He was pleased to know that the merchant's daughter was twenty-two, and
he wondered whether she was good-looking. When he inquired whether she
was weak, he really wanted to know if she had feminine charm.

'Can I have fallen so low?' he thought. 'Lord, help me! Restore me, my
Lord and God!' And he clasped his hands and began to pray.

The nightingales burst into song, a cockchafer knocked against him and
crept up the back of his neck. He brushed it off. 'But does He exist?
What if I am knocking at a door fastened from outside? The bar is on the
door for all to see. Nature--the nightingales and the cockchafers--is
that bar. Perhaps the young man was right.' And he began to pray aloud.
He prayed for a long time till these thoughts vanished and he again felt
calm and confident. He rang the bell and told the attendant to say that
the merchant might bring his daughter to him now.

The merchant came, leading his daughter by the arm. He led her into the
cell and immediately left her.

She was a very fair girl, plump and very short, with a pale, frightened,
childish face and a much developed feminine figure. Father Sergius
remained seated on the bench at the entrance and when she was passing
and stopped beside him for his blessing he was aghast at himself for
the way he looked at her figure. As she passed by him he was acutely
conscious of her femininity, though he saw by her face that she was
sensual and feeble-minded. He rose and went into the cell. She was
sitting on a stool waiting for him, and when he entered she rose.

'I want to go back to Papa,' she said.