip and my daughter's name is Ganka. I beat them when they asked for bread; I beat them. I have wandered a whole month and I have earned four rubles. The monks are miserly. I would have earned more at honest labor. Oh, those devils! What waters can wash me now?"
I felt I ought to say something to her, so I said: "On account of your children, God will forgive you."
Here she cried out at me. "What is that to me? I'm not guilty before God! If He doesn't forgive me, He doesn't have to, and if He forgives me, I myself cannot forget it. It cannot be worse in hell. There the children will not be with me."
I excited her in vain, I said to myself. But already she could not restrain herself.
"There is no God for the poor. When we were in Zeleniklin on the banks of the Amur, how we celebrated mass and prayed and wept for aid! But did He aid us? We suffered there for three years, and those who did not die from fever returned paupers. My father died there, my mother had her leg broken by a wheel and both my brothers were lost in Siberia."
Her face became like stone. Although her features were heavy, she had a serious beauty about her and her eyes were dark and her hair thick. All night up to early morning I spoke with her sitting on the edge of the wood behind the box of the railroad watchman. I saw that her heart was all burned out, that she was no longer capable of weeping, and only when she spoke of her childhood did she smile twice, involuntarily, and her eyes became softer.
I thought to myself as she spoke, "She's ready to kill. She will murder some one yet or she will become the loosest of the loose. There is no outlet for her."
"I do not see God, and I do not love people," she said. "What kind of people are they if they cannot aid one another. Such people! Before the strong they are lambs and before the weak—wolves, but even the wolves live in packs but people live each one for himself and an enemy to his neighbor. I have seen and see much, and may they all go to ruin! To bear children and not to be able to bring them up! Is that right? I beat mine when they asked for bread; I beat them!"
In the morning she arose to sell her body to the monks, and going away she said to me spitefully, "What is the matter with you? We slept near each other and you are stronger than I am, and yet you did not take advantage of the bargain."
I felt as if she had slapped my face.
"You do wrong in insulting me," I answered.
She lowered her eyes and then said, "I feel like insulting every one, even those who are not guilty. You are young and you are worn out and your temples are gray. I know that you, too, suffer, but as for me, it is all the same, I pity no one. Good-by."
And she went away.
In the six years of my wandering I have seen many people made bad by sorrow. An unquenchable hatred for every one burned within them, and they were blind to everything but evil. They saw evil and bathed in it as in a hot bath, and they drank gall like a drunkard wine, and laughed and triumphed.
"Ours is the right," they cried. "Evil and unhappiness are everywhere; there is no place to escape."
They fell into mad despair and, inflamed by it, led depraved lives and soiled the earth in every way, as if to revenge themselves on her that she gave them birth. They crawled without strength on the paths of the earth, and remained slaves of their own weakness to the very day of their death. They elevated sorrow to godhood and bowed before it, and desired to see nothing but their own sores and hear nothing but the outcries of their own despair.
They were to be pitied, for they were as though mad; but how repulsive to the soul they were, with their readiness to spit their gall into every face and pollute the sun itself with their spittle if they could.
There were others, who were crushed by sorrow and frightened by it, who remained silent and tried to hide their small and slave-like lives, but who did not succeed and only served as clay in the hands of the strong, to plaster up the chinks in the walls of their own fortress.
Many faces and expressions have become engraved on my mind. Bitter tears were shed before me, and more than once I was deafened by the terrible laughter of despair.
I have tasted of all the poisons and drunk of a hundred rivers, and many times I myself wept the bitter tears of impotence. Life seemed to me a terrible delirium. It was a whirlwind of frightened words and warm rain of tears; it was a ceaseless cry of despair, an agonized convulsion of the whole earth suffering with an upward struggle, unattainable to my mind and to my heart.
My soul groaned, "No; that is not the right."
The streams of sorrow flowed turbidly over the whole earth, and with unspeakable horror I saw that there was no room for God in this chaos which separated man from man. There was no room to manifest His strength, no spot to place His foot. Eaten up by the vipers of sorrow and fear, by malice and despair, by greed and shamelessness, all life was falling into ruin and man was being destroyed by discord and weakening isolation.
I questioned: "Art Thou not truly, O Lord, but a dream of the soul of man, a hope created by despair in an hour of dark impotence?"
I saw that each one had his own God, and that his God was neither more noble nor more beautiful than His worshipers. This revelation crushed me. It was not God that man sought, but the forgetfulness of sorrow. Misfortune torments man and drives him in all directions. He escapes from himself; he wishes to avoid action; he is afraid to work in harmony with life, and he seeks a quiet corner where he can hide himself.
