Page:Leo Tolstoy - Father Sergius and Other Stories and Plays - ed. Charles Theodore Hagberg Wright (1911).djvu/117

 Rh They asked the soldier. He answered that he was alone in the world, and belonged to nowhere.

They asked Kasatsky who he was.

"A servant of God."

"Qu'est-ce qu'il dit? Il ne répond pas?"

"Il dit qu'il est un serviteur de Dieu."

"Il doit être un fils de prêtre. Il a de la race. Avez-vous de la petite monnaie?"

The Frenchman had some change, and gave each of them twenty kopeks.

"Mais dites-leur que ce n'est pas pour les cierges que je leur donne, mais pour qu'ils se régalent du thé. Tea—tea," he said, with a smile. "Pour vous, mon vieux." And he patted Kasatsky on the shoulder with his gloved hand.

"Christ save you," said Kasatsky, and without putting on his hat, bent his bald head.

Kasatsky rejoiced particularly in this incident, because he had shown contempt for the world's opinion, and had done something quite trifling and easy. He accepted twenty kopeks, and gave them afterwards to a blind beggar who was a friend of his.

The less he cared for the opinion of the world the more he felt that God was with him.

For eight months Kasatsky tramped in this fashion, until at last he was arrested in a provincial