The details of Vera’s death, contemplated at length, taxed the strength of Father Ignatius, so that he would soon pass on to the eyes. These were dark, handsome, with long lashes that cast deep shadows beneath, causing the whites to seem particularly luminous, both eyes appearing to be inclosed in black mourning frames. A strange expression had been given them by the unknown but talented artist; it seemed as if in the space between the eyes and the object upon which they gazed lay a thin, transparent film. It resembled somewhat the effect made by an imperceptible layer of dust on the black top of a piano, softening the shine of polished wood. And no matter how Father Ignatius placed the portrait, the eyes insistently followed him; but there was no speech in them, only silence; and this silence was so clear that it seemed it could be heard. Gradually Father Ignatius began to think that he heard silence.
Every morning after breakfast the priest would enter the drawing-room, take in at a rapid glance the empty cage and the other familiar objects, and, seating himself in the arm-chair, would close his eyes and listen to the silence of the house. There was something grotesque about this. The cage kept silence, stilly and tenderly, and in this silence were felt sorrow and tears and distant dead laughter. The silence of his wife, deepened by the walls, continued insistent, heavy as lead, and terrible, so terrible that on the hottest day Father Ignatius would be seized with cold shivers. Continuous and frigid as the grave, and mysterious as death, was the silence of his daughter. The silence itself seemed to share this suffering and struggled, as it were, with the terrible desire to pass into speech; something strong and cumbersome, as a machine, held it motionless, however, and stretched it out as a wire. And somewhere at the distant end, the wire would begin to agitate and resound subduedly, feebly, and plaintively. With joy, yet with terror, Father Ignatius would seize upon this engendered sound, and, resting with his arms upon the arm of the chair, would lean his head forward, waiting for the sound to reach him. But it would break and pass into silence.
“How stupid!” muttered Father Ignatius angrily, arising from the chair, still erect and tall. Through the window he saw, suffused with sunlight, the street paved with round, even-sized stones, and, directly across, the stone wall of a long, windowless shed. On the corner stood a cab-driver, looking like a clay statue, and it was difficult to understand why he stood there, when for hours there was not a single passer-by.
III
Father Ignatius had occasion for considerable speech outside his house. There was talking to be done with the clergy, with the members of his flock, while officiating at ceremonies, sometimes with acquaintances at social evenings; yet, upon his return, he would feel invariably that the entire day he had been silent. This was due to the fact that with none of those people could he talk upon the matter which concerned him most, and upon which he would reflect each night: Why did Vera die?
Father Ignatius did not seem to realize that now this could not be known, and thought that it was still possible to know. Each night—all his nights had become sleepless—he would re-experience that moment when he and his wife, at dead midnight, had stood near Vera’s bed, and he had entreated her: “Tell us!” And when in his recollection he would reach these words, the rest appeared to him not as it was in reality. His closed eyes, preserving in their darkness a live, undimmed picture of that night, saw how Vera raised herself in her bed, smiled, and tried to say something. But what was it she had tried to say? That unuttered word of Vera’s, which would have solved all, seemed so near that if one only had bent his ear and suppressed the beats of his heart, one could have heard it—and at the same time it was so infinitely, so hopelessly distant. Father Ignatius would arise from his bed, stretch forth his wringing hands, and cry:
“Vera!”
And he would be answered by silence.
One evening Father Ignatius entered the chamber of Olga Stepanovna, whom he had not come to see for a week, seated himself at her head, and, turning away from that insistent, heavy gaze, said:
“Mother, I wish to talk to you about Vera. Do you hear?”