Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/94

 day which is celebrated each week is called in Russian, and on those days took place the sacrament of the eucharist, which was absolutely incomprehensible to me. All the other twelve holidays, except Christmas, were in commemoration of miracles, which I tried not to think of in order not to deny: Ascension Day, Pentecost, Epiphany, the feast of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin, and so forth. In celebrating these holidays and feeling that an importance was ascribed to what to me formed and were the opposite of important, I tried either to discover explanations which would soothe me, or I shut my eyes, in order not to see what was offensive to me.

This happened very strongly with me in the most usual sacraments which are regarded as most important, at christening and at communion. Here I came in contact, not with incomprehensible, but absolutely comprehensible actions: the actions seemed offensive to me, and I was placed in a dilemma, either to lie, or reject them.

I shall never forget the agonizing feeling which I experienced on the day when I went to communion for the first time after many years. The services, the confession, the rules,—all that was comprehensible to me and produced in me a pleasurable consciousness of having the meaning of life revealed to me. The communion itself I explained to myself as an action performed in commemoration of Christ and signifying the purification from sin and the full acceptance of the teaching of Christ. If this explanation was artificial, I did not perceive its artificiality. It was so pleasurable for me to humble and abase myself before the spiritual father, a simple, timid priest, and to turn out all the dirt of my soul to him, while repenting all my vices; so pleasurable to blend in thought with the humility of the Fathers who had written the prayers of the rules; so pleasurable to become one with all believers, past and present, that I did not feel the artificiality of my explanation. But when I approached the