loves one's country because she is one's country, not because she's
disappointing...." And so I went on with a number of amiable platitudes,
struggling to comfort him somewhere, and knowing that I was not even
beginning to touch the trouble of his soul.

He drew very close to me, his fingers gripping my sleeve--"I'll tell
you, Ivan Andreievitch--but you mustn't tell anybody else. I'm afraid.
Yes, I am. Afraid of myself, afraid of this town, afraid of Alexei,
although that must seem strange to you. Things are very bad with me,
Ivan Andreievitch. Very bad, indeed. Oh! I have been disappointed! yes,
I have. Not that I expected anything else. But now it has come at last,
the blow that I have always feared has fallen--a very heavy blow. My own
fault, perhaps, I don't know. But I'm afraid of myself. I don't know
what I may do. I have such strange dreams--Why has Alexei come to stay
with us?"

"I don't know," I said.

Then, thank God, we reached the church. It was only as we went up the
steps that I realised that he had never once mentioned Vera.

VIII

And yet with all our worries thick upon us it was quite impossible to
resist the sweetness and charm and mystery of that service.

I think that perhaps it is true, as many have said, that people did not
crowd to the churches on that Easter as they had earlier ones, but our
church was a small one, and it seemed to us to be crammed. We stumbled
up the dark steps, and found ourselves at the far end of the very narrow
nave. At the other end there was a pool of soft golden light in which
dark figures were bathed mysteriously. At the very moment of our
entering, the procession was passing down the nave on its way round the
outside of the church to look for the Body of Our Lord. Down the nave
they came, the people standing on either side to let them pass, and
then, many of them, falling in behind. Every one carried a lighted
candle. First there were the singers, then men carrying the coloured
banners, then the priest in stiff gorgeous raiment, then officials and
dignitaries, finally the crowd. The singing, the forest of lighted
candles, the sudden opening of the black door and the blowing in of the
cold night wind, the passing of the voices out into the air, the soft,
dying away of the singing and then the hushed expectation of the waiting
for the return--all this had in it something so elemental, so simple,
and so true to the very heart of the mystery of life that all tro