by Maxim Gorky
“Permit me to be a lay brother.”
He frowned, became thoughtful, and looked at me curiously.
“If you go to the office,” he said, “I will take away the stump digging; but if you go as a lay brother, I will increase the work in the woods.”
“Permit me to be a lay brother.”
He asked me sternly:
“Why, you fool! The work is easier in the office, and more respectable.”
I insisted. He bowed his head and thought a while.
“I permit it. You are a strange fellow, and one should not lose sight of you. Who knows what fires you will light—who knows? Go in peace.”
I went to the wood. It was spring then, cold April. The work was hard, the wood an ancient one. The main roots went deep into the earth; the side ones were big. I dug and dug, and chopped and chopped; tied the trunk and made the horse pull out the stump. He tried with all his strength, but only broke the harness. Already by noon my bones felt broken and my horse trembled and was covered with foam. He looked at me out of his round eyes, as if he wished to say: “I cannot, brother; it is hard.”
I petted him and slapped his neck. “I see,” I said. And again I dug and chopped and the horse looked at me, his hide trembling and his head nodding. Horses are intelligent, and I am sure that they perceive all the senseless actions of man.
At this time I had an encounter with Misha, which came near ending badly for both of us. Once I went to my work after the noon-day meal, and had already reached the wood when suddenly he overtook me, club in hand, his face wild, his teeth showing, and panting like a bear. What did it mean?
I stopped and waited for him. He did not say a word, but brandished his club at me. I bent in time, and struck him below the belt with my head. I threw him down, sat on his chest, and took away his club.
“What is the matter with you?” I asked him. “What’s this for?”
He struggled underneath me and said hoarsely:
“Get out of the monastery!”
“Why?”
“I can’t look at you. I’ll kill you! Get out of here!”
His eyes were red. The tears that came out seemed red, and his lips were covered with foam. He tore at my clothes; he scratched and pinched me, anxious to reach my face. I shook him lightly and arose from his chest.
“You wear the garb of a monk,” I said, “and yet you are capable of such vileness, you brute! Why?”
He sat in the mud and demanded, obstinately:
“Get out of here! Don’t make me lose my soul!”
I did not understand him. Finally I made a guess, and asked him low:
“Perhaps, Misha, you think I told some one about your wretched sin? It is not so. I told no one about it.”
He arose, swayed, held on to the tree and looked at me with his wild eyes.
“I wish you had told it to the whole world!” he roared. “It would be easier for me! I could repent before others and they would forgive me. But you, scoundrel, despise every one. I do not want to be under obligations to you, you proud heretic. Get out, or I’ll have the sin of blood on me!”
“If that is the way it is,” I said, “go away yourself, if you have to. I won’t go—that is sure.”
He again jumped on me, and we both fell into the mud, getting dirty like frogs. I proved to be the stronger, and arose, but he still lay there, weeping and miserable.
“Listen, Misha,” I said. “I am going away a little later. Now I can’t. I am not staying out of spite, but because I have to. I have got to be here.”
“Go to your father, the devil,” he groaned, and gnashed his teeth.
I went away from him, and a little while later he was ordered to go to the monastic inn in the city, and I never saw him again.
CHAPTER XIII
When my penance was finished I stood before Anthony, dressed in new clothes. I remember this period of my life from the first day to the last; everything, even to each word, was burned into my soul and cut into my flesh.
He led me to his cells quietly, and taught me in detail how and when and in what way I was to serve him.
One room was arranged with book-cases, full of worldly and religious books. “This,” he said, “is my chapel.”
In the center of the room stood a large table, near the window an upholstered armchair, and toward one side of the table a divan covered with rich tapestry. In front of the table there was a chair with a high back, covered with pressed leather.
A second room was his bedroom. It had a wide bed, a wardrobe filled with cassocks and linen, a wash stand with a large mirror, many brushes and combs and gaily colored perfume bottles. And on the walls of the third room, which was uninviting and empty, were two closed cupboards, one for wine and food and the other for china, pastry, preserves and sweets.
Having finished this inspection, he led me to his library and said:
“Take a seat. So, this is the way I live. Not like a monk, eh?”
“No,” I answered; “not quite according to rule.”
“Well, you condemn every one. I suppose you will condemn me soon, too.”
