The idea of seeking help in her difficulty in religion was as remote from her as seeking help from Alexey Alexandrovitch himself, although she had never had doubts of the faith in which she had been brought up.

She knew that the support of religion was possible only upon condition of renouncing what made up for her the whole meaning of life.

She was not simply miserable, she began to feel alarm at the new spiritual condition, never experienced before, in which she found herself.

She felt as though everything were beginning to be double in her soul, just as objects sometimes appear double to over-tired eyes.