gh
and exclaim, and make offerings of money. 'A treasure you've pitched
on,' answered the Mother Superior--(she was angry, she disliked Lizaveta
dreadfully)--'Lizaveta only sits there out of spite, out of pure
obstinacy, it is nothing but hypocrisy.' I didn't like this; I was
thinking at the time of shutting myself up too. 'I think,' said I, 'that
God and nature are just the same thing.' They all cried out with
one voice at me, 'Well, now!' The Mother Superior laughed, whispered
something to the lady and called me up, petted me, and the lady gave me
a pink ribbon. Would you like me to show it to you? And the monk began
to admonish me. But he talked so kindly, so humbly, and so wisely, I
suppose. I sat and listened. 'Do you understand?' he asked. 'No,' I
said, 'I don't understand a word, but leave me quite alone.' Ever since
then they've left me in peace, Shatushka. And at that time an old woman
who was living in the convent doing penance for prophesying the future,
whispered to me as she was coming out of church, 'What is the mother of
God? What do you think?' 'The great mother,' I answer, 'the hope of
the human race.' 'Yes,' she answered, 'the mother of God is the great
mother--the damp earth, and therein lies great joy for men. And every
earthly woe and every earthly tear is a joy for us; and when you water
the earth with your tears a foot deep, you will rejoice at everything at
once, and your sorrow will be no more, such is the prophecy.' That word
sank into my heart at the time. Since then when I bow down to the ground
at my prayers, I've taken to kissing the earth. I kiss it and weep. And
let me tell you, Shatushka, there's no harm in those tears; and even
if one has no grief, one's tears flow from joy. The tears flow of
themselves, that's the truth. I used to go out to the shores of the
lake; on one side was our convent and on the other the pointed mountain,
they called it the Peak. I used to go up that mountain, facing the east,
fall down to the ground, and weep and weep, and I don't know how long
I wept, and I don't remember or know anything about it. I would get up,
and turn back when the sun was setting, it was so big, and splendid and
glorious--do you like looking at the sun, Shatushka? It's beautiful but
sad. I would turn to the east again, and the shadow, the shadow of our
mountain was flying like an arrow over our lake, long, long and narrow,
stretching a mile beyond, right up to the island on the lake and c