Olia, with her sharp ear, heard her sometimes leap from her bed, run to the window, open it and fall on her knees in prayer. It was not the conventual life which weighed on Helene, but that which she had left outside the walls. Her life in the convent was pleasant and easy; the inmates had for her the regard which a sister deserves who brings a considerable fortune, and who was, moreover, highly cultured, a fact which lent peculiar distinction to the community. When illustrious benefactresses visited the convent, Sister Helene was immediately sent for in order to talk French; these ladies departed delighted, and in aristocratic circles talked of "our convent," in order to distinguish it from the other at the opposite end of the town, which was humble and poverty-stricken, without cultured nuns and unvisited by grand ladies.
This time also, scarcely had Helene sat down to her tea than she was sent for by the abbess.
"May I come in?" said a voice behind the door.
"Certainly," answered Helene. "Ah, it is you, Sister Athanasia."
"Peace be with you, and God bless you; will you come to our Mother Varlaama."
"Nothing; only a note for you, and they are waiting."
The abbess was a stout, heavy woman, with a plain but honest face such as is often seen in tradesmen's widows who have lived a quiet life with a sober and affectionate husband. She received Helene with a tender kiss:
"General Khlobestovsky's lady asks me to let you go to her this evening; she is particularly anxious about it and has sent the carriage."
"But it was just this evening that I did not want to go out."
"And why, may I ask? She is one of your old school-fellows, and what is more, rich and a fine lady. Go then for our sakes. Yesterday again her husband has sent us from the country two carts full of meal, flour and oil. We cannot refuse anything to such benefactors; he would regard it as a want of respect and would become indifferent to us. Make this sacrifice, Sister Helene, for the great advantage of us all. Finally I exact it as an act of obedience, as part of your conventual service. Go! Go!"
So saying, she embraced and dismissed her.
Helene felt ill at ease every time that she entered the Khlobestovsky's drawing-room, not exactly because she disliked the mistress of the house; they had been school-fellows and had remained friends. The general was always absent; he preferred country life and the superintendence of his estate, in the first place because his affairs got on the better for it, and secondly he was thus out of reach of the sentimental and romantic claims of his wife, claims which his personal appearance did little to justify.
