She understood that he had become a monk in order to be above those who considered themselves his superiors. And she understood him correctly. By becoming a monk he showed contempt for all that seemed most important to others and had seemed so to him while he was in the service, and he now ascended a height from which he could look down on those he had formerly envied.⁠ ⁠… But it was not this alone, as his sister Varvára supposed, that influenced him. There was also in him something else⁠—a sincere religious feeling which Varvára did not know, which intertwined itself with the feeling of pride and the desire for preeminence, and guided him. His disillusionment with Mary, whom he had thought of angelic purity, and his sense of injury, were so strong that they brought him to despair, and the despair led him⁠—to what? To God, to his childhood’s faith which had never been destroyed in him.