Page:Leo Tolstoy - Father Sergius and Other Stories and Plays - ed. Charles Theodore Hagberg Wright (1911).djvu/90

 84 him. But he liked to look at them as a crowd which was in need of his benediction and revered his words. This made him like the crowd, although he found them fatiguing and tiresome.

Father Serafian began to disperse the people, saying that Father Sergius was weary. But Father Sergius recollected the words of the Gospel: "Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not," and, touched at his recollection of the passage, he permitted them to approach. He rose, walked to the little railing beyond which the crowd had gathered, and began to bless them; but his answers to their questions were so faint that he was moved at hearing himself.

Despite his wish to receive them all, it was too much for him. Everything grew dark again before his eyes, and he staggered and grasped the railings. He felt the blood rushing to his head, and grew pale and then scarlet.

"I must leave the rest till to-morrow, I can do no more now," he said; and pronouncing a general benediction, returned to the bench.

The merchant supported him again, and taking him by the arm, assisted him to be seated. Voices exclaimed in the crowd,—

"Father, dear father, don't forsake us. We are lost without you."