CHAPTER XIV

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 owm 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 gave _my_ business, 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.