ousha, who brought a censer and was
standing at the door; then, in the customary fashion, kissed the
priest and the aunts, and was about to retire to his room when he
heard Matriena Pavlovna, the old servant of Maria Ivanovna, making
preparations with Katiousha to go to church and witness the
consecration of the paschal bread. "I will go there, too," he thought.

There was no wagon or sleigh road to the church, so Nekhludoff gave
command, as he would in his own house, to have a horse saddled, and,
instead of going to bed, donned a brilliant uniform and tight
knee-breeches, threw on his military coat, and, mounting the snorting
and constantly neighing, heavy stallion, he drove off to the church in
the dark, over pools and snow mounds.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote B: Diminutive of Maria.]

[Footnote C: Diminutive of Sophia.]

[Footnote D: The Russian thou cannot be rendered into English with any
degree of accuracy. The greeting to which the impulsive Nekhludoff was
about to give expression is that used toward a beloved person.]

CHAPTER XV.

That morning service formed the brightest and most impressive
reminiscence of Nekhludoff's after life.

The darkness of the night was only relieved here and there by white
patches of snow, and as the stallion, splashing through the mud-pools,
and his ears pricked up at the sight of the fire-pots surrounding the
church, entered its inclosure, the service had already begun.

The peasants, recognizing Maria Ivanovna's nephew, led his horse to
the driest spot, where he dismounted, then they escorted him to the
church filled with a holiday crowd.

To the right were the male peasants; old men in homespun coats and
bast shoes, and young men in new cloth caftans, bright-colored belts
and boots. To the left the women, with red silk 'kerchiefs on their
heads, shag caftans with bright red sleeves, and blue, green, red,
striped and dotted skirts and iron-heeled shoes. Behind them stood the
more modest women in white 'kerchiefs and gray caftans and ancient
skirts, in shoes or bast slippers. Among these and the others were
dressed-up children with oiled hair. The peasants made the sign of the
cross and bowed, disheveling their hair; the women, especially the old
women, gazing with their lustreless eyes on one image, before which
candles burned, pressed hard with the tips of their fingers on the
'kerchief of the forehead, the shoulders and the abdomen, and,
mumbling something, bent fo