by Maxim Gorky
I saw that his whole make-up was very much like Savelko’s and I marveled how men could keep their clear spirits and their happy frame of mind in this maelstrom of life.
Seraphim, next to Grisha, was like a clear day in spring compared to a day in autumn. Nevertheless, they grew more close to each other than to me. I was a little vexed at this. Soon they both went away together, Grisha having decided to go to Olonetz, and Seraphim said to me:
“I will accompany him. Then I will rest a week and return to the Caucasus. You should come along with us, Matvei. In tramping you will find more quickly what you are seeking, or you will lose what you have in excess, which, perhaps, is just as well. They can’t bribe God away from the earth.”
But I could not go along with them, for at that time I was having my interviews with Mardarie, and I was especially curious about this ascetic. I saw them off with great sadness, and my quiet evenings and my happy days went with them.
CHAPTER XI
Mardarie, the penance monk, lived in a pit in the stone wall behind the altar. In ancient times this hole was a secret place where the monastery treasure was hidden from robbers, and there had been a secret passage to it direct from the altar. The stone vault from this pit had been taken away, and now it was covered with thick, wooden planks, and underneath it was built a kind of light cage with a little window in the ceiling. There was a grating with a railing around it, through which the pilgrims looked at the ascetic. In a corner was a trap-door, from which spiral steps led down to Mardarie. It made one dizzy to go down them. The pit was deep, twelve steps down, and only one ray of light fell in, and this one did not reach the bottom but melted and faded away in the damp darkness of this underground dwelling. One had to look long and steadily through the grating to see somewhere in the depths of the darkness something still darker which looked like a large rock or a mound. That was the ascetic, sitting motionless.
To go down to him the warm, odiferous dampness caught one, and for the first few seconds nothing could be seen. Then from the gloom would rise an altar and a black coffin, in which sat, bent over, a little, gray-haired old man in a dark shroud, decorated with white crosses, hilts, a reed and a lance, which lay helter-skelter and broken on his dried-up body. In the corner a round stove hid itself, and from it a pipe crawled out like a thick worm, while on the brick walls grew green scales of mildew. A ray of light pierced the darkness like a white sword, then rusted and broke apart.
On a pile of shavings the ascetic swayed back and forth as a shadow, his hands resting on his knees and fingering a rosary. His head was sunk on his breast and his back was curved like a yoke.
I remember that I went up to him, fell on my knees and remained silent. He, too, was silent for a long time, and everything about us seemed glutted with dead silence. I could not see his face, but only the dark end of his sharp nose. He whispered to me so that I could hardly hear:
“Well?”
I could not answer. Pity for this man who lay alive in his coffin oppressed and overcame me. He waited a little while, and then again asked me:
“What is it? Speak.”
He turned his face toward me. It was all dark, no eyes were to be seen; only white eyebrows and a mustache and beard, which were like mildew on the agonized and motionless countenance which was effaced by the darkness. I heard the rustling of his voice:
“You argue up there. Why do you argue? You should serve God humbly. What is there to argue about with God? You should simply love God.”
“I love Him,” I answered.
“Well, perhaps. He punishes you, but you must make believe that you see nothing and say, ‘Praise be unto thee, O Lord.’ Say that always, and nothing more.”
It was evident that it was difficult for him to speak, either from weakness or because he was unused to it. His words were hardly alive and his voice was like the trembling of the wings of a dying bird.
I could not ask the old man anything, for I was sorry to disturb the peace of his death-waiting, and I feared to startle something; so I stood there motionless. From above the sound of bells leaked down, rocking the hair on my head, and I desired ardently to lift up my head toward the sky and gaze at it, but the darkness pressed down heavily on my neck and I did not move.
“Pray,” he said to me, “and I will pray for you.”
He became silent again. All was quiet, and a terrible fear made my flesh creep and filled my breast with icy coldness. A little later he whispered to me:
“Are you still here?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t see. Well, go, and God be with you. Don’t argue.”
I went out quietly. When I reached the earth above and breathed the pure air, I was drunk with joy and my head swam. I was all wet as if I had been in a cave; and he, Mardarie, had been sitting there now the fourth year!
I was to have five interviews with him, but I kept silent through them all; I could not speak. When I went down to him he listened, and then asked me in his unnatural voice:
“Some one came—the same one as yesterday?”
“Yes. It is I.”
Then he began to mumble, with interruptions:
“Don’t offend God—what do you need? You need nothing. Perhaps a little piece of bread. But to offend God is a sin. That comes from the devil. The devils, they lend a hand to every one. I know them. They are offended and they are malicious. They are offended—that is why they are malicious. So don’t get offended, or you will resemble the devil. People offend you, but you should say to them: ‘Christ save you,’ and then go. Everything is vanity. The main thing is yourself. Let them not take your soul away. Hide it, so that they cannot take it away.”
He sowed his quiet words, and they spread themselves over me like ashes from a far-off fire. They were not necessary to me, and they did not touch my soul. It seemed to me I saw a black dream, which I could not understand and which wearied me very much.
