“Pray, Vassya!” whispered the Popadya, stroking his clammy hands which were crossed upon his breast like the hands of a corpse.
“I cannot. I am afraid. Light the lamp, Nastya.”
While she was lighting the lamp, Father Vassily began to dress, slowly and awkwardly, like an invalid who had been long chained to his bed. He could not unaided fasten the hooks of his cassock, and he asked his wife:
“Hook the cassock.”
“Where are you going?” inquired the Popadya in surprise.
“Nowhere. Just so.”
And he began to pace the floor slowly and diffidently with faint and shaking limbs. His head was trembling with a measured and hardly perceptible palpitation, and his lower jaw had dropped impotently. With an effort he attempted to draw it up into its proper place, licking his dry and flabby lips, but in the next moment it dropped back again; exposing the dark gap of his mouth. Something vast, something inexpressibly horrible seemed to be impending—like boundless waste and boundless silence. And there was neither earth nor people nor any world beyond the walls of the house, there was only the yawning bottomless abyss and eternal silence.
“Vassya, is it really true?” asked the Popadya, her heart sinking with the fear within her.
Father Vassily looked at her with dim, lack-lustre eyes, and with a momentary access of energy waved his hand:
“Don’t. Don’t. Be silent.”