Selected Stories of Anton Chekov - By Anton Chekhov Page 0,123

of creating such phenomena. But why are you looking at me with such rapture? Do you like me?”

“Yes. You are one of the few who are justly called the chosen of God. You serve the eternal truth. Your thoughts and intentions, your astonishing science and your whole life bear a divine, heavenly imprint, because they are devoted to the reasonable and the beautiful—that is, to what is eternal.”

“You said: the eternal truth … But can people attain to eternal truth and do they need it, if there is no eternal life?”

“There is eternal life,” said the monk.

“You believe in people’s immortality?”

“Yes, of course. A great, magnificent future awaits you people. And the more like you there are on earth, the sooner that future will be realized. Without you servants of the higher principle, who live consciously and freely, mankind would be insignificant; developing in natural order, it would wait a long time for the end of its earthly history. But you will lead it into the kingdom of eternal truth several thousand years earlier—and in that lies your high worth. You incarnate in yourselves the blessing of God that rests upon people.”

“And what is the goal of eternal life?” asked Kovrin.

“The same as of any life—enjoyment. True enjoyment is in knowledge, and eternal life will provide countless and inexhaustible sources for knowledge, and in that sense it is said: ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions.’”5

“If you only knew how nice it is to listen to you!” said Kovrin, rubbing his hands with pleasure.

“I’m very glad.”

“But I know: when you leave, I’ll be troubled by the question of your essence. You’re a phantom, a hallucination. Meaning that I’m mentally ill, abnormal?”

“Suppose you are. What is so troubling? You’re ill because you worked beyond your strength and got tired, and that means you sacrificed your health to an idea, and the time is near when you will also give your life to it. What could be better? That is generally what all noble natures, endowed from on high, strive for.”

“If I know that I am mentally ill, then can I believe myself?”

“And how do you know that people of genius, whom the whole world believes, did not also see phantoms? Learned men now say that genius is akin to madness. My friend, only the ordinary herd people are healthy and normal. Reflections on this nervous age, fatigue, degeneracy, and so on, can seriously worry only those who see the goal of life in the present, that is, herd people.”

“The Romans said: mens sana in corpore sano.”6

“Not everything that the Romans or Greeks said was true. An exalted state, excitement, ecstasy—all that distinguishes the prophets, the poets, the martyrs for an idea, from ordinary people—runs counter to the animal side of man, that is, to his physical health. I repeat: if you want to be healthy and normal, join the herd.”

“Strange, you’re repeating what often goes through my own head,” said Kovrin. “It’s as if you had spied and eavesdropped on my innermost thoughts. But let’s not talk about me. What do you mean by eternal truth?”

The monk did not reply. Kovrin looked at him and could not make out his face: his features were dim and blurred. Then the monk’s head and hands began to disappear; his body mingled with the bench and the evening twilight, and he vanished completely.

“The hallucination is over!” said Kovrin, and he laughed. “Too bad.”

He went back to the house cheerful and happy. The little that the black monk had said to him had flattered not his vanity but his whole soul, his whole being. To be a chosen one, to serve the eternal truth, to stand in the ranks of those who will make mankind worthy of the Kingdom of God several thousand years earlier, that is, deliver people from several thousand extra years of struggle, sin, and suffering, to give everything to that idea—youth, strength, health, to be ready to die for the common good—what a lofty, what a happy fate! His past, pure, chaste, filled with toil, raced through his memory, he remembered all that he had studied and what he taught others, and he decided that there was no exaggeration in the monk’s words.

Tanya came walking towards him through the park. She was wearing a different dress.

“You’re here?” she said. “And we’ve been looking and looking for you … But what’s the matter?” she said in surprise, seeing his rapturous, radiant face and his eyes brimming with tears. “You’re so strange, Andryusha.”

“I’m