I did not find in man the holy feeling of seeking God nor a striving to rejoice in the Lord. I saw nothing but fear of life, a desire to overcome sorrow. My conscience cried out: "No; that is not the right!"
It happened more than once that I met a man who seemed deep in serious thought and had a good, clean light in his eyes. If I met him once or twice, he was the same; but at the third or fourth meeting I would see that he was bad or drunk, and that he was no longer modest, but shameless, vulgar and blasphemed God, and I could not understand why the man was spoiled or what had broken him. All seemed blind to me, and to fall easily by the way-side.
I seldom heard an exalted word. Too frequently men spoke strange words out of habit, not understanding the benefit nor the harm which was locked up in their thoughts. They gathered together the speeches of the pious monks or the prophecies of the hermits and the anchorites, and divided them among each other, like children playing with broken pieces of china. In fact, I did not see the man, but fragments of broken lives, dirty human dust, which swept over the earth and was blown by various winds onto the steps of churches.
The people circled in vast numbers around the relics of the saints or the miracle-making ikons, or bathed in the holy streams, and sought only self-forgetfulness. The church processions were painful to me. Even as a child the miraculous ikons had lost their significance for me, and my life in the monastery had destroyed any vestige of respect that was left. At times I felt that man was a gigantic worm, crawling in the dust of the roads, and that men urged each other on by a force which I could not see, calling to each other, "Forward! Hurry!"
And above them, forcing their heads to the ground, floated the ikon like a yellow bird, and it seemed to me that its weight was far too heavy for them.
Those possessed fell in heaps in the dust and mud under the feet of the crowd, and they struggled like fish in the water, and their wild cries were heard. But the crowds passed over these palpitating bodies, stamped them and kicked them under foot, and cried out to the image of the Virgin, "Rejoice, Thou queen of heaven!"
Their faces were distorted and wild with straining, damp with sweat and black with dirt; and this whole procession of man, singing a joyless song with weary voices and marching with hollow steps, insulted the earth and darkened the heavens.
The beggars sat or reclined on the sides of the road, under the trees and stretched themselves out like two gay ribbons—the sick, the crippled, the wounded, the armless, the legless and the blind. Their worn bodies crept over the earth, their mutilated arms and legs trembled in the air and pushed themselves before people to excite their pity. The beggars moaned and wailed, their wounds burned in the sun, while they asked and begged a kopeck for themselves, in the name of God. Many of them were eyeless, while in others the eyes burned like coals and pain gnawed the flesh without respite, and they resembled some horrible growth.
I saw man persecuted. The force which drove him into the dust and the dirt seemed hostile to me. Whither did it drive them? No; that is not the right!
Once I was in the exquisite city of Kiev, and I was struck by the beauty and the grandeur of this ancient nest of the Russians. There I had an interview with a monk who was supposed to be very wise. I said to him:
"I cannot understand the laws upon which the life of a man is based."
"Who are you?" he asked me.
"A peasant."
"Can you read and write?"
"A little."
"Reading and writing is not for such as you," he said sternly.
I saw in truth that he was a seer.
"Are you a Stundist?" he asked me.
"No.
"A-ha! Then you are a Dukhobor?"
"Why?"
"I gather it from your words."
His face was pink like flesh and his eyes were small.
"If you seek God," he said to me, "then it is for but one reason—to abase Him." He threatened me with his finger. "I know your kind. You will not read the Credo a hundred times. Well, read it, and all your foolishness will vanish like smoke. I would send all you heretics to Abyssinia, to the Ethiopians in Africa. There you would perish alive from the heat."
"Were you ever in Abyssinia?" I asked him.
"Yes," he answered.
"And you didn't perish?"
The monk became enraged.
Another time, near the Dneiper, I met a man. He sat on the banks opposite Lafra and he threw stones into the water. He was about fifty, bald, bearded, his face covered with wrinkles, and his head large. At that time I could tell by the eyes if a man was in earnest or not, and I walked up to him and sat down at his side. It was toward evening. The turbid Dneiper rolled its waters hurriedly. Behind it rose the mountains, gray with temples, where the proud golden heads of the churches shimmered in the sun, the crosses glistened and the windows sparkled like precious gems. It appeared that the earth opened its lap and showed her treasure to the sun in proud bounty.
The man next to me said in a low voice, and sorrowfully:
"They should cover Lafra with glass and drive all the monks away from it and permit no one to enter, for there is no man worthy to walk amid such beauty."
