as soon as he left the church the crowd
of people rushed to him soliciting his blessing, his advice, and his
help. There were pilgrims who constantly tramped from one holy place to
another and from one starets to another, and were always entranced by
every shrine and every starets. Father Sergius knew this common, cold,
conventional, and most irreligious type. There were pilgrims, for
the most part discharged soldiers, unaccustomed to a settled life,
poverty-stricken, and many of them drunken old men, who tramped from
monastery to monastery merely to be fed. And there were rough peasants
and peasant-women who had come with their selfish requirements, seeking
cures or to have doubts about quite practical affairs solved for them:
about marrying off a daughter, or hiring a shop, or buying a bit
of land, or how to atone for having overlaid a child or having an
illegitimate one.

All this was an old story and not in the least interesting to him. He
knew he would hear nothing new from these folk, that they would arouse
no religious emotion in him; but he liked to see the crowd to which
his blessing and advice was necessary and precious, so while that crowd
oppressed him it also pleased him. Father Seraphim began to drive them
away, saying that Father Sergius was tired.

But Father Sergius, remembering the words of the Gospel: 'Forbid them'
(children) 'not to come unto me,' and feeling tenderly towards himself
at this recollection, said they should be allowed to approach.

He rose, went to the railing beyond which the crowd had gathered, and
began blessing them and answering their questions, but in a voice so
weak that he was touched with pity for himself. Yet despite his wish to
receive them all he could not do it. Things again grew dark before his
eyes, and he staggered and grasped the railings. He felt a rush of blood
to his head and first went pale and then suddenly flushed.

'I must leave the rest till to-morrow. I cannot do more to-day,'
and, pronouncing a general benediction, he returned to the bench. The
merchant again supported him, and leading him by the arm helped him to
be seated.

'Father!' came voices from the crowd. 'Dear Father! Do not forsake us.
Without you we are lost!'

The merchant, having seated Father Sergius on the bench under the elm,
took on himself police duties and drove the people off very resolutely.
It is true that he spoke in a low voice so that Father Sergius might not
hear him, but his