? The bar is on the
door for all to see. Nature--the nightingales and the cockchafers--is
that bar. Perhaps the young man was right.' And he began to pray aloud.
He prayed for a long time till these thoughts vanished and he again felt
calm and confident. He rang the bell and told the attendant to say that
the merchant might bring his daughter to him now.

The merchant came, leading his daughter by the arm. He led her into the
cell and immediately left her.

She was a very fair girl, plump and very short, with a pale, frightened,
childish face and a much developed feminine figure. Father Sergius
remained seated on the bench at the entrance and when she was passing
and stopped beside him for his blessing he was aghast at himself for
the way he looked at her figure. As she passed by him he was acutely
conscious of her femininity, though he saw by her face that she was
sensual and feeble-minded. He rose and went into the cell. She was
sitting on a stool waiting for him, and when he entered she rose.

'I want to go back to Papa,' she said.

'Don't be afraid,' he replied. 'What are you suffering from?'

'I am in pain all over,' she said, and suddenly her face lit up with a
smile.

'You will be well,' said he. 'Pray!'

'What is the use of praying? I have prayed and it does no good'--and she
continued to smile. 'I want you to pray for me and lay your hands on me.
I saw you in a dream.'

'How did you see me?'

'I saw you put your hands on my breast like that.' She took his hand and
pressed it to her breast. 'Just here.'

He yielded his right hand to her.

'What is your name?' he asked, trembling all over and feeling that he
was overcome and that his desire had already passed beyond control.

'Marie. Why?'

She took his hand and kissed it, and then put her arm round his waist
and pressed him to herself.

'What are you doing?' he said. 'Marie, you are a devil!'

'Oh, perhaps. What does it matter?'

And embracing him she sat down with him on the bed.

At dawn he went out into the porch.

'Can this all have happened? Her father will come and she will tell him
everything. She is a devil! What am I to do? Here is the axe with which
I chopped off my finger.' He snatched up the axe and moved back towards
the cell.

The attendant came up.

'Do you want some wood chopped? Let me have the axe.'

Sergius yielded up the axe and entered the cell. She was lying
there asleep. He looked at her with horror, and passed