He bore the great loss calmly, so calmly that Mascha, who suspected nothing of his feelings and who was without the key to them, ascribed utter indifference to him.
Really, his father had died to him before. He had lost him on that hot June day in Paris. He had only buried him in Rome.
While he watched by the coffin through the two mild spring nights, he had sought his pain and could not find it.
But now, after the restlessness which is always bound up with the last solemnities is over, after the dead one has been carried away, and he can fully measure the great chasm which the death of his father has rent in his existence, a sadness increasing with every hour overwhelms him. Weary from watching as he was, he nevertheless did not close his eyes in the night which followed the burial. His thoughts were constantly occupied with the dead as with a great riddle.
He saw the strange, great man before him in all his phases. He saw him as a young man, with his proud bearing, his dark, attractive, expressive face, his quick, energetic earnestness full of fire, and that irresistible gentleness and tenderness of very violent men, who are continually afraid of paining their loved ones by a rough word, a thoughtless wildness. He saw the change which slowly took place in the attractive face, and how it grew coarser, and still something of the old charm remained--yes, with advancing years became more evident--a charm which summarized an expression of unspeakably sad kindness.
There was something fairly startling about this kindness, this rich, unwearying compassion. It was as if destiny had punished him for all that he had done in his wild violence of life, by condemning him to forever bear about with him this great, warm, restless, sympathetic heart.
Nikolai would have so willingly grieved for his father from his whole heart, and thought of only the great and noble in him. He could not. The old, hateful story still tormented him, tormented him so much the more as he reproached himself with thinking of it now, and it seemed to him small and repulsive in every respect to remember any fault of his father after his death.
Early in the morning, before any one else was stirring, he went out, took a carriage, and drove to his father's grave.
He had to walk a long distance through the graveyard before he reached it. At last he discovered the grave. A mountain of wreaths covered it. At the foot kneeled a black form, bowed deeply over her hands, praying.
Was that Mascha? Could she have come before him? He hurried nearer. No, that was not Mascha. Slowly she rose; it was Nita. Her eyes met his. It thrilled him through and through. They were the same wonderfully beautiful eyes, the remembrance of which had followed him across the sea, which he loved so unspeakably, and--which had once so pained him. Some change had taken place in them. The shadow which had formerly darkened them had vanished. Ah! how loving and kind were those eyes now, somewhat sad indeed, but with the sadness of a great compassion, of a hearty forgiveness.