gh
she felt that it was not for her to utter such lofty and sacred words.
Liza listened to her--and the image of the Omnipresent, Omniscient God
penetrated into her soul with a certain sweet power, filled her with
pure, devout awe, and Christ became for her a person close to her, almost
a relative: and Agafya taught her to pray. Sometimes she woke Liza
early, at daybreak, hastily dressed her, and surreptitiously took her to
Matins: Liza followed her on tiptoe, hardly breathing; the chill and
semi-obscurity of the dawn, the freshness and emptiness of the streets,
the very mysteriousness of these unexpected absences, the cautious return
to the house, to bed,--all this mingling of the forbidden, the strange,
the holy, agitated the little girl, penetrated into the very depths of
her being. Agafya never condemned anybody, and did not scold Liza for
her pranks. When she was displeased over anything, she simply held her
peace; and Liza understood that silence; with the swift perspicacity of a
child, she also understood very well when Agafya was displeased with
other people--with Marya Dmitrievna herself, or with Kalitin. Agafya
took care of Liza for a little more than three years; she was replaced by
Mlle. Moreau; but the frivolous Frenchwoman, with her harsh manners and
her exclamation: "_tout ca c'est des betises_,"--could not erase from
Liza's heart her beloved nurse: the seeds which had been sown had struck
down roots too deep. Moreover, Agafya, although she had ceased to have
charge of Liza, remained in the house, and often saw her nursling, who
confided in her as before.

But Agafya could not get along with Marfa Timofeevna, when the latter
came to live in the Kalitin house. The stern dignity of the former
"peasant woman" did not please the impatient and self-willed old woman.
Agafya begged permission to go on a pilgrimage, and did not return. Dark
rumours circulated, to the effect that she had withdrawn to a convent of
Old Ritualists. But the traces left by her in Liza's soul were not
effaced. As before, the latter went to the Liturgy as to a festival,
prayed with delight, with a certain repressed and bashful enthusiasm,
which secretly amazed Marya Dmitrievna not a little, although she put
no constraint upon Liza, but merely endeavoured to moderate her zeal, and
did not permit her to make an excessive number of prostrations: that was
not lady-like manners, she said. Liza studied well,--that is to say,
assiduously; God h