d of her
father. As for her mother, she regarded her with a feeling which she
could scarcely define, not being afraid of her, but not behaving
towards her caressingly. As for that, she did not caress even her
nurse, although she loved her with her whole heart. She and Agafia
were never apart. It was curious to see them together. Agafia, all in
black, with a dark handkerchief on her head, her face emaciated and of
a wax-like transparency, but still beautiful and expressive, would
sit erect on her chair, knitting stockings. At her feet Liza would be
sitting on a little stool, also engaged in some work, or, her clear
eyes uplifted with a serious expression, listening to what Agafia was
telling her. Agafia never told her nursery tales. With a calm and even
voice, she used to tell her about the life of the Blessed Virgin, or
the lives of the hermits and people pleasing to God, or about the
holy female martyrs. She would tell Liza how the saints lived in the
deserts; how they worked out their salvation, enduring hunger and
thirst; and how they did not fear kings, but confessed Christ; and how
the birds of the air brought them food, and the wild beasts obeyed
them; how from those spots where their blood had fallen flowers sprang
up. ("Were they carnations?" once asked Liza, who was very fond of
flowers.) Agafia spoke about these things to Liza seriously and
humbly, as if she felt that it was not for her to pronounce such
grand and holy words; and as Liza listened to her, the image of the
Omnipresent, Omniscient God entered with a sweet influence into her
very soul, filling her with a pure and reverend dread, and Christ
seemed to her to be close to her, and to be a friend, almost, as
it were, a relation. It was Agafia, also, who taught her to pray.
Sometimes she awoke Liza at the early dawn, dressed her hastily, and
secretly conveyed her to matins. Liza would follow her on tiptoe,
scarcely venturing to breathe. The cold, dim morning light, the raw
air pervading the almost empty church, the very secrecy of those
unexpected excursions, the cautious return home to bed--all that
combination of the forbidden, the strange, the holy, thrilled the
young girl, penetrated to the inmost depths of her being.

Agafia never blamed any one, and she never scolded Liza for any
childish faults. When she was dissatisfied about anything, she merely
kept silence, and Liza always understood that silence. With a child's
quick instinct, she also knew