sure to follow suit, and something would happen to a third, and the fourth would show signs of a bad disposition, and so it went on. Rarely, rarely came even short periods of rest. But these very anxieties and troubles were the only chances of happiness that Darya Aleksandrovna had. If it had not been for this, she would have been alone with her thoughts about a husband who no longer loved her. But however cruel were the anxieties caused by the fear of illness, by the illnesses themselves, and by the grief a mother feels at the sight of evil tendencies in her children, these same children repaid her for her sorrows by their pleasures and enjoyments. Her joys were so small that they were almost invisible, like gold in sand; and in trying hours she saw only the sorrows, only the sand; but there were also happy moments, when she saw only the joys, only the gold.
Now, in the quiet of the country, she became more and more conscious of her joys. Often, as she looked on them, she made unheard-of efforts to persuade herself that she was mistaken, that she had a mother's partiality; but she could not help saying to herself that she had beautiful children, all six, all of them charming in their own ways,—such children as are rare to find. And she rejoiced in them, and was proud of them.
CHAPTER VIII
Toward the beginning of June, when everything was more or less satisfactorily arranged, she received her husband's reply to her complaints about her domestic tribulations. He wrote, asking pardon because he had not remembered everything, and promised to come just as soon as he could. This had not yet come to pass; and at the end of June Darya Aleksandrovna was still living alone in the country.
It was midsummer, Sunday, the feast of St. Peter, and Darya Aleksandrovna took all her children to the holy communion. In her intimate philosophical discussions
