CHAPTER VIII

I felt as alone in the city as in the wide steppes.

There were thirty-three versts to the monastery, and I immediately started on my way to it and on the next day I said early mass there.

Around me were nuns, a whole black crowd, as if a mountain had fallen apart and its broken pieces were lying about in the church.

The monastery was rich. There were many sisters, all rather heavy, with fat, white, soft faces, as if made of dough. The priest said mass energetically, but a little too hurriedly. He had a good bass, was large and broad and seemed well fed.

The nuns in the choir were every one of them pretty, and sang wonderfully. The tapers wept their white tears and their flames trembled with pity for men.

"My soul struggles to reach Thy temple, Thy holy temple," their young voices sang out humbly.

Out of habit I repeated the words of the litany, but my eyes wandered and I tried to pick out the hermitess. There was no reverence in my heart, and it hurt me to admit it, for I had not come here to play. My soul was empty and I tried to collect myself. Everything in me was confused and my thoughts wandered, one after the other. I saw a few emaciated faces, half-dead old women, who stared at the holy images and whose lips moved but made no sound.

After mass I walked around the church. The day was bright and the white snow reflected the glistening rays of the sun, while on the branches the tit-mice piped and sent the hoar-frost from the twigs. I walked to the churchyard wall and looked out into the distance. The monastery stood on the mountain, and before it Mother Earth was spread out, richly dressed in its silvery blue snow. The little villages on the horizon looked sad, the wood was cut through by streams, and the pathways wound in and out like ribbons which some one had lost. Over all, the sun sent its slanting winter rays and stillness, peace and beauty were everywhere.

A little later I stood in the cell of Mother Fevronia. I saw a little old woman with browless eyes, who wept constantly. On her face, with its myriad wrinkles, a good-natured, unchanging smile trembled. She spoke low, almost in a whisper, and in a singsong tone.

"Do not eat apples before the day of the Lord. Wait till the Lord in His love has made them ripe; until the seeds are black."

"What does she mean by that?" I thought to myself.

"Respect your father and mother," she continued. "I have no father or mother," I said.

"Then pray for the peace of their souls."

"Maybe they are still alive."

She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at me with a pitying smile. Then again she began shaking her head and continued in her singsong:

"The Lord God is good; He is righteous toward all and covers all with His rich bounty."

"That is just what I doubt," I said.

I saw that she started, her arms sank, and she remained silent, while her eyes continued to sparkle. Then she controlled herself and sang on, quite low:

"Remember that prayers have wings which fly even faster than birds and reach the throne of the Lord. No one has yet entered heaven on his own horse."

This much I understood: that she represented God to herself as some noble lord, good natured and lovable, but still, according to her opinion, bound by no law. She expressed all her thoughts in allegories which, to my disappointment, I could not understand. I bowed and went my way.

"Here they have broken the Lord God into many pieces," I thought to myself, "each one to his own need. One makes Him good-natured, the other stern and dark. And the priests have hired Him as their clerk and pay Him with the smoke of incense for His support. Only Larion had an infinite God."

Several nuns passed me, drawing a sleigh full of snow, and tittered. My heart was heavy and I did not know what to do. I went out from the gate. All without was still. The snow sparkled and shone, the frost-covered trees stood motionless, and heaven and earth seemed sunk in thought and looked in a friendly manner at the quiet monastery. A fear arose in me lest I break this stillness with my cries.

The bells called to vespers--what sweet chimes! They were soft and coaxing, but I had no desire to enter the church. I felt as if my head were full of sharp little nails. Suddenly I made the resolution:

"I shall enter a monastery with severe regulations. There I shall live alone in a solitary cell; will reflect and read books, and perhaps I shall in this loneliness become the master of my scattered soul."

A week later I found myself before the Abbot of the small monastery of Sabateieff. I liked the Abbot. He was a good-looking man, gray headed and bald, with red, firm cheeks and a promising look in his eyes.

"Why do you flee the world, my son?" he asked me.

I explained to him that the death of Olga disturbed the peace of my soul, but further I did not dare say anything. Something seemed to hold me back from speaking.

He pulled at his beard, looked at me searchingly and said:

"Can you pay the initiation fee?"

"I have about a hundred rubles with me."

"Give them to me. Now go into the guest room. To-morrow, after the noonday service, I will speak to you."

The care of strangers fell to the lot of Father Nifont, and him, too, I liked.

"Everything is very simple in our monastery," he said. "It is democratic. We all work equally in serving God, not as in other places. True, we have a gentleman here, but he does not mix with any one or bother us in any way. You can find peace and rest for your soul here and attain blessedness."

