During this whole week Sergius Mikaïlovitch did not once come to see us, and far from being surprised, alarmed, or angry with him, I was content, and did not expect him before my birthday. Throughout this week I rose very early every day, and while the horses were being harnessed I walked in the garden, alone, meditating¹ upon the past, and thinking what I must do in order that the evening should find me satisfied with my day, and proud of having committed no faults.

 

When the horses were ready, I entered the droschky, accompanied by Macha or a maid-servant, and drove about three versts to church. In entering the church, I never failed to remember that we pray there for all those “who enter this place in the fear of God,” and I strove to rise to the level of this thought, above all when my feet first touched the two grass-grown steps of the porch. At this hour there were not usually in the church more than ten or a dozen persons, peasants and droroviés, preparing to make their devotions; I returned their salutations with marked humility², and went myself, (which I regarded as an act of superior merit,) to the drawer where the wax tapers³ were kept, received a few from the hand of the old soldier who performed the office of staroste, and placed them before the images. Through the door of the sanctuary⁴ I could see the altar-cloth Mamma had embroidered⁵, and above the iconstase two angels spangled with stars, which I had considered magnificent when I was a little girl; and a dove surrounded by a gilded⁶ aureole which, at that same period, often used to absorb my attention. Behind the choir⁷ I caught a glimpse of the embossed fonts near which I had so often held the children of our droroviés, and where I myself had received baptism. The old priest appeared, wearing a chasuble cut from cloth which had been the

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