Youth

Chapter 6

CONFESSION

With these and other disjointed impressions in my mind, I returned

to the divannaia. As soon as every one had reassembled, the

priest rose and prepared to read the prayer before confession.

The instant that the silence was broken by the stern, expressive

voice of the monk as he recited the prayer--and more especially

when he addressed to us the words: "Reveal thou all thy sins

without shame, concealment, or extenuation, and let thy soul be

cleansed before God: for if thou concealest aught, then great

will be thy sin"--the same sensation of reverent awe came over me

as I had felt during the morning. I even took a certain pleasure

in recognising this condition of mine, and strove to preserve it,

not only by restraining all other thoughts from entering my

brain, but also by consciously exerting myself to feel no other

sensation than this same one of reverence.

Papa was the first to go to confession. He remained a long, long

time in the room which had belonged to our grandmother, and

during that time the rest of us kept silence in the divannaia, or

only whispered to one another on the subject of who should

precede whom. At length, the voice of the priest again reading the

prayer sounded from the doorway, and then Papa's footsteps. The

door creaked as he came out, coughing and holding one shoulder

higher than the other, in his usual way, and for the moment he

did not look at any of us.

"YOU go now, Luba," he said presently, as he gave her cheek a

mischievous pinch. "Mind you tell him everything. You are my

greatest sinner, you know."

Lubotshka went red and pale by turns, took her memorandum paper

out of her apron, replaced it, and finally moved away towards the

doorway with her head sunk between her shoulders as though she

expected to receive a blow upon it from above. She was not long

gone, and when she returned her shoulders were shaking with sobs.

At length--next after the excellent Katenka (who came out of the

doorway with a smile on her face)--my turn arrived. I entered the

dimly-lighted room with the same vague feeling of awe, the same

conscious eagerness to arouse that feeling more and more in my

soul, that had possessed me up to the present moment. The priest,

standing in front of a reading-desk, slowly turned his face to

me.

I was not more than five minutes in the room, but came out from

it happy and (so I persuaded myself) entirely cleansed--a new, a

morally reborn individual. Despite the fact that the old

surroundings of my life now struck me as unfamiliar (even though

the rooms, the furniture, and my own figure--would to heavens

that I could have changed my outer man for the better in the same

way that I believed myself to have changed my inner I--were the

same as before), I remained in that comfortable attitude of mine

until the very moment of bedtime.

Yet, no sooner had I begun to grow drowsy with the conning over

of my sins than in a flash I recollected a particularly shameful

sin which I had suppressed at confession time. Instantly the

words of the prayer before confession came back to my memory and

began sounding in my ears. My peace was gone for ever. "For if

thou concealest aught, then great will be thy sin." Each time

that the phrase recurred to me I saw myself a sinner for whom no

punishment was adequate. Long did I toss from side to side as I

considered my position, while expecting every moment to be

visited with the divine wrath--to be struck with sudden death,

perhaps!--an insupportable thought! Then suddenly the reassuring

thought occurred to me: "Why should I not drive out to the

monastery when the morning comes, and see the priest again, and

make a second confession?" Thereafter I grew calmer.