“I had the parents go outside. When I remained alone with Jesus, I caressed his hand and asked him, ‘What is the matter, my child? Where does it hurt?’
“‘Here, here . . .’ he replied, pointing to his heart.
“‘And what’s wrong with you?’
“‘I can’t sleep, eat, or work. I roam the streets, wrestling.’
“‘Who are you wrestling with?’
“‘With God. Who else do you expect me to be wrestling with!’
“I kept him near me for a month, addressed him ever so gently, gave him herbs to make him sleep. I placed him in a carpenter’s shop to learn a trade. We went out for walks together and I spoke to him about God, as though He were a friend and neighbor who came in the evening to sit with us on our doorstep and chat. There was nothing impressive or difficult about these talks. We spoke of the weather, of the wheatfields and vineyards, the young girls who went to the fountain . . .
“At the end of a month’s time, Jesus was completely cured. He no longer wrestled with God; he had become a man like all other men. He departed for Galilee, and I learned afterwards that he had become a fine carpenter, the best in Nazareth.”
The monk glanced at me.
“Do you understand?” he asked. “Jesus was cured. Instead of saving the world, he became the best carpenter in Nazareth! What is the meaning, then, of ‘disease’ and ‘health’? . . . Well, enough of all that—let’s change the subject! . . . You seem tired. Sit down.”
I sat down on a stool beneath the icon. I kept gazing at the monk’s bare feet on the paving stones, their delicate bone structure, slender ankles, long aristocratic toes. The lamplight made them glow like ancient marble turned reddish blond by the sun.
He retreated two steps, then returned and stood in front of me, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Look up,” he said in a caressing voice, as though speaking to a small child. “Regard me well. Don’t you remember me?”
“I never set eyes on you in my life,” I replied with astonishment.
“Nothing fades from a child’s mind. Surely my face still exists somewhere deep down in your memory. Not this aged, shriveled one, but another—handsome, firm, and manly. Listen: I spent one summer in Crete, when you were not quite five years old. I was a wholesaler in those days, dealing in citrons, carob beans, and raisins. Your father was one of my suppliers. Is he still alive?”
“Yes, but he’s old, bent, and toothless now. He sits on the couch all day long and reads the Prayer Book.”
“Most unjust!” shouted the monk, raising his hands. “Bodies like his should never deteriorate; they should fall down dead all of a sudden while they are walking and the ground is crunching beneath them. Death is the work of God, the name of the spot where God touches man; but bodily deterioration is the treacherous, dishonest work of the devil. . . . Can it really be true that Captain Michael is old and decrepit?”
He remained silent for some time. His eyes had grown ferocious. But soon he took a breath and continued.
“Your father used to buy raisins, citrons, and carobs on account for me. I loaded ships and sent them to Trieste. I did very well, earned money hand over fist, and flung away just as much. I was a wild beast who could never have his fill of eating, drinking, and fornicating. I had sold my soul to Satan; my body was left master-less and unbridled. I sneered at God, called Him a bogeyman and scarecrow able to do nothing more than frighten away brainless sparrows and keep them from pecking in gardens. Each evening after I finished work, I devoted myself to shameless carousing until dawn.
“Now, try to remember: early one morning you were standing in front of your father’s shop when all of a sudden you heard singing, laughter, and a coach-in-four speeding along at a frantic pace. Turning, you saw a half-dozen inebriated women—café singers-all shrieking and guffawing at the top of their lungs while they flung walnuts and figs at the people in the street. The driver was a majestic figure with a shiny top hat; he whipped the horses maniacally, and they whinnied with excitement and galloped. Then you felt afraid; you thought they were coming straight for you, and you screamed and ran to hide behind your father’s apron. . . . Do you remember? Does it come back to you now? The drunken coachman was me. I had on a top hat, I tell you—a ‘stove pipe’—and in order to tease you I directed the whip right at you and snapped it in the air. . . . Now do you remember?”
