ANTOSHA CHEKHONTE
1860-1904
"Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I get
fed up with one,
I spend the night with the other. Though it's
irregular, it's less boring this way,
and besides, neither of them loses
anything through my infidelity."
IN the fifth century, just as now, the sun rose every morning and every
evening retired to rest. In the morning, when the first rays kissed the
dew, the earth revived, the air was filled with the sounds of rapture
and hope; while in the evening the same earth subsided into silence and
plunged into gloomy darkness. One day was like another, one night like
another. From time to time a storm-cloud raced up and there was the
angry rumble of thunder, or a negligent star fell out of the sky, or a
pale monk ran to tell the brotherhood that not far from the monastery he
had seen a tiger -- and that was all, and then each day was like the
next.
The monks worked and prayed, and their Father Superior
played on the organ, made Latin verses, and wrote music. The wonderful
old man possessed an extraordinary gift. He played on the organ with
such art that even the oldest monks, whose hearing had grown somewhat
dull towards the end of their lives, could not restrain their tears when
the sounds of the organ floated from his cell. When he spoke of
anything, even of the most ordinary things -- for instance of the trees,
of the wild beasts, or of the sea -- they could not listen to him
without a smile or tears, and it seemed that the same chords vibrated in
his soul as in the organ. If he were moved to anger or abandoned
himself to intense joy, or began speaking of something terrible or
grand, then a passionate inspiration took possession of him, tears came
into his flashing eyes, his face flushed, and his voice thundered, and
as the monks listened to him they felt that their souls were spell-bound
by his inspiration; at such marvellous, splendid moments his power over
them was boundless, and if he had bidden his elders fling themselves
into the sea, they would all, every one of them, have hastened to carry
out his wishes.
His music, his voice, his poetry in which he
glorified God, the heavens and the earth, were a continual source of joy
to the monks. It sometimes happened that through the monotony of their
lives they grew weary of the trees, the flowers, the spring, the autumn,
their ears were tired of the sound of the sea, and the song of the
birds seemed tedious to them, but the talents of their Father Superior
were as necessary to them as their daily bread.
Dozens of years
passed by, and every day was like every other day, every night was like
every other night. Except the birds and the wild beasts, not one soul
appeared near the monastery. The nearest human habitation was far away,
and to reach it from the monastery, or to reach the monastery from it,
meant a journey of over seventy miles across the desert. Only men who
despised life, who had renounced it, and who came to the monastery as to
the grave, ventured to cross the desert.
What was the amazement
of the monks, therefore, when one night there knocked at their gate a
man who turned out to be from the town, and the most ordinary sinner who
loved life. Before saying his prayers and asking for the Father
Superior's blessing, this man asked for wine and food. To the question
how he had come from the town into the desert, he answered by a long
story of hunting; he had gone out hunting, had drunk too much, and lost
his way. To the suggestion that he should enter the monastery and save
his soul, he replied with a smile: "I am not a fit companion for you!"
When he had eaten and drunk he looked at the monks who were serving him, shook his head reproachfully, and said:
"You
don't do anything, you monks. You are good for nothing but eating and
drinking. Is that the way to save one's soul? Only think, while you sit
here in peace, eat and drink and dream of beatitude, your neighbours are
perishing and going to hell. You should see what is going on in the
town! Some are dying of hunger, others, not knowing what to do with
their gold, sink into profligacy and perish like flies stuck in honey.
There is no faith, no truth in men. Whose task is it to save them? Whose
work is it to preach to them? It is not for me, drunk from morning till
night as I am. Can a meek spirit, a loving heart, and faith in God have
been given you for you to sit here within four walls doing nothing?"
The
townsman's drunken words were insolent and unseemly, but they had a
strange effect upon the Father Superior. The old man exchanged glances
with his monks, turned pale, and said:
"My brothers, he speaks
the truth, you know. Indeed, poor people in their weakness and lack of
understanding are perishing in vice and infidelity, while we do not
move, as though it did not concern us. Why should I not go and remind
them of the Christ whom they have forgotten?"
The townsman's
words had carried the old man away. The next day he took his staff, said
farewell to the brotherhood, and set off for the town. And the monks
were left without music, and without his speeches and verses. They spent
a month drearily, then a second, but the old man did not come back. At
last after three months had passed the familiar tap of his staff was
heard. The monks flew to meet him and showered questions upon him, but
instead of being delighted to see them he wept bitterly and did not
utter a word. The monks noticed that he looked greatly aged and had
grown thinner; his face looked exhausted and wore an expression of
profound sadness, and when he wept he had the air of a man who has been
outraged.
The monks fell to weeping too, and began with sympathy
asking him why he was weeping, why his face was so gloomy, but he
locked himself in his cell without uttering a word. For seven days he
sat in his cell, eating and drinking nothing, weeping and not playing on
his organ. To knocking at his door and to the entreaties of the monks
to come out and share his grief with them he replied with unbroken
silence.
At last he came out. Gathering all the monks around
him, with a tear-stained face and with an expression of grief and
indignation, he began telling them of what had befallen him during those
three months. His voice was calm and his eyes were smiling while he
described his journey from the monastery to the town. On the road, he
told them, the birds sang to him, the brooks gurgled, and sweet youthful
hopes agitated his soul; he marched on and felt like a soldier going to
battle and confident of victory; he walked on dreaming, and composed
poems and hymns, and reached the end of his journey without noticing it.
But his voice quivered, his eyes flashed, and he was full of
wrath when he came to speak of the town and of the men in it. Never in
his life had he seen or even dared to imagine what he met with when he
went into the town. Only then for the first time in his life, in his old
age, he saw and understood how powerful was the devil, how fair was
evil and how weak and faint-hearted and worthless were men. By an
unhappy chance the first dwelling he entered was the abode of vice. Some
fifty men in possession of much money were eating and drinking wine
beyond measure. Intoxicated by the wine, they sang songs and boldly
uttered terrible, revolting words such as a God-fearing man could not
bring himself to pronounce; boundlessly free, self-confident, and happy,
they feared neither God nor the devil, nor death, but said and did what
they liked, and went whither their lust led them. And the wine, clear
as amber, flecked with sparks of gold, must have been irresistibly sweet
and fragrant, for each man who drank it smiled blissfully and wanted to
drink more. To the smile of man it responded with a smile and sparkled
joyfully when they drank it, as though it knew the devilish charm it
kept hidden in its sweetness.
The old man, growing more and more
incensed and weeping with wrath, went on to describe what he had seen.
On a table in the midst of the revellers, he said, stood a sinful,
half-naked woman. It was hard to imagine or to find in nature anything
more lovely and fascinating. This reptile, young, longhaired,
dark-skinned, with black eyes and full lips, shameless and insolent,
showed her snow-white teeth and smiled as though to say: "Look how
shameless, how beautiful I am." Silk and brocade fell in lovely folds
from her shoulders, but her beauty would not hide itself under her
clothes, but eagerly thrust itself through the folds, like the young
grass through the ground in spring. The shameless woman drank wine, sang
songs, and abandoned herself to anyone who wanted her.
Then the
old man, wrathfully brandishing his arms, described the horse-races,
the bull-fights, the theatres, the artists' studios where they painted
naked women or moulded them of clay. He spoke with inspiration, with
sonorous beauty, as though he were playing on unseen chords, while the
monks, petrified, greedily drank in his words and gasped with rapture. .
. .
After describing all the charms of the devil, the beauty of
evil, and the fascinating grace of the dreadful female form, the old
man cursed the devil, turned and shut himself up in his cell. . . .
When he came out of his cell in the morning there was not a monk left in the monastery; they had all fled to the town.
