FATHER SERGIUS

by Leo Tolstoy




I

In Petersburg in the eighteen-forties a surprising event occurred. An
officer of the Cuirassier Life Guards, a handsome prince who everyone
predicted would become aide-de-camp to the Emperor Nicholas I and have
a brilliant career, left the service, broke off his engagement to a
beautiful maid of honour, a favourite of the Empress's, gave his small
estate to his sister, and retired to a monastery to become a monk.

This event appeared extraordinary and inexplicable to those who did not
know his inner motives, but for Prince Stepan Kasatsky himself it all
occurred so naturally that he could not imagine how he could have acted
otherwise.

His father, a retired colonel of the Guards, had died when Stepan was
twelve, and sorry as his mother was to part from her son, she entered
him at the Military College as her deceased husband had intended.

The widow herself, with her daughter, Varvara, moved to Petersburg to be
near her son and have him with her for the holidays.

The boy was distinguished both by his brilliant ability and by his
immense self-esteem. He was first both in his studies--especially in