For some weeks Father Sergius had been living with one persistent¹ thought: whether he was right in accepting the position in which he had not so much placed himself as been placed by the Archimandrite and the Abbot. That position had begun after the recovery of the fourteen-year-old boy. From that time, with each month, week, and day that passed, Sergius felt his own inner life wasting away and being replaced by external life. It was as if he had been turned inside out.  
Sergius saw that he was a means of attracting visitors and contributions to the monastery³, and that therefore the authorities arranged matters in such a way as to make as much use of him as possible. For instance, they rendered it impossible for him to do any manual work. He was supplied with everything he could want, and they only demanded of him that he should not refuse his blessing⁴ to those who came to seek it. For his convenience they appointed days when he would receive. They arranged a reception-room for men, and a place was railed in so that he should not be pushed over by the crowds of women visitors, and so that he could conveniently bless those who came.
 
They told him that people needed him, and that fulfilling Christ’s law of love he could not refuse their demand to see him, and that to avoid them would be cruel. He could not but agree with this, but the more he gave himself up to such a life the more he felt that what was internal became external, and that the fount of living water within him dried up, and that what he did now was done more and more for men and less and less for God.
 
Whether he admonished⁵ people, or simply blessed them, or prayed for the sick, or advised people about their lives, or listened to expressions of gratitude⁶ from those he had helped by precepts⁷, or alms, or healing (as they assured him)—he could not help being pleased at it, and could not be indifferent to the results of his activity and to the influence he exerted. He thought himself a shining light, and the more he felt this the more was he conscious of a weakening, a dying down of the divine light of truth that shone within him.
 
‘In how far is what I do for God and in how far is it for men?’ That was the question that insistently⁸ tormented⁹ him and to which he was not so much unable to give himself an answer as unable to face the answer.
 
In the depth of his soul he felt that the devil had substituted an activity for men in place of his former activity for God. He felt this because, just as it had formerly¹⁰ been hard for him to be torn from his solitude¹¹ so now that solitude itself was hard for him. He was oppressed and wearied by visitors, but at the bottom of his heart he was glad of their presence and glad of the praise they heaped upon him.
 
There was a time when he decided¹² to go away and hide. He even planned all that was necessary for that purpose. He prepared for himself a peasant’s shirt, trousers, coat, and cap. He explained that he wanted these to give to those who asked. And he kept these clothes in his cell, planning how he would put them on, cut his hair short, and go away. First he would go some three hundred versts by train, then he would leave the train and walk from village to village. He asked an old man who had been a soldier how he tramped: what people gave him, and what shelter they allowed him. The soldier told him where people were most charitable, and where they would take a wanderer in for the night, and Father Sergius intended to avail himself of this information. He even put on those clothes one night in his desire to go, but he could not decide what was best—to remain or to escape. At first he was in doubt, but afterwards this indecision passed. He submitted to custom and yielded to the devil, and only the peasant garb¹³ reminded him of the thought and feeling he had had.
 
Every day more and more people flocked to him and less and less time was left him for prayer and for renewing his spiritual strength. Sometimes in lucid¹⁴ moments he thought he was like a place where there had once been a spring. ‘There used to be a feeble spring of living water which flowed quietly from me and through me. That was true life, the time when she tempted¹⁵ me!’ (He always thought with ecstasy¹⁶ of that night and of her who was now Mother Agnes.) She had tasted of that pure water, but since then there had not been time for it to collect before thirsty people came crowding in and pushing one another aside. And they had trampled¹⁷ everything down and nothing was left but mud.
 
So he thought in rare moments of lucidity¹⁸, but his usual state of mind was one of weariness and a tender pity for himself because of that weariness.
 
It was in spring, on the eve of the mid-Pentecostal feast. Father Sergius was officiating at the Vigil Service in his hermitage church, where the congregation was as large as the little church could hold—about twenty people. They were all well-to-do proprietors¹⁹ or merchants. Father Sergius admitted anyone, but a selection was made by the monk²⁰ in attendance and by an assistant who was sent to the hermitage every day from the monastery. A crowd of some eighty people—pilgrims and peasants, and especially peasant-women—stood outside waiting for Father Sergius to come out and bless them. Meanwhile he conducted the service, but at the point at which he went out to the tomb of his predecessor²¹, he staggered and would have fallen had he not been caught by a merchant standing²² behind him and by the monk acting² as deacon.
 
‘What is the matter, Father Sergius? Dear man! O Lord!’ exclaimed the women. ‘He is as white as a sheet!’
 
But Father Sergius recovered immediately, and though very pale, he waved the merchant and the deacon aside and continued to chant the service.
 
Father Seraphim²³, the deacon, the acolytes²⁴, and Sofya Ivanovna, a lady who always lived near the hermitage and tended Father Sergius, begged him to bring the service to an end.
 
‘No, there’s nothing the matter,’ said Father Sergius, slightly smiling from beneath his moustache and continuing the service. ‘Yes, that is the way the Saints behave!’ thought he.
 
