Father Ignatius, gazing out of his dilated eyes, as if there had arisen Nuddenly before him the frightful phantom of the mutilated corpse, lowly raised himself from his knees, and with a credulous motion reached for his head with his hand, with spread and tensely stiffened lingers. Making a step toward the door, Father Ignatius whispered brokenly:
“Tell me!”
And he was answered by silence.
The next day, after an early and lonely dinner, Father Ignatius Went to the graveyard, the first time since his daughters death.
It was Warm, deserted and still; it seemed more like an illumined night. Following habit, Father Ignatius, with effort, straightened his spine, 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, not that his long beard had become entirely white as if a hard frost had hit it.
Termination loome
The road to the graveyard led through a long, direct Nil ret, slightly on an upward incline, and at its termination loomed the arch of the graveyard gate, resembling a dark, perpetually open tuouth, edged with glistening teeth.
Veras grave was situated in the depth of the grounds, where the Handy little pathways terminated, and Father Ignatius, for a considerable time, was obliged to blunder along the narrow footpaths, which led in a broken line between green mounds, by all forgotten and abandoned.
Here and there appeared, green with age, sloping tombstones, broken railings and large, heavy stones planted in the ground, and untiringly crushing it with some cruel, ancient spite. Near one such Nlotie was the grave of Vera. It was covered with fresh turf, turned low; around, however, all was in bloom. Ash embraced mapper; and the widely spread hazel bush stretched out over the grave its bending branches with their downy, shaggy foliage.
Sitting down on n neighboring grave and catching his breath, Father Ignatius looked Kround him, throwing a glance upon the cloudless, desert sky, where III complete immovability, hung the glowing sun disk and here he Only felt 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 still but a silence. It extended to the very brick walls of the graveyard, crept over them and occupied the city. And it terminated only in those gray, obstinate and reluctantly silent eyes.
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