He bent over, placed his hand on my shoulder and gave me a shove.
“Do you remember?”
I had closed my eyes. While listening to him, I had been struggling to push aside the layer upon layer of memories stowed on top of my childhood years. Little by little the darkness thinned, and suddenly the four horses, the drunken “chanteuses,” the frightening top hat, and the cracking of the whip above my head all bounded, fully alive, out of the deeps of my memory.
“Yes, yes,” I cried. “I remember! And was it you, Father? You?”
But the old monk did not hear me. He had leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. It was thus, with lowered eyelids, that he continued.
“One morning I found I’d had enough. The fleshly round is not very extensive; it comes quickly to an end. You eat, drink, kiss, eat again, drink again, kiss again—and there is no place else to go. In the end, I tell you, I found I’d had enough. Remembering my soul, I stepped into a carriage and went to a monastery on Mount Athos. I stayed three months. Prayer, fasting, matins, Divine Liturgy; work detail, barley bread, rancid olives, baked beans—I soon became sick of it all. I sent for the coachman again; he arrived and took me away. But what was I to do in the world now? It had not a single joy to offer me any more, not a single untasted sin. I returned to the monastery, but I instructed the coachman to remain nearby this time, to wait in the nearest village in case I should need him. And indeed before long I did need him. Once again I absconded from the monastery.
“My life had degenerated until it became unbearable. I was suspended between heaven and earth, swinging from one to the other and rejected by both. I went to an old ascetic who lived far from monasteries, in a cave dug into a cliff jutting over the sea, and had him confess me.
“‘What shall I do, holy Father? Give me some advice?’
“The old ascetic placed his hand on my head. ‘Be patient, my child; do not be hasty. Haste is one of the devil’s snares. Wait calmly, with faith.’
“‘How long?’
“‘Until salvation ripens in you. Allow time for the sour grape to turn to honey.’
“‘And how shall I know, Father, when the sour grape has turned to honey.’
“‘One morning you will rise and see that the world has changed. But you will have changed, my child, not the world. Salvation will have ripened in you. At that point surrender yourself to God, and you shall never betray Him.’
“That is exactly what happened. One morning I opened my window. Dawn was just breaking, the morning star still twinkling in the sky. The calm sea sighed lightly and tenderly as it broke along the shore line. We were still in the heart of winter, yet a medlar tree in front of my window had blossomed; its aroma was peppery, as sweet as honey. It had rained during the night; the leaves were still dripping, and the whole earth glittered contentedly. ‘Lord, O Lord, what a miracle this is,’ I murmured, and I began to weep. It was then that I understood: salvation had arrived. I came here to the desert and buried myself inside this cell with its humble bed, its jug of water, its two little stools. Now I am waiting. Waiting for what? God forgive me, but I really do not know very well. This doesn’t bother me, however. Whatever comes will be welcome. I believe that in any event I shall come out ahead. If the afterlife actually exists, I will have managed to repent at the last moment. (Did not Christ give us His word that repentance even a split second before death brings salvation?) If on the other hand the afterlife does not exist, at least I will have enjoyed this life, squeezed the juice out of it and thrown it over my shoulder like a lemon rind. . . . Do you understand? What are you thinking abo
ut?”
“I was wondering why you invited me to your cell tonight, Father. Surely you wanted to tell me something else besides this.”
He tilted the jug, filled a cup with water, and took a sip. Since he had been unaccustomed to talking for so many years, his throat must have grown parched.
“Of course I wanted to tell you something else, but first you had to learn who I was. Only thus can you understand what I want to tell you, and realize that I have the right to tell it to you.”
He fell silent for a moment, but then, weighing his words, he added in a voice filled with emotion, “Not only the right, but the duty!”
I raised my eyes to look at him. He was standing stiff and straight now in the middle of the cell, like a column. I looked at him and marveled. What joys, what humiliations this man had tasted, what impudence he had displayed in challenging the Almighty. I marveled at how he had entered the desert without deigning to forget, how he had bravely allowed the caravan of his sins to follow behind him so that, full of confidence, he and they could march all together toward God.
He remained silent, apparently struggling to choose what to say and how to say it without wounding me. For he saw me squirming nervously on my stool.
“I want you to know,” he declared at last, “that of all the world’s joys—and it has many, curse it!—youth is the one I revere the most. When I see a young person in danger I feel that God’s vanguard, indeed the whole of life, is in danger also. I run to help, as far as I am able—to help keep youth from perishing, in other words from going astray, shedding its flowers, and growing old prematurely. This is the reason I called you to my cell tonight.”
I gave a start.
“What, am I in danger?” I asked, not knowing whether to become angry or break out laughing.
The old man moved his hand slowly back and forth to calm me.
“Be angry, laugh, get it out of your system—but listen carefully. I am talking to you out of bitter personal experience; it is your duty to listen. For seven days I have watched you circling God’s flame like a nocturnal butterfly. I don’t want to let you be consumed; no, not you, I repeat, but youth. I pity your cheeks which are still covered with fuzz, your lips which are still not surfeited with kisses or blasphemy, your guileless soul which darts forward to be consumed wherever it spies a glint of light. But I will not let you. You are at the edge of the abyss. I will not let you fall.”
“Whose abyss?”
“God’s.”
The cell creaked as he pronounced that terrible word. Some invisible being had entered. Never had this word which I had uttered so often and so profanely, never had it provoked such fright in me. Alive once more inside me was the childhood terror I felt when I heard the word Jehovah issue as though from a dark clamorous cave, the same terror which the word massacre had aroused in me ever since my childhood.
I rose from the stool and huddled in a corner.
“Do not stop, Father,” I murmured. “I am listening.”
“Inside you there is a great devouring concern. I see it in your burning eyes, your incessantly fluttering eyebrows, your hands which grope in the air as though you were blind, or as though the air were a body and you were touching it. Take care. This anxiety can lead you either to madness or perfection.”
I felt his glance pass into me and churn up my entrails.
“What anxiety? I don’t know what anxiety you mean, Father.”
“The anxiety about sainthood. Do not become frightened. You yourself are unaware of it because you are living it. Why do I tell you this? It is to enable you to realize what road you have taken, which direction you have chosen. To keep you from going astray. Though you have embarked on the most difficult of all ascents, you are in such a hurry to reach the top that you think you can accomplish this before you traverse the mountain’s foot and sides, supposedly as if you were a winged eagle. But you are a man and don’t forget it. A man—nothing more, nothing less. You have legs, not wings. Yes, I know: man’s supreme desire is for sanctity. Well and good, but first we must traverse all the lower desires, we must learn to despise the flesh, and also the thirst for power, gold, and rebellion. What I mean is, we should live our youth and all the manly passions to the hilt, should disembowel all these idols and discover that they are overstuffed with chaff and air, should empty and cleanse ourselves so that we will never be tempted to look back. Then, and only then, should we present ourselves before God. . . . This is how the true Striver acts.”
“I can never cease wrestling with God,” I replied. “I shall be wrestling with Him even at the very last moment when I present myself before Him. I believe this is my fate. Not to reach my destination—this I shall never do—but to wrestle.”
Coming close, he tapped me tenderly on the shoulder.
“Never cease wrestling with God. There is no better discipline. But do not assume that in order to wrestle with more confidence you must pluck out the dark roots inside you—the instincts. The sight of a woman frightens you to death. You say it is the Tempter—’Get thee behind me, Satan.’ Yes, it is the Tempter, but if you wish to conquer temptation, there is only one way: embrace it, taste it, learn to despise it. Then it will not tempt you again. Otherwise, though you live a hundred years, if you have not enjoyed women, they will come whether you are sleeping or stirring and will soil your dreams and your soul. I have said it once and I say it again: whoever uproots his instincts uproots his strength—for with time, satiety, and discipline this dark matter may turn to spirit.”