He smiled, haughty as a bell tower.
I loved him for his beautiful face, but his smile was disagreeable to me.
“I do not know whether I will condemn you,” I said. “I certainly would like to understand you.”
He laughed low, in a base, which was offensive to me.
“You are illegitimate?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You have good blood in your veins?”
“What is good blood?” I asked.
He laughed, then answered impressively.
“Good blood is something from which proud souls are made.”
The day was clear, the sun shone in through the window, and Anthony sat entirely covered by its rays. Suddenly an unexpected thought flashed through my head and pierced my heart like the bite of a snake. I jumped from my chair and stared hard at the monk. He, too, arose, and I saw that he picked up a knife from the table and played with it, asking:
“What is the matter with you?”
“Are you not my father?” I asked him.
His face became drawn, immovable and blue, as if it were carved from ice. He half closed his eyes so that the light went out of them, and said, almost in a whisper:
“I think—not. Where were you born? When? How old are you? Who is your mother?”
And as I told him how I was abandoned he smiled and put the knife back on the table.
“I was not in the district at that time,” he answered.
I became embarrassed and uncomfortable. It was as if I had begged for charity and been refused.
“Well,” he said, “and if I had been your father, what then?”
“Nothing,” I answered.
“Exactly. That is the way I think about it. We are living together in a place where there are no fathers and no children in the flesh, only in the spirit. On the other hand, we are all abandoned on this earth—that is, we are brothers in misery, which we call life. Man is an accident in life, do you know that?”
I read in his eyes that he was making fun of me. I was still laboring under the unpleasant impression which my strange and incomprehensible question had aroused in me, and I would have liked to explain the question to him or to forget it altogether. But I made matters worse by asking:
“Why did you take that knife in your hand?” Anthony gazed at me and then laughed low:
“You are a bold questioner. I took it because I took it, and why I really do not know. I like it; it is a very pretty thing.”
And he gave me the knife. It was sharp and pointed, with a design in gold laid on the steel, and a silver handle, with red stones.
“It is an Arabian knife,” he explained to me. “I use it for cutting pages of books, and at ni
ght I put it under my pillow. There is a rumor abroad that I am rich and there are poor people living about me, and my cell is out of the way.”
The knife as well as the hands of Anthony had a rich, peculiar perfume, which almost intoxicated me and made my head swim.
“Let us talk a little more,” Anthony continued in his low, deep, soft voice. “Do you know that a woman comes to see me?”
“So I heard.”
“It is not true that she is my sister. I sleep with her.”
“Why do you talk of these things to me?” I asked.
“So that you will be shocked once and for all and not continue to be surprised. You like worldly books?”
“I have never read them.”
He took from the book-case a little book bound in red leather and gave it to me.
“Go, prepare the samovar and read this,” he said, in a tone of command.
I opened the book, and on the very first page I found a picture—a woman naked to her knees and a man in front of her, also naked.
“I will not read this,” I said.
Then he turned to me and said sternly:
“And if your spiritual superior orders you to? How do you know why this is necessary? Go.”
In the annex where my room was I sat down on my bed, overcome by fear and sadness. I felt as if I had been poisoned; I was weak and trembling. I did not know what to think; I could not understand. From where did the thought come that he was my father? It was a strange idea.
I remembered his words about the soul: “The soul is made of blood.” And about man: “That he is an accident on earth.” All this was so plainly heretical. I remembered his drawn face at my question.
I opened the book again. It was a story about some French cavalier and about women. What did I want with it?
He rang for me and called. I came in, and he met me in a friendly manner.
“Where is the samovar?”
“Why did you give me this book?”
“So that you would know what sin is.”
I became happy again. It seemed to me I understood his object; he wished to educate me. I bowed low, went out, prepared the samovar eagerly and brought it back into the room, where Anthony had already prepared everything for tea. And as I was going out he said:
“Remain and drink tea with me.”
I was grateful to him, for I wanted to understand something very much.
“Tell me,” he said, “how you have lived and why you came here.”
I began to tell him about myself, not hiding from him my most secret impulse, not a thought which I could remember. And he listened to me with half-closed eyes, so engrossed that he did not even drink his tea.
Behind him the evening looked in at the window, and against the red sky the black branches of the trees made their outline.
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 R
ussia! 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.