Family Happiness by Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy (ereader with android txt) 📕

The Fast of the Assumption falling in august, no one in the house was

surprised by my intention of fasting.

During the whole of the week he never once came to see us; but, far from

being surprised or vexed or made uneasy by his absence, I was glad of it — I

did not expect him until my birthday. Each day during the week I got up

early. while the horses were being harnessed, I walked in the garden alone,

turning over in my mind the sins of the day before, and considering what I

must do today, so as to be satisfied with my day and not spoil it by a

singlesin. It seemed so easy to me then to abstain from sin altogether; only

a trifling effort seemed necessary. When the horses came round, I got into

the carriage with Katya or one of the maids, and we drove to the church two

miles away. While entering the church, I always recalled the paryer for

those who “come unto the Temple in the fear of God”, and tried to get just

that frame of mind when mounting the two grass-grown steps up to the

building. At that hour there were not more than a dozen worshippers —

household servants or peasant women keeping the Fast. They bowed to me, and

I returned their bows with studied humility. Then, with what seemed to me a

great effort of courage, I went myself and got candles from the man who kept

them, an old soldier and an Elder; and I placed the candles before the

icons. throught the central door of the altar-screen I could see the altar

cloth which my mother had worked; on the screen were the two angels which

had seemed so big to me when I was little, and the dove with a golden halo

which had fascinated me long ago. Behind the choir stood the old batter

font, where I had been christened myself and stood godmother to so many of

the servants’ children. the old priest came out, wearing a cope made of the

pall that had covered my father’s coffin, and began to read in the same

voice that I had heard all my life — at services held in our house, at

Sonya’s christening, at memorial services for my father, and at my mother’s

funeral. The same old quavering voice of the deacon rose in the choir; and

the same old woman, whom I could remember at every service in that church,

crouched by the wall, fising her streaming eyes on an icon in the choir,

pressing her folded fingers against her faded kerchief, and muttering with

her toothless gums. And these objects were no longer merely curious to me,

merely interesting from old recollections — each had become important and

sacred in my eyes and seemed charged with profound meaning. I listened to

each word of the prayrers and tried to suit my feeling to it; and if I

failed to understand, I prayed silently that God would enlighten me, or made

up a prayer of my own in place of what I had failed to catch. When the

penitential prayers were repeated, I recalled my past life, and that

innocent childish past seemed to me so black when compared to the present

brightness of my soul, that I wept and was horrified at myself; but I felt

too that all those sins would be forgiven, and that if my sins had been even

greater, my repentance would be all the sweeter. At the end of the service

when the priest said, “The blessing of the Lord be upon you!” I semed to

feel an immediate sensation of physical well-being, of a mysterious light

and warmth that instantly filled my heart. The service over, the priest came

and asked me whether he should come to our house to say Mass, and what hour

would suit me; and I thanked him for the suggestion, intended, as I thought,

to please me, but said that I would come to church instead, walking or

driving.

“Is that not too much trouble?” he asked. and I was at a loss for an answer,

fearing to commit a sin of pride.

After the Mass, if Katya was not with me, I always sent the carriage home

and walked back alone, bowing humbly to all who passed, and trying to find

an opportunity of giving help or advice. I was eager to sacrifice myself for

someone, to help in lifting a fallen cart, to rock a child’s cradle, to give

up the path to others by stepping into the mud. One evening I heard the

bailiff report to Katya that Simon, one of our serfs, had come to beg some

boards to make a coffin for his daughter, and a ruble to pay the priest for

the funeral; the bailiff had given what he asked. “Are they as poor as

that?” I asked. “Very poor, Miss,” the bailiff answered; “they have no salt

to their food.” My heart ached to hear this, and yet I felt a kind of

pleasure too. Pretending to katya that I was merely going for a walk, I ran

upstairs, got out all my money (it was very little but it was all I had),

crossed myself, and started off alone, through the veranda and the garden,

on my way to Simon’s hut. It stood at the end of the village, and no one saw

me as I went up to the window, placed the money on the sill, and tapped on

the pane. Someone came out, making the door creak, and hailed me; but I

hurried home, cold and chaking with fear like a criminal. Katya asked where

I had been and what was the matter with me; but I did not answer, and did

not even understand what she was saying. Everything suddenly seemed to me so

pety and insignificant. I locked myself up in my own room, and walked up and

down alone for a long time, unable