III

Outside the house, Fr. Ignaty had to talk plenty, handling his duties with the church’s clergy and parishioners, performing rites, and playing Preferance sometimes with some acquaintances; coming back home however, he thought he had been silent all day long. This was because Fr. Ignaty could speak with neither of them of that essential and the most important thing he was thinking about each night—of why Vera died.

He refused to make sense of the fact that he couldn’t possibly know it at this point, thinking he still might find out. Every night—and all of them were sleepless for him now—he went back to that moment, that breathless night when he and his wife stood beside Vera’s bed with him begging her “Tell us!”, and all the rest that happened after those words was made in his memory the opposite of what it really had been. Closed eyes of his, their darkness keeping the vivid and unfading picture of that night, saw Vera lifting in her bed, smiling, and speaking... But what was she saying? Vera’s unspoken word meant to bring closure seemed so near—just cock your ear and hold the heartbeat to hear it—and yet so hopelessly far. Fr. Ignaty would get out of bed, reach out his folded hands and beg, shaking them: “Vera!..”

And silence was his answer.

One evening Fr. Ignaty came to Olga Stepanovna’s room after he hadn’t seen her for about a week. He sat down at the head of the bed and said, turning away from the persistent, heavy look: “Mother! I want to talk to you about Vera. You hear me?”

The eyes were silent, and Fr. Ignaty began to speak loudly, his tone strict and dominant, the way he talked to confessants.

“I know you see me as the cause of Vera’s death. But think: did I love her any less than you did? That’s a strange way of looking at it... I was strict, but did that ever stop her from doing whatever she wanted? I denied a father’s dignity, I bent my neck humbly when she ignored my curse and went... that place. And you? Didn’t you beg her to stay, old woman, and didn’t you cry until I told you to stop? Was it me, who brought her forth with such a cruel heart? Haven’t I been telling her of God, of humility, of love?

Fr. Ignaty quickly looked into his wife’s eyes—and turned away.

“What could I do to her if she refused to let it out? Command, I commanded; begging, I begged. You think I should’ve knelt before the girl and cried, like an old cow? Her head... How do I know what’s in her head! What a cruel, heartless daughter!”

Fr. Ignaty thumped his fist upon his knee.

“Tell you what, she had no love! And I don’t mean for me, a tyrant, as we know... But did she love you? You, who have been crying... and lowering yourself!"

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Fr. Ignaty gave a voiceless laugh.

“She did! And chose to die this way to bring you comfort. A cruel, shameful way. To die on grit, in dirt... like a d-dog being kicked in the face.”

Fr. Ignaty’s voice went quiet and hoarse.

“Ashamed is what I am! Ashamed to go outside! Ashamed to leave the altar! Ashamed before God! Cruel, indecent daughter! I wish I cursed you in your grave..."

When Fr. Ignaty looked at his wife, she was unconscious, coming back to her senses only a few hours later. And when she did, her eyes were silent, no way of telling if she remembered Fr. Ignaty’s speech.

That same night—it was a moonlit night of July, peaceful, warm, and soundless—Fr. Ignaty tiptoed up the stairs to Vera’s room, making sure that his wife and the nurse wouldn’t hear him. The mezzanine window was closed ever since she died, and the air was dry and hot, with a slight smell of burning from the iron roof overheated during the day. The breath of something uninhabited and abandoned dwelled in the room devoid of a human for so long, where the wood of walls, the furniture, and other things gave off a subtle odor of continuous decay. A bright bar of moonlight came down on the floor; reflected by the nicely washed white planks, it illuminated the corners with dim semi-light, so the clean white bed with two pillows, big and small, looked airy and phantom. Fr. Ignaty opened the window; fresh air came pouring widely into the room, smelling of dust, of a nearby river, and of blossoming linden, a barely audible choiring getting through—apparently, people were boating and singing. Treading quietly barefoot, looking like a white ghost, Fr. Ignaty came up to the empty bed, bent his knees, and fell face down onto the pillows where Vera’s face should have been, cuddling them. He lay like this for a long time; the song grew louder and then fell silent, but he was still lying, his long black hair scattered over his shoulders and the bed.

The moon had moved on, making the room darker, when Fr. Ignaty raised his head and whispered, putting all the power of a long held-back and long unconscious love in his voice, listening to the words as if it were not him who listened but Vera.

“Vera, my daughter! Do you know what this means, a daughter? My baby! My heart, my blood, my life. Your old— Your poor old father, all weak, all gray... ”

Fr. Ignaty’s shoulders began to tremble, and his entire bulky figure went rocking. Fighting the shudder, Fr. Ignaty whispered softly, as though to a child: “Your poor old father... begs you. No, Verochka, he’s craving. Crying. He’s never cried. Your grief, sweetheart, your pain, they’re mine. They’re more than that!”

Fr. Ignaty shook his head.

“They’re more, Verochka. What is death to me, to an old man? But you... If only you knew how delicate you are, how weak and shy! Remember how you pricked your tiny finger and blood dripped and you cried? My baby! And you do love me. I know you love me so much. You kiss my hand every morning. Do tell what frets your little head, and I will suffocate your grief. With my two hands. They’re still strong, Vera, these hands.”

Fr. Ignaty tossed his head up.

“Tell me!”

He pierced the wall with his eyes and reached his hands out.

“Tell me!”

The room was quiet; from afar, a long and choppy whistle of a train came whooshing through.

Eyes roving, widened, as if the crippled corpse’s dreadful ghost appeared before him, Fr. Ignaty slowly got up off his knees and put a hand to his head erratically, the fingers spread out and tensely straightened. Stepping back to the door, Father Ignaty whispered abruptly: “Tell me!”

And silence was his answer.