And so as not to doze off and oversleep, I lay there and repeated the Creed, in the old way as it should be, and after each repetition I would add: “This is the apostolic faith, this is the catholic faith, on this faith the universe stands firm,”25 and then I’d start all over. I don’t know how many times I recited the Creed so as not to fall asleep, but it was many; and the little old man went on praying in his coffin, and it was as if light came through the cracks between the boards, and I could see him bowing, and then suddenly it was as if I began to hear a conversation and … a most inexplicable one: as if Levonty had come in, and he and the elder were talking about faith, but without words, just looking at each other and understanding. And this vision lasted for a long time, and I forgot to repeat the Creed, but it was as if I heard the elder say to the youth: “Go and purify yourself,” and the youth reply: “I will.” And I can’t say now whether this was in a dream or not, only afterwards I slept for a long time, and finally woke up and saw it was morning, fully light, and the elder, our host, the hermit, was sitting and poking with a spike at a bast shoe on his knee. I began to look closely at him.
Ah, how good! Ah, how spiritual! As if an angel were sitting before me and plaiting bast shoes, so as to appear simple to the world.
I gaze at him and see that he looks at me and smiles, and says:
“Enough sleeping, Mark, it’s time to go about your business.”
I answer:
“What is my business, godly man? Or do you know everything?”
“I do,” he says, “I do. When did a man ever make a long journey without any business? Everyone, brother, everyone is seeking the Lord’s path. May the Lord help you, help your humility!”
“What is my humility, holy man?” I say. “You are humble, but what humility is there in my vanity!”
But he replies:
“Ah, no, brother, I’m not humble: I’m a most impudent man, I wish for a share in the heavenly kingdom.”
And suddenly, having acknowledged his crime, he pressed his hands together and wept like a little child.
“Lord,” he prayed, “do not be angry with me for this willfulness: send me to the nethermost hell and order the demons to torment me as I deserve!”
“Well, no,” I think, “thank God, this isn’t Pamva, the sagacious hermit, this is just some mentally deranged old man.” I decided that, because who in his right mind could renounce the kingdom of heaven and pray that the Lord send him to be tormented by demons? Never in my life had I heard such a desire from anyone, and, counting it as madness, I turned away from the elderly weeping, considering it idolatrous grief. But, finally, I reasoned: what am I doing lying down, it’s time to get up, but suddenly I look, the door opens, and in comes my Levonty, whom I seem to have forgotten all about. And as soon as he comes in, he falls at the old man’s feet, and says:
“I have accomplished everything, father: bless me now!”
The elder looks at him and replies:
“Peace be unto you: rest.”
And my youth, I see, again bows down to him and leaves, and the hermit again starts plaiting his bast shoe.
Here I jumped up at once, thinking:
“No, I’ll go quickly and take Levonty, and we’ll flee from here without looking back!” And with that I went out to the little entry-way and saw my youth lying flat on his back on a plank bench with his arms crossed on his chest.
I asked him loudly, so as not to look alarmed:
“Do you know where I can get a splash of water to wash my face?” and in a whisper I added: “I adjure you by the living God, let’s get out of here quickly!”
Then I look closely at him and see that Levonty isn’t breathing … He’s passed away! … He’s dead! …
I howled in a voice not my own:
“Pamva! Father Pamva, you’ve killed my youth!”
But Pamva came out quietly to the porch and said with joy:
“Our Levonty’s flown off!”
I was even seized with rage.
“Yes,” I replied through my tears, “he’s flown off. You let his soul go like a dove from a cage!” And, throwing myself down at the dead boy’s feet, I lamented and wept over him all the way till evening, when monks came from the monastery, tidied up his remains, put them in a coffin, and carried them off, because that morning, while I slept like a sluggard, he had joined the Church.
Not one word more did I say to Father Pamva, and what could I have said to him? Treat him rudely and he blesses you; beat him and he bows down to you. A man of such humility is invincible! What has he to be afraid of, if he even prays to be sent to hell? No, it was not for nothing that I trembled and feared he would rot us the way gangrene rots fat. He could drive all the demons of hell away with his humility, or convert them to God! They’d torment him, and he’d beg: “Torture me harder, for I deserve it.” No, no! Even Satan couldn’t bear that humility! He’d bruise his hands on him, break all his claws, and realize his impotence before the Maker who created such love, and be ashamed.
So I decided to myself that this elder with the bast shoe was created to destroy hell! And I wandered all night in the forest, not knowing why I didn’t go further, and I kept thinking:
“How does he pray, in what manner, and with what books?”
And I remembered that I hadn’t seen a single icon in his cell, only a cross of sticks tied together with bast, and hadn’t seen any fat books …
“Lord,” I dared to reason, “if there are only two such men in the Church, we’re lost, for this one is all animated by love.”
And I kept thinking and thinking about him, and suddenly, before morning, I began to yearn to see him, if only for a moment, before leaving there.
And I had only just thought it, when suddenly I again heard the same crunching, and Father Pamva came out again with his axe and a bundle of wood and said:
“Why are you tarrying so long? Aren’t you in a hurry to build Babylon?”
These words seemed very bitter to me, and I said:
“Why do you reproach me with such words, old man? I’m not building any Babylon, and I shun the Babylonian abomination.”
And he replies:
“What is Babylon? A pillar of pride. Don’t be proud of the truth, lest the angel withdraw.”
I say:
“Father, do you know why I am going about?”
And I told him all our grief. And he listened, listened, and replied:
“The angel is gentle, the angel is meek, he clothes himself in whatever the Lord tells him to; he does whatever is appointed to him. That is the angel! He lives in the human soul, sealed by vain wisdom, but love will shatter the seal …”
And with that I saw him withdraw from me, and I couldn’t take my eyes from him and, unable to master myself, I fell prostrate on the ground behind him, and when I raised my face, I saw he was no longer there—either he went off into the trees, or … Lord knows what became of him.
Here I started ruminating on the sense of his words: “The angel lives in the soul, but sealed, and love will free him”—and suddenly I thought: “What if he himself is the angel, and God orders him to appear to me in another guise: I’ll die, like Levonty!” Having imagined that, I crossed the little river on some sort of stump, I don’t remember how myself, and broke into a run: forty miles I went without stopping, all in a fright, thinking whether I had seen an angel, and suddenly I stopped at one village and found the icon painter Sevastian. We talked everything over right then and decided to set out the next day, but we talked coldly and traveled still more coldly. And why? For one thing, because the icon painter Sevastian was a pensive man, and still more because I was no longer the same myself: the hermit Pamva hovered in my soul, and my lips whispered the words of the prophet Isaiah, that “the spirit of God is in this man’s nostrils.”26