He turned up his collar again.

“Olga did well,” he added in a muffled voice.  “Living as an adopted child, and with such a paragon as Sofya Lvovna,—­one must take that into consideration too!”

Sofya Lvovna heard a tone of contempt in his voice, and longed to say something rude to him, but she said nothing.  The spirit of defiance came over her again; she stood up again and shouted in a tearful voice: 

“I want to go to the early service!  Driver, back!  I want to see Olga.”

They turned back.  The nunnery bell had a deep note, and Sofya Lvovna fancied there was something in it that reminded her of Olga and her life.  The other church bells began ringing too.  When the driver stopped the horses, Sofya Lvovna jumped out of the sledge and, unescorted and alone, went quickly up to the gate.

“Make haste, please!” her husband called to her.  “It’s late already.”

She went in at the dark gateway, then by the avenue that led from the gate to the chief church.  The snow crunched under her feet, and the ringing was just above her head, and seemed to vibrate through her whole being.  Here was the church door, then three steps down, and an ante-room with ikons of the saints on both sides, a fragrance of juniper and incense, another door, and a dark figure opening it and bowing very low.  The service had not yet begun.  One nun was walking by the ikon-screen and lighting the candles on the tall standard candlesticks, another was lighting the chandelier.  Here and there, by the columns and the side chapels, there stood black, motionless figures.  “I suppose they must remain standing as they are now till the morning,” thought Sofya Lvovna, and it seemed to her dark, cold, and dreary—­drearier than a graveyard.  She looked with a feeling of dreariness at the still, motionless figures and suddenly felt a pang at her heart.  For some reason, in one short nun, with thin shoulders and a black kerchief on her head, she recognised Olga, though when Olga went into the nunnery she had been plump and had looked taller.  Hesitating and extremely agitated, Sofya Lvovna went up to the nun, and looking over her shoulder into her face, recognised her as Olga.

“Olga!” she cried, throwing up her hands, and could not speak from emotion.  “Olga!”

The nun knew her at once; she raised her eyebrows in surprise, and her pale, freshly washed face, and even, it seemed, the white headcloth that she wore under her wimple, beamed with pleasure.

“What a miracle from God!” she said, and she, too, threw up her thin, pale little hands.

Sofya Lvovna hugged her and kissed her warmly, and was afraid as she did so that she might smell of spirits.

“We were just driving past, and we thought of you,” she said, breathing hard, as though she had been running.  “Dear me!  How pale you are!  I . . .  I’m very glad to see you.  Well, tell me how are you?  Are you dull?”