There was no one in the church except some muzhiks, the caretakers and their women. But Darya Alexandrovna saw, or it seemed to her that she saw, the admiration aroused by her children and herself. The children were not only beautiful in their fine clothes, but were also sweet in behaving so well. True, Alyosha did not want to stand quite properly; he kept turning and wanted to see his jacket from behind; but all the same he was remarkably sweet. Tanya stood like a big girl and looked after the little ones. But the smallest, Lily, was lovely with her naive surprise at everything, and it was hard not to smile when, after taking communion, she said in English: ‘Please, some more.’
Returning home, the children felt that something solemn had taken place and were very quiet.
Everything went well at home, too; but at lunch Grisha started whistling and, what was worst of all, did not obey the governess and had to go without cake. Darya Alexandrovna, had she been there, would not have let it go as far as punishment on such a day, but she had to uphold the governess’s orders, and she confirmed her decision that Grisha would not have any cake.
Grisha wept, saying that Nikolenka had also whistled but was not being punished, and that he was weeping not because of the cake - it made no difference to him - but because he had been unfairly dealt with. This was much too sad, and Darya Alexandrovna decided to talk with the governess and get her to forgive him. But, passing through the drawing room, she saw a scene that filled her heart with such joy that tears came to her eyes, and she herself forgave the culprit.
The punished boy was sitting at the corner window in the drawing room; next to him stood Tanya with a plate. Under the pretext of wishing to feed her dolls, she had asked the governess’s permission to take her portion of cake to the nursery and had brought it to her brother instead. Continuing to weep about the unfairness of the punishment he was suffering, he ate the cake she had brought, saying between sobs: ‘You eat it, too, we’ll eat it together ... together.’
Tanya was affected first by pity for Grisha, then by the consciousness of her virtuous deed, and there were tears in her eyes, too; but she did not refuse and was eating her share.
Seeing their mother, they were frightened, but peering into her face, they understood that they were doing a good thing, laughed and, their mouths full of cake, began wiping their smiling lips with their hands, smearing tears and jam all over their beaming faces.
‘Goodness! Your new white dress! Tanya! Grisha!’ the mother said, trying to save the dress, but with tears in her eyes, smiling a blissful, rapturous smile.
The new clothes were taken off, the girls were told to put on blouses and the boys old jackets, and the order was given to harness up the break - again, to the steward’s chagrin, with Brownie as the shaft-horse — to go gathering mushrooms and then to the bathing house. A sound of rapturous squealing arose in the nursery and never stopped till they left for the bathing house.
They gathered a whole basket of mushrooms, even Lily found a birch boletus. Before, it used to be Miss Hull who would find one and show her, but now she herself found a big, squishy boletus, and there was a general cry of delight: ‘Lily found a squishy one!’
Then they drove to the river, left the horses under the birches and went to the bathing house. The coachman, Terenty, having tethered the horses to a tree, where they stood swishing away gadflies, lay down in the shade of the birches, flattening out the grass, and smoked tobacco, while from the bathing house there came to him the ceaseless merry squealing of the children.
Though it was a chore to look after all the children and stop their pranks, though it was hard to remember and not mix up all those stockings, drawers, shoes from different feet, and to untie, unbutton and retie so many tapes and buttons, Darya Alexandrovna, who had always loved bathing herself, and considered it good for the children, enjoyed nothing so much as this bathing with them all. To touch all those plump little legs, pulling stockings on them, to take in her arms and dip those naked little bodies and hear joyful or frightened shrieks; to see the breathless faces of those splashing little cherubs, with their wide, frightened and merry eyes, was a great pleasure for her.
When half the children were clothed again, some dressed-up peasant women, who had gone gathering angelica and milkwort, approached the bathing house and stopped timidly. Matryona Filimonovna called to one of them to give her a towel and a shirt that had dropped into the water so that she could wring them out, and Darya Alexandrovna struck up a conversation with the women. The women laughed behind their hands at first, but then became bolder and began to talk, winning Darya Alexandrovna over at once by the sincere admiration they showed for her children.
