A CONFESSION [28]
shore, shown the direction of the opposite shore, had oars put into
my unpractised hands, and was left alone. I rowed as best I could
and moved forward; but the further I advanced towards the middle of
the stream the more rapid grew the current bearing me away from my
goal and the more frequently did I encounter others, like myself,
borne away by the stream. There were a few rowers who continued to
row, there were others who had abandoned their oars; there were
large boats and immense vessels full of people. Some struggled
against the current, others yielded to it. And the further I went
the more, seeing the progress down the current of all those who
were adrift, I forgot the direction given me. In the very centre
of the stream, amid the crowd of boats and vessels which were being
borne down stream, I quite lost my direction and abandoned my oars.
Around me on all sides, with mirth and rejoicing, people with sails
and oars were borne down the stream, assuring me and each other
that no other direction was possible. And I believed them and
floated with them. And I was carried far; so far that I heard the
roar of the rapids in which I must be shattered, and I saw boats
shattered in them. And I recollected myself. I was long unable to
understand what had happened to me. I saw before me nothing but
destruction, towards which I was rushing and which I feared. I saw
no safety anywhere and did not know what to do; but, looking back,
I perceived innumerable boats which unceasingly and strenuously
pushed across the stream, and I remembered about the shore, the
oars, and the direction, and began to pull back upwards against the
stream and towards the whore.
That shore was God; that direction was tradition; the oars
were the freedom given me to pull for the shore and unite with God.
And so the force of life was renewed in me and I again began to
live.
XIII
I turned from the life of our circle, acknowledging that ours
is not life but a simulation of life -- that the conditions of
superfluity in which we live deprive us of the possibility of
understanding life, and that in order to understand life I must
understand not an exceptional life such as our who are parasites on
life, but the life of the simple labouring folk -- those who make
life -- and the meaning which they attribute to it. The simplest
labouring people around me were the Russian people, and I turned to
them and to the meaning of life which they give. That meaning, if
one can put it into words, was as follows: Every man has come into
this world by the will of God. And God has so made man that every
man can destroy his soul or save it. The aim of man in life is to
save his soul, and to save his soul he must live "godly" and to
live "godly" he must renounce all the pleasures of life, must
labour, humble himself, suffer, and be merciful. That meaning the
people obtain from the whole teaching of faith transmitted to them
by their pastors and by the traditions that live among the people.
This meaning was clear to me and near to my heart. But together
with this meaning of the popular faith of our non-sectarian folk,
among whom I live, much was inseparably bound up that revolted me
and seemed to me inexplicable: sacraments, Church services, fasts,
and the adoration of relics and icons. The people cannot separate
the one from the other, nor could I. And strange as much of what
entered into the faith of these people was to me, I accepted
everything, and attended the services, knelt morning and evening in
prayer, fasted, and prepared to receive the Eucharist: and at first
my reason did not resist anything. The very things that had
formerly seemed to me impossible did not now evoke in me any
opposition.
My relations to faith before and after were quite different.
Formerly life itself seemed to me full of meaning and faith
presented itself as the arbitrary assertion of propositions to me
quite unnecessary, unreasonable, and disconnected from