“You are silent,” he said thoughtfully. “That is good. Let them do what they want, but you keep quiet. Others come to me and they talk—they talk very much. But I cannot understand what they want. They even talk about women. What is that to me? They talk about everything. But what they say about everything, I cannot understand. But you are right to keep silent. I also would not speak, but the Abbot up there said: ‘Console him; he needs to be consoled.’ Well, all right. But I myself would much rather not talk.
“Oh, God, forgive them all! Everything was taken from me—only prayers remained to me. Whoever tortures you, take no notice of him. It is the devils who torture you. They tortured me, too. My own brother, he beat me, and my wife gave me rat’s poison. Evidently I was only a rat to her. They stole all I had from me, then said that I set fire to the village. They wanted to throw me into the fire. And I sat in prison. Everything happened to me. I was judged—sat some more. God be with them. I pardoned every one—I was not guilty, yet I pardoned. That was for my own sake.
“A whole mountain of injury lay on me. I could not breathe. Then I pardoned them and it went away. The mountain was no more. The devils were offended and they went away. So you, too, pardon every one. I need nothing. It will be the same with you.”
At the fourth interview he asked me:
“Bring me a crumb of bread. I will suck it. I am weak. Pardon me, in Christ’s name.”
My heart ached with pity for him. I listened to his ravings and I thought:
“Why is that necessary, O Lord, why?”
But he still rustled his dry tongue:
“My bones ache. Night and day they draw. If I sucked a crumb it would be better perhaps; but this way my bones itch. It disturbs me—it disturbs my prayers. It is necessary to pray every second, even in one’s dreams. If not, the devil immediately reminds one. He reminds one of one’s name and where one lived, and everything. There he sits on the stove. It doesn’t matter to him if it is hot—sometimes red
hot. He is used to it. He sits himself there, a little, gray thing, opposite me, and just sits. I cross myself and do not look at him, and he gets tired. Then he crawls on the wall like a spider, or sometimes he floats in the air like a gray rag. He can do anything, my devil. He gets bored with an old man, but he has got to watch me, he has orders to.
“Of course, it is not pleasant for him to watch an old man. I am not offended with him. The devil doesn’t do it of his own free will, and I am used to him. ‘Well,’ I say to him, 41 am tired of you,’ and I don’t look at him. He is not bad or evil, only he continually reminds me of my name.”
Then the old man lifted his head and said loudly:
“They called me Michail Petrov Viakhiref.”
And then he sank down in his coffin again and whispered:
“Thus the devil tempts me. Oh, you devil! Are you still here, brother? Go, and God be with you.”
I could have cried with anger that day. What was the use of this old man? What beauty was there in his deed? I could not understand it. All day and many days afterward I thought of him, and I felt that a devil mocked me and made grimaces at me.
The last time that I went to him I filled my pockets with soft bread, and I brought that bread to him, with pain and anger against all mankind. When I gave it to him he whispered:
“Oh, it is still warm. Oh!”
He moved in his coffin. The shavings creaked underneath him while he hid his bread, whispering:
“Oh, oh.”
The darkness and the mildewed wall—everything around us moved, reechoing the low groans of the ascetic—“Oh.”
Four times a week they brought him food. Of course, he was starved.
This last time he said nothing to me, only sucked the bread. He evidently had not a tooth left in his head.
I stood there for some time. Then I said:
“Well, pardon me, in Christ’s name, Father Mardarie. I am going now, and I won’t return again. Let me thank you.”
“Yes, yes,” he answered eagerly. “It is I who thank you; it is I who thank you. But don’t tell the monks about the bread. They will take it away. They are jealous, the monks are. No doubt the devils know them, too. The devils know everything and everybody—say nothing about it.”
Soon after this he became ill and died. They buried him with solemnity. The Bishop came from the city with all his clergy, and they held a Cathedral Mass. Afterward I heard that under the tombstone of the old man a little blue fire burns of itself at night.
How pitiful it all was and how disgraceful to man!
CHAPTER XII
Soon after this my life changed entirely. Even while Grisha was here an ugly incident happened to me. Once I went into the ante-room and caught Misha in an act which gave the lie to his constant and disgusting denunciation of women as unclean. It was inexpressibly disgusting to me, for I remembered all the filth which he spoke about women; I remembered his hatred of them; and I spat and escaped to the bakery, trembling with wrath and shame and bitterness. He followed me, fell on his knees, and begged me not to tell.
“I know that she torments you at night, too. The power of the devil is strong.”
“You lie,” I said. “Go to all the devils, you pig. And you bake bread, you dog!”
I insulted him, for I could not contain myself.
If he had not soiled all womankind with his dirty words, I would not have minded it so much.
But he crawled before me and begged me not to tell.
“Well,” I said, “can one speak about such things? It is too shameful. But I don’t want to work with you. Tell them to give me other work.”
I insisted on that.
At this time people were not yet alive or clear to me, and I strove only for one thing: to keep myself apart.
Misha became ill and lay in the hospital. I worked as of old and was given two assistants to help me.
