sick, or advised people about their lives, or listened to expressions of
gratitude from those he had helped by precepts, 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 insistently tormented 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 formerly been hard for him to be torn from his
solitude 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 decided 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