Nekhludoff knew that she felt his presence without looking at
him. He noticed this as he passed her, walking up to the altar.
He had nothing to tell her, but he invented something to say and
whispered as he passed her: "Aunt told me that she would break
her fast after the late mass." The young blood rushed up to
Katusha's sweet face, as it always did when she looked at him.
The black eyes, laughing and full of joy, gazed naively up and
remained fixed on Nekhludoff.
"I know," she said, with a smile.
At this moment the clerk was going out with a copper coffee-pot
[coffee-pots are often used for holding holy water in Russia] of
holy water in his hand, and, not noticing Katusha, brushed her
with his surplice. Evidently he brushed against Katusha through
wishing to pass Nekhludoff at a respectful distance, and
Nekhludoff was surprised that he, the clerk, did not understand
that everything here, yes, and in all the world, only existed for
Katusha, and that everything else might remain unheeded, only not
she, because she was the centre of all. For her the gold
glittered round the icons; for her all these candles in
candelabra and candlesticks were alight; for her were sung these
joyful hymns, "Behold the Passover of the Lord" "Rejoice, O ye
people!" All--all that was good in the world was for her. And it
seemed to him that Katusha was aware that it was all for her when
he looked at her well-shaped figure, the tucked white dress, the
wrapt, joyous expression of her face, by which he knew that just
exactly the same that was singing in his own soul was also
singing in hers.
In the interval between the early and the late mass Nekhludoff
left the church. The people stood aside to let him pass, and
bowed. Some knew him; others asked who he was.
He stopped on the steps. The beggars standing there came
clamouring round him, and he gave them all the change he had in
his purse and went down. It was dawning, but the sun had not yet
risen. The people grouped round the graves in the churchyard.
Katusha had remained inside. Nekhludoff stood waiting for her.
The people continued coming out, clattering with their nailed
boots on the stone steps and dispersing over the churchyard. A
very old man with shaking head, his aunts' cook, stopped
Nekhludoff in order to give him the Easter kiss, his old wife
took an egg, dyed yellow, out of her handkerchief and gave it to
Nekhludoff, and a smiling young peasant in a new coat and green
belt also came up.
"Christ is risen," he said, with laughing eyes, and coming close
to Nekhludoff he enveloped him in his peculiar but pleasant
peasant smell, and, tickling him with his curly beard, kissed him
three times straight on the mouth with his firm, fresh lips.