Three weeks passed, when suddenly the steward called me and told me that Misha had recovered but did not want to work with me because of my obstinate nature; and therefore in the meantime I would be ordered to dig stumps out of the wood. This work was considered a punishment.
“Why?” I asked.
Suddenly the handsome monk, Father Anthony, entered the office, stood modestly aside and listened. The steward continued to explain to me:
“Because of your obstinate nature and your impudent opinions about the brothers. At your age and in your condition, it is foolish; unbearable; and you must be punished. But the Father Superior, in his goodness, said that we should take you over to the office for easy work. And that is how it may turn out.”
He spoke for a long time, in a singsong voice and without feeling; and I saw that it did not come from his conscience, but that he dragged one word after another from duty.
Father Anthony leaned against a bench, looked at me, stroked his beard and smiled with his beautiful eyes as if he were joking with me about something.
I wished to show him my character and said to the steward:
“I don’t seek to be raised, nor do I wish to accept humiliation, for I do not deserve it, as you know, but I want justice.”
The steward grew red in the face and beat the ground with his stick.
“Keep silent, insolent one!”
Father Anthony bent to his ear and said something.
“It is impossible,” answered the steward. “He is to take his punishment without a murmur.”
Anthony shrugged his shoulders and turned toward me. His voice was low and warm:
“Submit, Matvei.”
He conquered me with his two words and his caressing look. I bowed to the steward and to him, and then I asked the steward when I must go to the wood.
“In three days,” he answered. “But these three days you must go to the dungeon—that’s what.”
If Anthony had not been there I certainly would have broken the steward’s bones. But I took Anthony’s words as a sign of the possibility to get near him, and for this I was ready to cut off my right arm—anything.
They sent me down to the dungeon. It was a hole underneath the office, in which it was impossible to stand or lie down; one had to sit. Straw was thrown on the floor, but it was wet from dampness. And it was quiet as a grave, not even mice were there; and such darkness that the hands disappeared. If you put your hands before your face they were not visible.
I sat there and was silent, and everything in me seemed poured from lead. I was heavy as stone, and cold as ice.
I clinched my teeth for I wished to hold back my thoughts; but they flamed up within me like coals and burned me. I could have bitten somebody, but there was no one to bite. I caught my hair with my hands, swayed back and forth like the tongue of a bell, and shrieked and raved and roared within:
“Where is Thy justice, O Lord? Do not the lawless play with it? And do not the strong trample it in their evil, drunken power? What am I before Thee? A lawless sacrifice or a keeper of Thy beauty and justice?”
I recalled the arrangement of the life in the monastery. It stood before me, ugly and cynical.
And why did they call the monks the servants of God? In what way were they holier than laymen? I knew the difficult peasant life in the villages. They lived starved and wretched. They drank, they fought, they stole, they committed every sin. But was not His path unseen? And they had no strength to struggle for righteousness; nor time. Each one was attached to the soil and tied to his house with a strong chain—the fear of starvation. What could one ask of them?
But here men lived free and satisfied. Here books and wisdom were open to them. But which one of them served God? Only the weak and the bloodless, like Grisha, remained faithful to God, who to the others was only a protector of sins and a source of lies. I remembered the evil lust of the monks for women and all their offenses of the flesh, which even the animals disdained�
�and their laziness and gluttony; their quarrels over the distribution of the funds, when they cawed maliciously at one another like ravens in a cemetery.
Grisha told me that no matter how much the peasants worked for the monastery, their indebtedness grew continually. I thought of myself: “Here I have already spent a long time and what has my soul profited? I have received only wounds and sores. How has my intelligence been enriched? Only by the knowledge of all kinds of baseness and of loathing for man.”
Around me was silence. Even the sound of the bells, by which I could have measured time, did not reach me, and there was neither day nor night for me. Who dared to take away the sun from man?
The rank darkness oppressed me, and my soul was consumed by it. There was nothing left to light my path. The faith which was dear to my heart, the justice and omniscience of God, sank and melted away.
But like a bright star the face of Father Anthony flashed before me, and all my thoughts and feelings circled around it like a moth around a flame. I conversed with him, and complained to him, and asked him questions, and saw his two caressing eyes in the darkness.
I paid dearly for those three days and I went out of the hole blinded, my head feeling as if it were not my own, and my knees trembling. The monks laughed at me.
“What,” they said, “you took a good soul-bath, eh?”
At night the Abbot called me, made me kneel before him, and gave me a long lecture.
“It is written that I shall crush the teeth of the sinner and bend his back in the yoke.”
I was silent and controlled my heart. The peacemaker, Father Anthony, stood before me, and stilled my evil mouth with his affectionate look. Suddenly the Abbot softened.
“We value you, you fool,” he said. “We think of you. We have noticed your zeal in work and wish to reward your intelligence. I even place before you a choice of two duties. Do you want to work in the office, or do you want to be a lay brother to Father Anthony?”
I felt as if I had been revived with warm water. I was stifled with joy and could hardly speak:
