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!”