As for Lavretsky, he returned home, shut himself up in his valet’s room, flung himself on the couch, and lay there till the morning.

XLII.

The next day was Sunday.  Lavretsky was not awakened by the bells which clanged for early Mass, for he had not closed his eyes all night; but they reminded him of another Sunday, when he went to church at Liza’s request.  He rose in haste.  A certain secret voice told him that to-day also he would see her there.  He left the house quietly, telling the servant to say to Varvara Pavlovna, who was still asleep, that he would be back to dinner, and then, with long steps, he went where the bell called him with its dreary uniformity of sound.

He arrived early; scarcely any one was yet in the church.  A Reader was reciting the Hours in the choir.  His voice, sometimes interrupted by a cough, sounded monotonously, rising and falling by turns.  Lavretsky placed himself at a little distance from the door.  The worshippers arrived, one after another, stopped, crossed themselves, and bowed in all directions.  Their steps resounded loudly through the silent and almost empty space, and echoed along the vaulted roof.  An infirm old woman, wrapped in a threadbare hooded cloak, knelt by Lavretsky’s side and prayed fervently.  Her toothless, yellow, wrinkled face expressed intense emotion.  Her bloodshot eyes gazed upwards, without moving, on the holy figures displayed upon the iconostasis.  Her bony hand kept incessantly coming out from under her cloak, and making the sign of the cross—­with a slow and sweeping gesture, and with steady pressure of the fingers on the forehead and the body.  A peasant with a morose and thickly-bearded face, his hair and clothes all in disorder, came into the church, threw himself straight down on his knees, and immediately began crossing and prostrating himself, throwing back his head and shaking it after each inclination.  So bitter a grief showed itself in his face and in all his gestures, that Lavretsky went up to him and asked him what was the matter.  The peasant sank back with an air of distrust; then, looking at him coldly, said in a hurried voice, “My son is dead,” and again betook himself to his prostrations.

“What sorrow can they have too great to defy the consolations of the Church?” thought Lavretsky, and he tried to pray himself.  But his heart seemed heavy and hardened, and his thoughts were afar off.  He kept waiting for Liza; but Liza did not come.  The church gradually filled with people, but he did not see Liza among them.  Mass began, the deacon read the Gospel, the bell sounded for the final prayer.  Lavretsky advanced a few steps, and suddenly he caught sight of Liza.  She had come in before him, but he had not observed her till now.  Standing in the space between the wall and the choir, to which she had pressed as close as possible, she never once looked round, never moved from her place.  Lavretsky did not take his eyes off her till the service was quite finished; he was bidding her a last farewell.  The congregation began to disperse, but she remained standing there.  She seemed to be waiting for Lavretsky to go away.  At last, however, she crossed herself for the last time, and went out without turning round.  No one but a maid-servant was with her.