“Just see, now, and you were quite in despair,” said Marya Philimonovna, pointing to the ironing-board.  They even rigged up a bathing-shed of straw hurdles.  Lily began to bathe, and Darya Alexandrovna began to realize, if only in part, her expectations, if not of a peaceful, at least of a comfortable, life in the country.  Peaceful with six children Darya Alexandrovna could not be.  One would fall ill, another might easily become so, a third would be without something necessary, a fourth would show symptoms of a bad disposition, and so on.  Rare indeed were the brief periods of peace.  But these cares and anxieties were for Darya Alexandrovna the sole happiness possible.  Had it not been for them, she would have been left alone to brood over her husband who did not love her.  And besides, hard though it was for the mother to bear the dread of illness, the illnesses themselves, and the grief of seeing signs of evil propensities in her children—­the children themselves were even now repaying her in small joys for her sufferings.  Those joys were so small that they passed unnoticed, like gold in sand, and at bad moments she could see nothing but the pain, nothing but sand; but there were good moments too when she saw nothing but the joy, nothing but gold.

Now in the solitude of the country, she began to be more and more frequently aware of those joys.  Often, looking at them, she would make every possible effort to persuade herself that she was mistaken, that she as a mother was partial to her children.  All the same, she could not help saying to herself that she had charming children, all six of them in different ways, but a set of children such as is not often to be met with, and she was happy in them, and proud of them.

Chapter 8

Towards the end of May, when everything had been more or less satisfactorily arranged, she received her husband’s answer to her complaints of the disorganized state of things in the country.  He wrote begging her forgiveness for not having thought of everything before, and promised to come down at the first chance.  This chance did not present itself, and till the beginning of June Darya Alexandrovna stayed alone in the country.

On the Sunday in St. Peter’s week Darya Alexandrovna drove to mass for all her children to take the sacrament.  Darya Alexandrovna in her intimate, philosophical talks with her sister, her mother, and her friends very often astonished them by the freedom of her views in regard to religion.  She had a strange religion of transmigration of souls all her own, in which she had firm faith, troubling herself little about the dogmas of the Church.  But in her family she was strict in carrying out all that was required by the Church—­and not merely in order to set an example, but with all her heart in it.  The fact that the children had not been at the sacrament for nearly a year worried her extremely, and with the full approval and sympathy of Marya Philimonovna she decided that this should take place now in the summer.