It was like a fairy tale told by some wise, great man, which came true there upon the banks of the river, where the waves of the Dneiper, rushing down from afar, splashed up against the Lafra with joy at the sight of it. But its surprised surging could not drown the quiet voice of man. With what force it commenced, with what strength it was built up! Like a faint dream, I remembered Prince Vladimir, and the Church fathers, Anthony and Theodosia, and all the Russian heroes; and I was filled with regret.
The innumerable chimes on the other side of the bank rang out loudly and joyfully, but the sad thoughts about life fell more distinctly on my ears. We do not remember our birth. I came to seek the true faith, and now I found myself wondering, "Where is man?"
I could not see man. I saw only Cossacks, peasants, officials, priests, merchants. I could find no one who was not tied up with some daily and ordinary affair. Each one served some one, each one was under some one's orders. Above the official was another official, and so they rose, till they vanished from the eyes in an unattainable height. And there God was hidden!
Night came on. The water in the river became bluer and the crosses on the churches lost their rays. The man still threw stones in the water, but I could no longer see the ripples which they made.
"Three years ago," he said, "we had a riot in Maikop on account of a pestilence among the cattle. The dragoons were called out to fight us, and peasants killed peasants. And all because of cattle. Many were killed. I thought to myself then: 'What is this faith of the Russians, if we are ready to kill each other on account of a few oxen, when God said to us, "Thou shalt not kill."'"
The Lafra disappeared in the darkness, and like a vision reentered the mountain. The Cossack searched for stones in the sand around him, found them and threw them into the river, and the water splashed loudly.
"Such is man," the Cossack said, lowering his head. "The laws of God are like spiritual milk, but they come down to us skimmed. It is written, 'With a pure heart you will see God.' But how can your heart be pure if you do not live according to your own will? Without one's freedom there is no true faith, but only a fictitious one."
He arose, shook himself and looked about him. He was a square-built fellow.
"We are not free enough before God; that is what I think."
He took his cap and went away, and I remained alone, as if glued to the earth. I wished to grasp the meaning of the Cossack's words, but I could not. Still, I felt that they were right.
The warm southern night caressed me, and I thought to myself:
"Is it possible that only in suffering is the human soul beautiful? Where is the pivot around which this human whirlwind moves? What is the meaning of this vanity?"
In winter I always went south, where it was warmer; but if the snow and the cold caught me in the north, then I always entered a monastery. At first the monks did not receive me in a friendly way, but when I showed them how I worked they accepted me readily. They liked to see a man work well and not take any money.
My feet rested, while my arms and my head worked. I remembered all that I saw during the summer, and I desired to draw out of it some clean food for my soul. I weighed, I extracted, I wanted to understand the reasons for things, and at times I became so confused that I could have wept.
I felt overfed with the groans and the sorrows of the earth, and the boldness of my soul vanished and I became morose, silent, and an anger arose in me against everything.
From time to time dark despair took hold of me, and for weeks I lived as if in a dream or blind. I desired nothing and saw nothing.
I began to wonder if I should not stop this wandering and live as every one else, and stop puzzling over my riddles, and subject myself humbly to conditions of things which were not of my making.
My days were as dark as the night, and I stood alone on the earth, like the moon in heaven, except that I gave no light. I could stand apart from myself and watch myself. I saw myself on the cross-ways, a healthy young fellow, who was a stranger to every one, and whom nothing pleased, and who believed in no one. Why did he live? Why was he apart from the world?
My soul became chilled.
I also went to nunneries for a week or two, and in one of them, on the Volga, I hurt my foot with an ax one day while chopping wood. Mother Theoktista, a good little old woman, nursed me.
The monastery was not large, but rich, and the sisters all had a prosperous and dignified appearance. They irritated me, with their sweetness and their honied smiles and their fat crops.
Once, as I stood at vespers, I heard one of the women in the choir sing divinely. She was a tall young girl, with a flushed face, black eyes, stern looking, her lips red, and her voice was sure and full. She sang as if she were questioning something, and angry tears mingled with her voice.
My foot became better and, as I was already able to work, I was preparing to leave the place. While I was shoveling the snow from the road one day I saw the girl coming. She walked quietly, but stiffly. In her right hand, which was pressed against her breast, she carried a rosary; her left hung by her side like a whip. Her lips were compressed, she frowned and her face was pale. I bowed to her, but she threw her head backward and looked at me as if I had done her harm at some time. Her manner enraged me. Moreover, I could not bear the sight of this young nun.
"Well, my girl," I said, "it is not easy to live." She started and stopped.
"What did you say?" she asked.
"It is hard to master one's self," I said.
"Oh, the devil!" she said suddenly in a low voice, but with great anger. And with that her black figure disappeared quickly, like a cloud on a windy day.
