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Father Sergius

Leo Tolstoy

Posthumous story of Prince Stepan Kasatsky, a brilliant officer who becomes a monk on learning that his fiancée was the tsar's mistress. Revered as a holy hermit, he cuts off a finger to resist a temptress but falls years later with a sick girl. He flees, lives as an anonymous pilgrim and finds holiness in a poor relative who lives for others without thinking of herself. Written 1890–1898, published 1911.