IV
The next day, after an early and lonely dinner, Father Ignatius went to the graveyard, for the first time since his daughter’s death. It was warm, deserted, and still; it seemed more like a brilliantly clear night. Following habit, Father Ignatius straightened his back with effort, looked severely about him, and thought that he was the same as formerly; he was conscious neither of the new, terrible weakness in his legs, nor that his long beard had become entirely white, as if a hard frost had hit it. The road to the graveyard led through a long, direct street, slightly on an upward incline, and at its termination loomed the arch of the graveyard gate, resembling a dark, perpetually open mouth, edged with glistening teeth.
Vera’s grave was situated in the depth of the grounds, where the sandy little pathways ended, and for a considerable time Father Ignatius was obliged to blunder along the narrow footpaths which led in a broken line between green mounds, forgotten and abandoned by all. Here and there appeared sloping tombstones, green with age, broken railings, and large, heavy stones planted in the ground, and seemingly crushing it with some cruel, ancient spite.
Near one such stone was the grave of Vera. It was covered with fresh turf, turned yellow; around, however, all was in bloom. The ash embraced the maple tree; and the widely spread hazel bush stretched out over the grave its bending branches with their downy, shaggy foliage. Sitting down on a neighboring grave and catching his breath, Father Ignatius looked around him, throwing a glance toward the cloudless expanse of sky, where in complete immobility hung the glowing sun disk—and here he felt only that deep, incomparable stillness which reigns in graveyards, when the wind is absent and the slumbering foliage has ceased its rustling. And anew the thought came to Father Ignatius that this was not a stillness, but a silence. It extended to the very brick walls of the graveyard, crept over them, and occupied the town. And it terminated only—in those gray, obstinate, and persistently silent eyes.
Father Ignatius’s shoulders shivered, and he lowered his eyes upon the grave of Vera. He gazed long upon the little tufts of grass uprooted together with the earth from some open, windswept field and not successful in adapting themselves to a strange soil; he could not imagine that here, under this grass, only a few feet from him, lay Vera. And this nearness seemed incomprehensible, and brought confusion into the soul, and a strange agitation. She of whom Father Ignatius was accustomed to think as of one passed away forever into the dark depths of eternity was here, close by—and it was hard to understand that nevertheless she was no more and never again would be. And in the mind’s fancy of Father Ignatius it seemed that if he could only utter some word, which was almost upon his lips, or if he could make some sort of movement, Vera would issue forth from her grave and arise to the same height and beauty that was once hers. And not alone would she arise, but all the corpses, intensely sensitive in their solemnly-cold silence.
Father Ignatius removed his wide-brimmed black hat, smoothed down his disarranged hair, and whispered:
“Vera!”
The fear that he might be overheard by a stranger made Father Ignatius feel ill at ease and caused him to look carefully around him as he stepped on the grave. No one was present, and this time he repeated loudly:
“Vera!”
It was the voice of an aged man, sharp and demanding, and it was strange that so powerfully expressed a desire should receive no response.
“Vera!”
Loudly and insistently the voice called, and when it relapsed into silence it seemed for a moment that somewhere from underneath came an incoherent answer. And Father Ignatius, clearing his ear of his long hair, pressed it to the rough, prickly turf.
“Vera, tell me!”
With terror, Father Ignatius felt pouring into his ear something cold as of the grave, which froze his marrow; Vera seemed to be speaking—speaking, however, with the same unbroken silence. This feeling became more racking and terrible, and when Father Ignatius finally forced himself to wrench away his head, his face was as pale as that of a corpse, and he fancied that the entire atmosphere trembled and palpitated from a resounding silence, and that this terrible sea was being swept by a wild hurricane. The silence strangled him; with icy waves it rolled through his head and agitated the hair; it smote against his breast, which groaned under the blows. Trembling from head to foot, casting around him sharp and sudden glances, Father Ignatius slowly raised himself and with a prolonged and torturous effort attempted to straighten his spine and to give proud dignity to his trembling body. He succeeded in this. With measured protractedness, Father Ignatius shook the dirt from his knees, put on his hat, made the sign of the cross three times over the grave, and walked away with an even and firm gait, not recognizing, however, the familiar burial ground and losing his way.
“Well, here I’ve gone astray!” smiled Father Ignatius, halting at the branching of the footpaths.
He stood there for a moment, and, unreflecting, turned to the left, because it was impossible to stand and to wait. The silence drove him on. It arose from the green graves; it was the breath issuing from the gray, melancholy crosses; in thin, stifling currents it came from all pores of the earth, satiated with the dead. Father Ignatius increased his stride. Dizzy, he circled the same paths, jumped over graves, stumbled across railings, clutching with his hands the prickly, metallic garlands, and turning the soft material of his dress into tatters. His sole thought was to escape. He fled from one place to another, and finally broke into a dead run, seeming very tall and unusual in the flowing cassock, and his hair streaming in the wind. A corpse arisen from the grave could not have frightened a passer-by more than this wild figure of a man, running and leaping, and waving his arms, his face distorted and insane, and the open mouth breathing with a dull, hoarse sound. With one long leap, Father Ignatius landed on a little street, at one end of which appeared the small church attached to the graveyard. At the entrance, on a low bench, dozed an old man, seemingly a distant pilgrim, and near him, assailing each other, were two quarreling old beggar women, filling the air with their oaths.
When Father Ignatius reached his home, it was already dusk, and there was light in Olga Stepanovna’s chamber. Not waiting to undress, or even to remove his hat, Father Ignatius, dusty and tattered, approached his wife and fell on his knees.
“Mother ... Olga ... have pity on me!” he wept. “I shall go mad.”
He beat his head against the edge of the table and he wept with anguish, as one who was weeping for the first time. Then he raised his head, confident that a miracle would come to pass, that his wife would speak and would pity him.
“My love!”
With his entire big body he drew himself toward his wife—and met the gaze of those gray eyes. There was neither compassion in them, nor anger. It was possible his wife had forgiven him, but in her eyes there was neither pity nor anger. They were dumb and silent.
And silent was the entire dark, deserted house.