The Project Gutenberg EBook of Father Sergius, by Leo Tolstoy

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Title: Father Sergius

Author: Leo Tolstoy

Translator: Louise and Aylmer Maude

Release Date: July, 1997 [Etext #985]
Posting Date: July 9, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FATHER SERGIUS ***

Produced by Judith Boss

FATHER SERGIUS

By Leo Tolstoy

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
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