By the following day I had examined the monastery well. In former times it must have stood in the center of the wood, but now everything around it was hewn down. Only here and there in front of the gates a few tree trunks stood out from the ground. Toward the side the wood reached up to the very walls of the monastery and embraced, as with two black wings, the blue-domed church and the monastery. Nearby lay Blue Lake under its ice cover, formed like a half moon. It was nine versts from end to end and four versts wide. Behind it one could see the land on the other side, and the three churches of Kudejaroff, and the golden cupola of St. Nicholas of Tolokontzeff. On our side of the lake, not far from the monastery, was the hamlet of Kudejaroff, with its three and twenty little huts, and around it lay the mighty forests.

All was beautiful, and a quiet peace filled my soul. Here I would hold communion with the Lord; would unfold before Him my innermost soul, and would ask Him with humble insistence to show me the way to the knowledge of His holy laws.

In the evening I attended vespers. The mass was said severely and according to rule, and with ardor. But the singing did not please me; good voices were lacking.

"O Lord, forgive me if my thoughts about Thee were too bold," I prayed. "I did not do it out of lack of faith, but because of love and passion for the truth, as you know, O Omniscient One!"

Suddenly the monk who stood near me turned and smiled at me. Evidently I had spoken my repentant words too loud. As he smiled I looked at him. Such a handsome face! I let my head sink and closed my eyes. Never, either before or since, have I seen so handsome a face. I stepped lightly forward, placed myself next to him and looked into his wonderful countenance. It was as white as milk and framed in a black beard sprinkled here and there with gray. His eyes were large, and they had a soft mellow light and a bright expression. His figure was well built and tall; his nose a little bent like an eagle's, and his whole bearing was distinguished and noble. He made so deep an impression on me that even at night he stood before me in my dreams.

Early in the morning Father Nifont woke me.

"The Abbot has assigned you some test work. Go to the bakery. This worthy brother here will take you there. He will be your superior in the future. Here, take your cloistral robes."

I put on a monk's garb. They fitted me well, but were worn and dirty and the sole from one boot was loose.

I looked at my superior. He was broad-shouldered and awkward, with his forehead and cheeks full of pimples and pockmarks, from which sprouted little bunches of gray hair; his whole face looked as if it were covered with sheep's wool; he would have been laughable were it not for the deep folds on his forehead, his compressed lip and his little, dark, blinking eyes.

"Hurry up!" he said to me.

His voice was harsh and cracked, like a broken bell.

"This is Brother Misha." Father Nifont introduced him, smiling. "Well, go, and God be with you."

We walked out into the court. It was dark. Misha stumbled over something and swore horribly. Then he asked me:

"Can you knead dough?"

"I have seen the women knead," I answered.

"Women!" he muttered. "You're always thinking about women! Always women! On account of them the world is accursed, don't you forget that!"

"The mother of God was a woman," I said.

"Well?"

"And also there are very many virtuous women."

"If you speak like that the devil will surely drag you to hell."

"Anyway, he is a serious man," I thought to myself.

We arrived at the bakery and he made the fire. There were two large kneading troughs covered with sacks, a large flour bin nearby, a big sack of rye and a bag of wheat. Everything was dirty and filthy, and cobwebs and gray dust lay over all. Misha tore the sack off from one of the troughs, threw it on the earth, and commanded:

"Well, come and learn! Here is the dough. Do you see those bubbles? That means it is ready--it has already risen."

He took a sack of flour as if it were a three-year-old youngster, bent it over the edge of the trough, cut it open with his knife and cried as though at a fire:

"Pour four pails of water here and then knead!"

He was white like a tree with hoarfrost.

I threw off my cassock and rolled up my sleeves. He shouted:

"Not that way! Take off your trousers! With your feet!"

"I haven't taken a bath for a long time," I said.

"Who asked you about that?"

"How can I, then, with dirty feet?"

"Am I your pupil," he roared, "or are you mine?"

He had a large mouth, and strong, broad teeth, and long arms, which he waved angrily in the air.

"Well," I thought, "the devil take you; I don't care."

I wiped my feet with a wet cloth, stepped into the kneading trough and began to work the dough, while my teacher ran here and there, grumbling.

"I will teach you to bend, my little mother's son. I will teach you humility and obedience!"

I kneaded one trough, began another, and when that was done, started on the wheat, which is kneaded with the hands. I was a strong fellow, but was not used to the work. The flour filled my nose, my mouth, my ears and eyes, so that I became deaf and blind; and the sweat kept dropping from my forehead into the dough.

"Haven't you a piece of cloth," I asked, "to wipe the sweat off?"

Misha became raging mad. "We will get you velvet towels. The monastery has been standing 230 years, and has only been waiting for your new orders."

I had to laugh, unwillingly. "I am not kneading the dough for myself," I said. "There are others who have to eat the bread."

He walked up to me, bristling like a porcupine and every part of him trembling.

"Take a sack and wipe yourself, if you are so tender. But I will tell the Abbot about your impudence."

I was so surprised at this man that I could not be angry at him. He worked unceasingly, and the heavy two-hundred sacks were like little pillows in his hands. He was covered with flour, grumbled, swore and urged me on continually.

"Hurry! Hurry!"

I hurried till my head swam.