smile and the smell of wine from his breath and of cigars from his
whiskers--revolted Father Sergius. He bowed again to the Abbot and said:

'Your reverence deigned to send for me?'--and stopped, the whole
expression of his face and eyes asking why.

'Yes, to meet the General,' replied the Abbot.

'Your reverence, I left the world to save myself from temptation,' said
Father Sergius, turning pale and with quivering lips. 'Why do you expose
me to it during prayers and in God's house?'

'You may go! Go!' said the Abbot, flaring up and frowning.

Next day Father Sergius asked pardon of the Abbot and of the brethren
for his pride, but at the same time, after a night spent in prayer, he
decided that he must leave this monastery, and he wrote to the starets
begging permission to return to him. He wrote that he felt his weakness
and incapacity to struggle against temptation without his help and
penitently confessed his sin of pride. By return of post came a letter
from the starets, who wrote that Sergius's pride was the cause of all
that had happened. The old man pointed out that his fits of anger were
due to the fact that in refusing all clerical honours he humiliated
himself not for the sake of God but for the sake of his pride. 'There
now, am I not a splendid man not to want anything?' That was why he
could not tolerate the Abbot's action. 'I have renounced everything for
the glory of God, and here I am exhibited like a wild beast!' 'Had you
renounced vanity for God's sake you would have borne it. Worldly pride
is not yet dead in you. I have thought about you, Sergius my son, and
prayed also, and this is what God has suggested to me. At the Tambov