MELIHOVO,
April 6, 1892.


It is Easter. There is a church here, but no clergy. We collected eleven
roubles from the whole parish and got a priest from the Davydov Monastery,
who began celebrating the service on Friday. The church is very old and
chilly, with lattice windows. We sang the Easter service--that is, my
family and my visitors, young people. The effect was very good and
harmonious, particularly the mass. The peasants were very much pleased, and
they say they have never had such a grand service. Yesterday the sun shone
all day, it was warm. In the morning I went into the fields, from which the
snow has gone already, and spent half an hour in the happiest frame of
mind: it was amazingly nice! The winter corn is green already, and there is
grass in the copse.

You will not like Melihovo, at least at first. Here everything is in
miniature; a little avenue of lime-trees, a pond the size of an aquarium, a
little garden and park, little trees; but when you have walked about it
once or twice the impression of littleness goes off. There is great feeling
of space in spite of the village being so near. There is a great deal of
forest around. There are numbers of starlings, and the starling has the
right to say of itself: "I sing to my God all the days of my life." It
sings all day long without stopping....