Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/78

 Andrei Andreitch shook his head as a bitten horse, and to quench these painful memories, began to cross himself vigorously.

“Remember, Lord,” he muttered, “thy dead slave, the Adulteress Marya, and forgive her all her sins!”

Again the improper word burst from his lips; but he did not notice it; what was set so deeply in his mind was not to be uprooted with a spade, much less by the admonitions of Father Grigori. Makarievna sighed, and whispered something, and paralysed Mitka seemed lost in thought.

“ where there is neither sorrow, nor sickness, nor sighing!” droned the clerk, covering his face with his right hand.

From the censer rose a pillar of blue smoke and swam in the broad, oblique sun-ray which cut the obscure emptiness of the church. And it seemed that with the smoke there floated in the sun-ray the soul of the dead girl. Eddies of smoke, like infants' curls, were swept upwards to the window; and the grief and affliction with which this poor soul was full seemed to pass away.