declined, but was horrified by the definiteness of his desire.
He was so alarmed that he wrote about it to the starets. And in
addition, to keep himself in hand, he spoke to a young novice and,
conquering his sense of shame, confessed his weakness to him, asking him
to keep watch on him and not let him go anywhere except to service and
to fulfil his duties.

Besides this, a great pitfall for Sergius lay in the fact of his extreme
antipathy to his new Abbot, a cunning worldly man who was making a
career for himself in the Church. Struggle with himself as he might, he
could not master that feeling. He was submissive to the Abbot, but in
the depths of his soul he never ceased to condemn him. And in the second
year of his residence at the new monastery that ill-feeling broke out.

The Vigil service was being performed in the large church on the eve of
the feast of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin, and there were many
visitors. The Abbot himself was conducting the service. Father Sergius
was standing in his usual place and praying: that is, he was in that
condition of struggle which always occupied him during the service,
especially in the large church when he was not himself conducting the
service. This conflict was occasioned by his irritation at the presence
of fine folk, especially ladies. He tried not to see them or to notice
all that went on: how a soldier conducted them, pushing the
common people aside, how the ladies pointed out the monks to one
another--especially himself and a monk noted for his good looks. He
tried as it were to keep his mind in blinkers, to see nothing but
the light of the candles on the altar-screen, the icons, and those
conducting the service. He tried to hear nothing but the prayers
that were being chanted or read, to feel nothing but self-oblivion in
consciousness of the fulfilment of duty--a feeling he always experienced
when hearing or reciting in advance the prayers he had so often heard.

So he stood, crossing and prostrating himself when necessary, and
struggled with himself, now giving way to cold condemnation and now to
a consciously evoked obliteration of thought and feeling. Then the
sacristan, Father Nicodemus--also a great stumbling-block to Sergius
who involuntarily reproached him for flattering and fawning on the
Abbot--approached him and, bowing low, requested his presence behind the
holy gates. Father Sergius straightened his mantle, put on his biretta,
and went circum