‘A holy man—an angel of God!’ he heard just then the voice of Sofya Ivanovna behind him, and also of the merchant who had supported him. He did not heed²⁵ their entreaties²⁶, but went on with the service. Again crowding together they all made their way by the narrow passages back into the little church, and there, though abbreviating²⁷ it slightly, Father Sergius completed vespers.
 
Immediately after the service Father Sergius, having pronounced the benediction²⁸ on those present, went over to the bench under the elm tree at the entrance to the cave. He wished to rest and breathe the fresh air—he felt in need of it. But as soon as he left the church the crowd of people rushed to him soliciting²⁹ his blessing, his advice, and his help. There were pilgrims who constantly tramped from one holy place to another and from one starets to another, and were always entranced by every shrine³⁰ and every starets. Father Sergius knew this common, cold, conventional, and most irreligious type. There were pilgrims, for the most part discharged soldiers, unaccustomed to a settled life, poverty-stricken, and many of them drunken old men, who tramped from monastery to monastery merely to be fed. And there were rough peasants and peasant-women who had come with their selfish requirements, seeking cures or to have doubts about quite practical affairs solved for them: about marrying off a daughter, or hiring a shop, or buying a bit of land, or how to atone³¹ for having overlaid a child or having an illegitimate one.
 
All this was an old story and not in the least interesting to him. He knew he would hear nothing new from these folk, that they would arouse no religious emotion in him; but he liked to see the crowd to which his blessing and advice was necessary and precious, so while that crowd oppressed him it also pleased him. Father Seraphim began to drive them away, saying that Father Sergius was tired.
 
But Father Sergius, remembering the words of the Gospel: ‘Forbid them’ (children) ‘not to come unto me,’ and feeling tenderly towards himself at this recollection, said they should be allowed to approach.
 
He rose, went to the railing beyond which the crowd had gathered, and began blessing them and answering their questions, but in a voice so weak that he was touched with pity for himself. Yet despite his wish to receive them all he could not do it. Things again grew dark before his eyes, and he staggered and grasped the railings. He felt a rush of blood to his head and first went pale and then suddenly flushed.
 
‘I must leave the rest till to-morrow. I cannot do more to-day,’ and, pronouncing a general benediction, he returned to the bench. The merchant again supported him, and leading him by the arm helped him to be seated.
 
‘Father!’ came voices from the crowd. ‘Dear Father! Do not forsake³² us. Without you we are lost!’
 
The merchant, having seated Father Sergius on the bench under the elm, took on himself police duties and drove the people off very resolutely³³. It is true that he spoke³⁴ in a low voice so that Father Sergius might not hear him, but his words were incisive³⁵ and angry.
 
‘Be off, be off! He has blessed you, and what more do you want? Get along with you, or I’ll wring³⁶ your necks! Move on there! Get along, you old woman with your dirty leg-bands! Go, go! Where are you shoving to? You’ve been told that it is finished. To-morrow will be as God wills, but for to-day he has finished!’
 
‘Father! Only let my eyes have a glimpse of his dear face!’ said an old woman.
 
‘I’ll glimpse you! Where are you shoving to?’
 
Father Sergius noticed that the merchant seemed to be acting roughly, and in a feeble voice told the attendant that the people should not be driven away. He knew that they would be driven away all the same, and he much desired to be left alone and to rest, but he sent the attendant with that message to produce an impression.
 
‘All right, all right! I am not driving them away. I am only remonstrating³⁷ with them,’ replied the merchant. ‘You know they wouldn’t hesitate to drive a man to death. They have no pity, they only consider themselves.... You’ve been told you cannot see him. Go away! To-morrow!’ And he got rid of them all.
 
He took all these pains because he liked order and liked to domineer and drive the people away, but chiefly because he wanted to have Father Sergius to himself. He was a widower³⁸ with an only daughter who was an invalid³⁹ and unmarried, and whom he had brought fourteen hundred versts to Father Sergius to be healed. For two years past he had been taking her to different places to be cured: first to the university clinic in the chief town of the province, but that did no good; then to a peasant in the province of Samara, where she got a little better; then to a doctor in Moscow to whom he paid much money, but this did no good at all. Now he had been told that Father Sergius wrought⁴⁰ cures, and had brought her to him. So when all the people had been driven away he approached Father Sergius, and suddenly falling on his knees loudly exclaimed:
 
‘Holy Father! Bless my afflicted⁴¹ offspring that she may be healed of her malady⁴². I venture to prostrate⁴³ myself at your holy feet.’
 
And he placed one hand on the other, cup-wise. He said and did all this as if he were doing something clearly and firmly appointed by law and usage—as if one must and should ask for a daughter to be cured in just this way and no other. He did it with such conviction that it seemed even to Father Sergius that it should be said and done in just that way, but nevertheless he bade him rise and tell him what the trouble was. The merchant said that his daughter, a girl of twenty-two, had fallen ill two years ago, after her mother’s sudden death. She had moaned (as he expressed it) and since then had not been herself. And now he had brought her fourteen hundr............