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Father Sergius
By
Leo Tolstoy
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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
mathematics, of which he was particularly fond--and also in drill and in
riding. Though of more than average height, he was handsome and agile,
and he would have been an altogether exemplary cadet had it not been for
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his quick temper. He was remarkably truthful, and was neither dissipated
nor addicted to drink. The only faults that marred his conduct were
fits of fury to which he was subject and during which he lost control of
himself and became like a wild animal. He once nearly threw out of the
window another cadet who had begun to tease him about his collection
of minerals. On another occasion he came almost completely to grief
by flinging a whole dish of cutlets at an officer who was acting as
steward, attacking him and, it was said, striking him for having broken
his word and told a barefaced lie. He would certainly have been reduced
to the ranks had not the Director of the College hushed up the whole
matter and dismissed the steward.
By the time he was eighteen he had finished his College course and
received a commission as lieutenant in an aristocratic regiment of the
Guards.
The Emperor Nicholas Pavlovich (Nicholas I) had noticed him while he
was still at the College, and continued to take notice of him in the
regiment, and it was on this account that people predicted for him an
appointment as aide-de-camp to the Emperor. Kasatsky himself strongly
desired it, not from ambition only but chiefly because since his cadet
days he had been passionately devoted to Nicholas Pavlovich. The Emperor
had often visited the Military College and every time Kasatsky saw
that tall erect figure, with breast expanded in its military overcoat,
entering with brisk step, saw the cropped side-whiskers, the moustache,
the aquiline nose, and heard the sonorous voice exchanging greetings
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with the cadets, he was seized by the same rapture that he experienced
later on when he met the woman he loved. Indeed, his passionate
adoration of the Emperor was even stronger: he wished to sacrifice
something--everything, even himself--to prove his complete devotion.
And the Emperor Nicholas was conscious of evoking this rapture and
deliberately aroused it. He played with the cadets, surrounded himself
with them, treating them sometimes with childish simplicity, sometimes
as a friend, and then again with majestic solemnity. After that affair
with the officer, Nicholas Pavlovich said nothing to Kasatsky, but when
the latter approached he waved him away theatrically, frowned, shook his
finger at him, and afterwards when leaving, said: 'Remember that I know
everything. There are some things I would rather not know, but they
remain here,' and he pointed to his heart.
When on leaving College the cadets were received by the Emperor, he did
not again refer to Kasatsky's offence, but told them all, as was his
custom, that they should serve him and the fatherland loyally, that he
would always be their best friend, and that when necessary they might
approach him direct. All the cadets were as usual greatly moved, and
Kasatsky even shed tears, remembering the past, and vowed that he would
serve his beloved Tsar with all his soul.
When Kasatsky took up his commission his mother moved with her daughter
first to Moscow and then to their country estate. Kasatsky gave half his
property to his sister and kept only enough to maintain himself in the
expensive regiment he had joined.
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To all appearance he was just an ordinary, brilliant young officer
of the Guards making a career for himself; but intense and complex
strivings went on within him. From early childhood his efforts had
seemed to be very varied, but essentially they were all one and the
same. He tried in everything he took up to attain such success and
perfection as would evoke praise and surprise. Whether it was his
studies or his military exercises, he took them up and worked at them
till he was praised and held up as an example to others. Mastering one
subject he took up another, and obtained first place in his studies. For
example, while still at College he noticed in himself an awkwardness in
French conversation, and contrived to master French till he spoke it
as well as Russian, and then he took up chess and became an excellent
player.
Apart from his main vocation, which was the service of his Tsar and
the fatherland, he always set himself some particular aim, and however
unimportant it was, devoted himself completely to it and lived for it
until it was accomplished. And as soon as it was attained another
aim would immediately present itself, replacing its predecessor. This
passion for distinguishing himself, or for accomplishing something
in order to distinguish himself, filled his life. On taking up his
commission he set himself to acquire the utmost perfection in knowledge
of the service, and very soon became a model officer, though still with
the same fault of ungovernable irascibility, which here in the service
again led him to commit actions inimical to his success. Then he took to
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