altar-rails. He went up the steps, and turning to the right saw the priest. The priest, a little old man with a scanty grizzled beard and weary, good-natured eyes, was standing at the altar-rails, turning over the pages of a missal. With a slight bow to Levin he began immediately reading prayers in the official voice. When he had finished them he bowed down to the ground and turned, facing Levin.
'Christ is present here unseen, receiving your confession,' he said, pointing to the crucifix. 'Do you believe in all the doctrines of the Holy Apostolic Church?' the priest went on, turning his eyes away from Levin's face and folding his hands under his stole.
'I have doubted, I doubt everything,' said Levin in a voice that jarred on himself, and he ceased speaking.
The priest waited a few seconds to see if he would not say more, and closing his eyes he said quickly, with a broad, Vladimirsky accent:
'Doubt is natural to the weakness of mankind, but we must pray that God in His mercy will strengthen us. What are your special sins?' he added, without the slightest interval, as though anxious not to waste time.
'My chief sin is doubt. I have doubts of everything, and for the most part I am in doubt.'
'Doubt is natural to the weakness of mankind,' the priest repeated the same words. 'What do you doubt about principally?'
'I doubt of everything. I sometimes even have doubts of the existence of God,' Levin could not help saying, and he was horrified at the impropriety of what he was saying. But Levin's words did not, it seemed, make much impression on the priest.
'What sort of doubt can there be of the existence of God?' he said hurriedly, with a just perceptible smile.
Levin did not speak.
'What doubt can you have of the Creator when you behold His creation?' the priest went on in the rapid customary jargon. 'Who has decked the heavenly firmament with its lights? Who has clothed the earth in its beauty? How explain it without the Creator?' he said, looking inquiringly at Levin.
Levin felt that it would be improper to enter upon a metaphysical discussion with the priest, and so he said in reply merely what was a direct answer to the question.
'I don't know,' he said.
'You don't know! Then how can you doubt that God created all?' the priest said, with good-humored perplexity.
'I don't understand it at all,' said Levin, blushing, and feeling that his words were stupid, and that they could not be anything but stupid n such a position.
'Pray to God and beseech Him. Even the holy fathers had doubts, and prayed to God to strengthen their faith. The devil has great power, and we must resist him. Pray to God, beseech Him. Pray to God,' he repeated hurriedly.
The priest paused for some time, as though meditating.
'You're about, I hear, to marry the daughter of my parishioner and son in the spirit, Prince Shtcherbatsky?' he resumed, with a smile. 'An excellent young lady.'
'Yes,' answered Levin, blushing for the priest. 'What does he want to ask me about this at confession for?' he thought.
And, as though answering his thought, the priest said to him:
'You are about to enter into holy matrimony, and God may bless you with offspring. Well, what sort of bringing-up can you give your babes if you do not overcome the temptation of the devil, enticing you to infidelity?' he said, with gentle reproachfulness. 'If you love your child as a good father, you will not desire only wealth, luxury, honor for your infant; you will be anxious for his salvation, his spiritual enlightenment with the light of truth. Eh? What answer will you make him when the innocent babe asks you: 'Papa! who made all that enchants me in this world--the earth; the waters, the sun, the flowers, the grass?' Can you say to him: 'I don't know'? You cannot but know, since the Lord God in His infinite mercy has revealed it to us. Or your child will ask you: 'What awaits me in the life beyond the tomb?' What will you say to him when you know nothing? How will you answer him? Will you leave him to the allurements of the world and the devil? That's not right,' he said, and he stopped, putting his head on one side and looking at Levin with his kindly, gentle eyes.
Levin made no answer this time, not because he did not want to enter upon a discussion with the priest, but because, so far, no one had ever asked him such questions, and when his babes did ask him those questions, it would be time enough to think about answering them.
'You are entering upon a time of life,' pursued the priest, 'when you must choose your path and keep to it. Pray to God that He may in His mercy aid you and have mercy on you!' he concluded. 'Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, in the abundance and riches of His lovingkindness, forgives this child...' and, finishing the prayer of absolution, the priest blessed him and dismissed him.
On getting home that day, Levin had a delightful sense of relief at the awkward position being over and having been got through without his having to tell a lie. Apart from this, there remained a vague memory that what the kind, nice old fellow had said had not been at all so stupid as he had fancied at first, and that there was something in it that must be cleared up.
'Of course, not now,' thought Levin, 'but some day later on.' Levin felt more than ever now that there was something not clear and not clean in his soul, and that, in regard to religion, he was in the same position which he perceived so clearly and disliked in others, and for which he blamed his friend Sviazhsky.
Levin spent that evening with his betrothed at Dolly's, and was in very high spirits. To explain to Stepan Arkadyevitch the state of excitement in which he found himself, he said that he was happy like a dog being trained to jump through a hoop, who, having at last caught the idea, and done what was required of him, whines and wags its tail, and jumps up to the table and the windows in its delight.
Chapter 2
On the day of the wedding, according to the Russian custom (the princess and Darya Alexandrovna insisted on strictly keeping all the customs), Levin did not see his betrothed, and dined at his hotel with three bachelor friends, casually brought together at his rooms. These were Sergey Ivanovitch, Katavasov, a university friend, now professor of natural science, whom Levin had met in the street and insisted on taking home with him, and Tchirikov, his best