He glanced around him and stepped up to the window, as though afraid that someone might be listening. Then, coming close to me, he whispered in a hushed voice, “I still have something else to tell you. We are alone; no one can hear us.”
“God can,” I said.
“I fear men, not God. He understands and forgives, they do not—and under no circumstances do I want to lose the tranquility I found here in the desert. . . . Listen, therefore, and bear firmly in mind what I am going to tell you. I am sure that it will help you.”
He stopped for a moment, half closed his eyes, and glanced at me through his eyelashes, as though weighing me.
“I wonder if you can stand it,” he murmured.
“I can, I can,” I answered with impatience. “Speak freely, Father.”
He lowered his voice still more.
“Angels are nothing more—do you hear!—nothing more than refined devils. The day will come—oh, if only I could live to see it!—when men will understand this, and then . . .”
He leaned over to my ear. For the first time, his voice was trembling.
“ . . . and then the religion of Christ will take another step forward on earth. It will embrace the whole man, all of him, not just half as it does now in embracing only the soul. Christ’s mercy will broaden. It will embrace and sanctify the body as well as the soul; it will see—and preach—that they are not enemies, but fellow workers. Whereas now, what happens? If we sell ourselves to the devil, he urges us to deny the soul; if we sell ourselves to God, He urges us to deny the body. When will Christ’s heart grow sufficiently broad to commiserate not only the soul but also the body, and to reconcile these two savage beasts?”
I was deeply moved.
“Thank you, Father, for the precious gift you have given me.”
“Until this moment I have sought a young man to whom I could entrust it before I died. Now, praise the Lord, you have come. Take it. It is the fruit of my entire apprenticeship to flesh and spirit.”
“You are rendering up the flame of your entire life. Will I be able to carry it still further and turn it into light?”
“You should not ask if you will succeed or not. That isn’t what matters the most. The only thing that matters is your struggle to carry it further. God reckons that—the assault—to our account and nothing else. Whether we win or lose is His affair, not ours.”
Neither of us spoke for quite some time. The desert night with its innumerable disquieting voices passe
d outside the cell’s tiny window. Jackals could be heard howling in the distance; they too were undergoing the pangs of love or hunger.
“It is the desert,” murmured the old man, making the sign of the cross, “the goatsuckers and jackals, and farther away, the lions. And inside the monastery, the monks sleeping and dreaming. And in the sky above us, the stars. And everywhere, God.”
He offered me his hand. “I have nothing else to tell you, my child.”
Walking with weightless steps, I returned to my cell, my mind clear, my heart beating calmly. Father Joachim’s words were a glass of refreshing water, and I had been thirsty. The coolness branched to the very marrow of my backbone.
Gathering together my things, I tied them into a bundle and threw them over my back. I opened the door. Day must have commenced, because the sky had turned milky and the smallest of the stars had begun to fade. Down in the ravine a partridge started cackling.
Deeply inhaling the hallowed dawn, I crossed myself and murmured, “In God’s name.”
I proceeded along the cloister walk once again. The light was still burning in the old man’s cell. I knocked. I heard his bare feet sliding over the flagstones. He opened the door and looked at me. Seeing the bundle over my back, he smiled.
“I am leaving, Father,” I said, bending over to kiss his hand. “Give me your blessing.”
He placed his palm over my hair.
“Bless you, my son. Go, and the Lord be with you!”
22
GRETE
I HAD GROWN weary. I was young, after all, and youth’s insatiability is burdensome. It will not condescend to acknowledge man’s limits; it seeks much but is capable of little. Having struggled to attain these limits and grown weary of the struggle, I returned to the land of my fathers. I wanted to confront our mountains, see our aged standard-bearers with their tilted fezzes and broad laughter, and hear once more of wars and liberty. I wanted to tread my native soil in order to gain strength.