I cannot explain why I said that to her. At that time many such thoughts jumped into my head and flew out like sparks into any one's eyes. It seemed to me that all people were liars and hypocrites.
Three days later I saw her again on another road. She angered me still more. Why did she cover herself all in black? From what was she hiding? When she passed me I said to her:
"Do you wish to escape from here?"
The girl trembled, threw back her head and remained standing, straight as an arrow. I thought she would cry out, but she passed me, and then I heard her answer distinctly:
"I will tell you to-night."
I was terrified, but I thought perhaps I had not heard correctly. Still, though she had spoken low, her words came as clearly to me as from a bell. At first they amused me; then I became confused, and later I calmed myself, thinking that perhaps the bold hussy was joking with me.
When I had hurt my foot, they had brought me into the infirmary and I occupied a little room under the staircase, and that room I occupied all the time I stayed at the monastery. That night as I lay in my cot I thought it was time I stopped my wandering life, and that I ought to go to some city and there work in a bakery. I did not wish to think about the girl.
Suddenly some one knocked very low. I jumped up, opened the door, and an old woman bowed and said:
"Follow me, if you please."
I understood where, but I asked nothing and went, threatening her inwardly.
"Is that the way it is, my dear? You will see how I will surprise your soul."
We crossed corridors and came to the place. The old woman opened a door and pushed me forward, whispering, "I will come to take you back."
A match flared up for a moment and in the darkness a familiar face lit up, and I heard her voice say:
"Lock the door."
I locked it.
I felt along the wall till I reached the stove, leaned up against it and asked:
"Will there be no light?"
The girl gave a little laugh. "What kind of a light?" she asked.
"Oh, you wanton!" I thought to myself, but remained silent.
I could hardly make out the girl. She was in the dark, like a black cloud in a stormy sky.
"Why don't you speak?" she asked. Her voice was masterful.
She must be rich, I thought, and I collected myself and said:
"It is for you to speak."
"Were you serious when you asked me about my running away from here?"
I stopped to think how I could best insult her, but then, like a coward, I answered quietly:
"No. It was only to test your piety."
Again she lit a match. Her face stood out clearly and her black eyes gazed boldly. It was unpleasant for me.
I got used to the darkness and saw that she stood, tall and black, in the middle of the room, and her bearing was strangely straight.
"You need not test my piety," she whispered hotly. "I did not call you here for that, and if you do not understand, go away from here."
Her breast heaved and there was something serious in her voice—nothing loose.
In the wall opposite me was a window, and it looked like a path which had been cut out of the darkness into the night. The sight of it was disagreeable to me.
I felt uncomfortable, for I understood that I had made a mistake, and it became more and more painful to me, so that my limbs trembled.
She continued talking.
"I have nowhere to run away to. My uncle drove me here by force, but I can live here no longer. I shall hang myself."
Then she became silent, as if lost in an abyss.
I lost myself entirely, but she moved nearer to me and her breath came with difficulty.
"What do you wish?" I asked her.
She came up to me and put her hand on my shoulder. It trembled, and I, too, shook all over. My knees became weak and the darkness entered my throat and stifled me.
"Perhaps she is possessed," I thought to myself.
But she began to sob as she spoke, and her breath came hot on my face.
"I gave birth to a son, and they took him away from me and drove me here, where I cannot live. They tell me that my child is dead. My uncle and aunt say it, my guardians. Perhaps they have killed him. Perhaps they abandoned him. What can one know, my dear friend? I have still two years to be in their power before I reach my majority, but I cannot remain here."
The words came from her inmost heart, and I felt guilty before her. I was sorry for her, and also a little afraid. She seemed half insane. I did not know whether to believe her or not.
But she continued her whispering, which was broken by sobs:
"I want a child. As soon as I am with child, they will drive me away from here. I need a child, since the first one died. I want to give birth to another, and this time I will not let them take it away from me, nor let them rob my soul. I beg pity and help from you. You, who are good, aid me with your strength, help me get back that which was taken from me. Believe me, in Christ's name, I am a mother, not a loose woman. I do not want to sin, but I want a child. It is not pleasure I seek, but motherhood."
I was in a dream. I believed her. It was impossible not to believe when a woman stood on her rights and called a stranger to her, and said openly to him:
"They have forbidden me to create man. Help me."
I thought of my mother, whom I had never known. Perhaps it was in this same way that she threw her strength into the power of my father. I embraced her and said:
"Pardon me. I have judged you wrongly. Forgive me in the name of the Mother of God."
While lost in self-forgetfulness in accomplishing the holy sacrament of marriage, an impious doubt arose in my mind.