[CHAPTER IX]
The first days of my cloistral novitiate were not easy. The bakery was in the cellar under the refectory; the ceiling was low and vaulted, and its one window was nailed tightly. The air was suffocating. The dust from the flour hung in the cellar like a thick mist, in which Misha trotted back and forth like a bear on a chain. The flame in the oven burned unclearly; it was a nightmare, not work.
Only we two were down there, for it was seldom that any one was sent as a punishment to help us.
There was no time even to attend religious services.
Day after day Misha preached his sermon to me, and I felt as if I were being bound with stout ropes. He was all aflame and burned with wrath against the world, while I breathed in his words and I felt that my inmost heart was covered with soot.
"You have nothing more to do with man," he said. "They continue to commit sins out there in the world, but you have left the world forever. If you separated from it with your body, then you must also flee it in spirit. You must forget it. If you think of man, you think unwillingly of woman. And through woman the world has sunk into darkness and sin and is bound eternally."
I wanted to say something, but no sooner did I open my mouth than he shouted at me:
"Keep still! Listen attentively to what an experienced man has to say, and respect your elders! I know you were going to blab something about the mother of God again. But it was just on account of her that Christ died on the crucifix—because He was born of woman, and did not descend holy and pure from heaven. He was altogether too good to that nasty woman all his life, and he should have pushed the Samaritan into the well instead of conversing with her. And He should have been the first to throw a stone at the sinner. Then the world would have been free."
"That is not a church thought," I said.
"Again I tell you, keep still. The church is entirely in the hands of a pale clergy, who are slaves to all sorts of debauchery and who themselves go around in silk clothes like women in petticoats. They are all heretics. They should dance quadrilles, not dictate religious laws. Moreover, is it possible for a man with a wife to think upon God-like things with a pure heart? No, he cannot, for he is committing the terrible sin on account of which the Lord drove him out of the Garden of Eden. And because of this sin we are damned to eternal punishment; sentenced to howl and to gnash our teeth, and we are blinded by it so that we cannot see the countenance of God from one eternity to another. The clergy themselves help spread this sin, for they have children with women and encourage the world to follow their bad example. And thus they change all the laws of God to justify their violations of them."