This story follows the character Andrey Kovrin, a Russian scholar who is seemingly brilliant. In the beginning of the story, Kovrin is overworked and his nerves are off. He is invited to take a break in the country at the home where he grew up. The place is gorgeous, with expansive gardens and orchards – it is the lifework of Yegor, his former guardian, who lives and works there with his daughter, Tanya. When Tanya and Kovrin were children, Yegor became Kovrin's carer when both his parents died. Both think very highly of Kovrin and are very excited about his arrival. Kovrin learns how much work it is to take care of the garden, and develops a deep appreciation for it. Then he starts seeing a black monk, whose appearance borders on the supernatural, and begins to question his sanity. The black monk convinces Kovrin that he is chosen by God for a special purpose – that he has the power to save mankind from millennia of suffering using his genius, and that his recent ill health is inevitable for someone making such noble sacrifices.
Yegor expresses to Kovrin that the only man he could trust to marry his daughter is Kovrin himself, convinced that any other man would take her away and his life's work would fall into ruin. They marry and, in time, Kovrin's wife notices his hallucinations, since he often converses with the black monk. She "cures" Kovrin over time, but he becomes convinced that without the black monk's "guidance", he is doomed to mediocrity instead of genius. He becomes bitter and antagonistic towards his loved ones, and eventually the couple splits up. His physical health deteriorating rapidly because of tuberculosis, he moves in with a woman who takes care of him. The story ends with Kovrin experiencing one final hallucination while he hemorrhages; the black monk guides him toward incorporeal genius and he dies with a smile.
Quotes
- "I exist in your imagination, and your imagination is part of nature, so I exist in nature." (The Black Monk)
- ["And what is the object of eternal life?" (Kovrin)]—"As of all life—enjoyment. True enjoyment lies in knowledge, and eternal life provides innumerable and inexhaustible sources of knowledge, and in that sense it has been said: 'In My Father's house there are many mansions.' " (The Black Monk)
- "My friend, healthy and normal people are only the common herd... Exaltation, enthusiasm, ecstasy—all that distinguishes prophets, poets, martyrs for the idea, from the common folk—is repellent to the animal side of man—that is, his physical health. I repeat, if you want to be healthy and normal, go to the common herd." (The Black Monk)
- "Why, why have you cured me? Preparations of bromide, idleness, hot baths, supervision, cowardly consternation at every mouthful, at every step—all this will reduce me at last to idiocy. I went out of my mind, I had megalomania; but then I was... interesting and original. Now I have become more sensible and stolid, but I am just like every one else: I am—mediocrity..." (Kovrin)
