Abbot Silouan gets up and goes to the brother who was pretending to be crazy. Without knocking, he slowly opens the door and snaps at the brother.
He sat down to do his spiritual work and had two baskets, one on the right and the other on the left. Seeing the Elder, he started laughing as he usually did. And the Elder says to him,
"Leave them now and tell me what your exercise is."
He was laughing again. Abbot Silouan continued:
"You know very well that except Saturday and Sunday I do not leave the cell; but now I came in midweek, because God sent me here."
He was afraid of the brother and repenting to his elder says:
"Forgive me, father. Every morning I start my spiritual work with these pebbles in front of me.
If I get a good thought, I throw a pebble in the right basket, if a cunning thought comes, I throw it in the left.
In the afternoon I count the pebbles; and if the right is more, I eat; but if the left is more, I don't eat.
Next day again if I get sly accounting, I say to myself: "Watch what you do, because you won't eat again."
Abbot Silouan marvelled at what he had heard and said:
"Indeed the Fathers who came today were holy angels, who wanted to make known the virtue of the brother ..."
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