There was no one in church but a beggar soldier, two old women, and the churchmen. A young deacon, whose long back showed in two distinct halves through his thin undercassock, met him, and, at once going to a little table at the wall, read the exhortations. During the reading, especially at the frequent and rapid repetition of the same words, `Lord, have mercy on us!' which sounded like ` mercynuslor !' Levin felt that his thought was shut and sealed up, and that it must not be touched or stirred now, or else confusion would be the result; and so standing behind the deacon he went on thinking of his own affairs, neither listening nor examining what was said. `It's wonderful what expression there is in her hand,' he thought, remembering how they had been sitting the day before at a corner table. They had nothing to talk about, as was almost always the case at this time, and laying her hand on the table she kept opening and shutting it, and laughed herself as she watched her action. He remembered how he had kissed her hand and then had examined the lines on the pink palm. `Another `` mercynuslor !'' thought Levin, crossing himself, bowing, and looking at the supple spring of the deacon's back bowing before him. `She took my hand then and examined the lines. ``You've got a splendid hand,' she said.' And he looked at his own hand and the short hand of the deacon.
`Yes, now it will soon be over,' he thought. `No, it seems to be starting up again,' he thought, listening to the prayers. `No, it's just ending:
there he is bowing down to the ground. That's always at the end.'
The deacon's hand in a plush cuff unobtrusively accepted a three-rouble note, and the deacon said he would put Levin's name down in the register, and, his new boots creaking jauntily over the flagstones of the empty church, he went to the altar. A moment later he peeped out thence and beckoned to Levin. Thought, till then locked up, began to stir in Levin's head, but he made haste to drive it away. `It will come right somehow,' he thought, and went toward the ambo. He went up the steps, and turning to the right, saw the priest. The priest, a little ancient with a scanty grizzled beard and weary, good-natured eyes, was standing at the lectern, turning over the pages of a missal. With a slight bow to Levin he began immediately reading prayers in an accustomed 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 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 barely 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 recitative. `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 in 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, I hear, are about to marry the daughter of my parishioner and son in the spirit, Prince Shcherbatsky?' 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. Are you? - 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: