I

One moonlit night of May, full of nightingale singing, Fr. Ignaty’s study was visited by his wife. Her face was bearing grief, and the little lamp was trembling in her hand. Coming up, she touched her husband’s shoulder and said with a sob:

“Father, let’s go see Verochka!”

Not moving, Fr. Ignaty gave her a frowning look over the glasses and stared hardly until she waved her empty hand hopelessly and sat on the low sofa.

“You both are so... ruthless!” she uttered slowly, pushing the last syllables, pain and bitterness distorting her kind, plumpy face as a testimony to how cruel they were, that husband of hers, and her daughter.

Fr. Ignaty chuckled, getting up. Closing the book, he took off his glasses, put them in the case and lingered, musing. His big black beard with silver threads in it curved beautifully on his chest, rising slowly as he breathed.

“Let’s go, then!” he said.

Olga Stepanovna quickly got up and said in a fawny, timid voice:

“Just don’t chide her, Father! You know what she’s like...”

Vera’s room was up in the mezzanine, and the narrow wooden staircase bent and moaned under the heavy steps of Fr. Ignaty. Tall and stout, he lowered his head to save it from hitting the ceiling, wincing repulsively each time his wife’s white cardigan touched his face. He knew that talking to Vera was useless.

“What is it?” said Vera, lifting a bare arm to her eyes. The other one lay on top of the white summer blanket, almost blending in, so white and transparent and cold.

“Verochka...” the mother had started but sobbed and went silent.

“Vera!” the father said, trying to soften his cold, firm voice. “Vera, tell us what is wrong with you.”

Vera was silent.

“Vera! Don’t we deserve your trust, your mother and I? Don’t we love you? And do you have anyone closer than us? Tell us what your grief is about, and trust me, a man of age and experience, you’ll feel better. And we will, too. Look at your old mother, she’s tormented...”

“Verochka!..”

“And me...” the cold voice faltered, as if something had broken in it. “Do you think it’s easy for me? Like I can’t see that something’s taking a toll on you... But what is it? I don’t know. And I am your father. Is this the way it is supposed to be?"

Vera was silent. Fr. Ignaty stroked his beard very lightly, as if he feared of letting his fingers dig in it, and continued:

“You went to St. Petersburg against my wishes—and did I curse you, disobedient girl? Or haven’t I been giving money? And would you say I was unkind? Why are you keeping silence? So much for your beloved St. Petersburg!”

Fr. Ignaty went silent, imagining something big, granite, frightful, filled with obscure dangers and alien, apathetic people. And there she was, his Vera, lonely and helpless, and they destroyed her there. Angry hatred rose in Fr. Ignaty’s soul for the frightful, inscrutable city, along with furor toward his daughter for being silent, adamantly silent.

“St. Petersburg has nothing to do with this,” Vera said grimly, closing her eyes. “And I’m fine. Go to bed—it’s late.”

“Verochka!” groaned the mother. “Don’t shun me, sweetheart!”

“Oh, Mama!” Vera said impatiently, cutting her off.

Fr. Ignaty sat down on the chair and laughed.

“So, you’re fine, then?” he said wryly.

“Father,” Vera said sharply, lifting a little up in her bed, “you know that I love you and Mommy. But... I’m a bit bored, that’s all. I’ll get over it. You two should be sleeping, really, and so should I. And tomorrow or sometime—we’ll talk.”

Fr. Ignaty stood up abruptly, the chair banging the wall, and he took his wife by the hand.

“Let’s go.”

“Verochka...”

“Let’s go, I’m telling you!” shouted Fr Ignaty. “If she’s forgotten God, then us... Who are we?”

He almost forced her to go out, and Olga Stepanovna whispered angrily, slowing her pace as they walked down the stairs:

“Ooh, priest! It’s you who made her be this way. She picked it up from you, that manner. And you’ll be held responsible. Woe is me...”

And she began to cry, blinking often, unable to see the steps and treading as if there was an abyss below she wanted to fall into.

From that day on, Fr. Ignaty wouldn’t talk to his daughter, to which she seemed oblivious, though. As before, she used to stay in her room either lying, or pacing the floor, frequently wiping her eyes with her palms, as if there were dust in them.

And the priest’s wife, who was fond of joke and laugh, felt timid and lost being squeezed between two silent people, not knowing what to say and do.

Vera went out sometimes. One week after that conversation, she went for an evening walk as she used to. It was the last time they saw her alive because she threw herself under a train that evening, and the train cut her in two.

Fr. Ignaty buried her by himself. His wife missed the rite, for she had a stroke at the news of Vera’s death. She lost the use of her legs, arms, and tongue, lying motionless in the dim room, while the bells in the bell tower rang next to her. She heard everybody leaving the church, choristers singing in front of the house, and she tried to raise her hand and cross, but the hand disobey; she tried saying “Good-bye, Vera!” but the tongue sat huge and heavy in her mouth. So peaceful her posture was, that anyone would assume she was having a rest, or asleep. Only her eyes were open.

At the funeral, the church was full of people, familiar to Fr. Ignaty and unfamiliar, and everybody rued Vera, who died so horribly, and they looked for the signs of a deep grieving in the way Fr. Ignaty moved and spoke. They didn’t like Father Ignaty for his severe and haughty ways, his hating and condemning sinners while himself being envious and greedy and using every chance to take some extra from a parishioner. Everybody wanted to see him hurting, broken, and realizing his double guilt in his daughter’s death—of being a harsh father and a bad cleric, who couldn’t save his own blood from sin. And everybody watched him curiously, and feeling their looks on his back, he tried to keep it straight, that broad and tough back, thinking of saving his face instead of his dead daughter.

“Stiff priest!” said Karzenov, a woodworker who never got his five rubles for frames from him.

Thus, straight and stern, Fr. Ignaty walked to the cemetery and thus he came back. His back only bended a little at the door to his wife’s bedroom, but again, it could be that most doors were low for his height. He could barely see her face, coming from bright daylight, but when he did, the face surprised him with calm expression and tearless eyes. No grief, no anger in them—the mute eyes kept silence somberly, tenaciously, as well as her entire body did, obese, impotent, pressed into the feather bed.

“So, how are you feeling?” asked Fr. Ignaty.

But mute were the lips; the eyes kept silence too. Fr. Ignaty put his hand to her forehead; the forehead was cold and damp, and Olga Stepanovna gave no sign that she had felt the touch. When Fr. Ignaty removed his hand, two deep, gray eyes were looking at him, unblinking, almost black because of the widened pupils, no rage, no sorrow in them.

“Well, I’m going to my room,” said Fr. Ignaty, who suddenly felt cold and frightened.

He went into the living room, where everything was clean and tidy, as usual, and the high-backed armchairs in white wrappers stood like dead men in shrouds. A wire cage hung from one of the windows, but it was empty, its door open.

“Nastasija!” shouted Fr. Ignaty. The voice sounded rude, and he was embarrassed to be shouting so loudly in these quiet rooms, just after his daughter's funeral. “Nastasija!” he called out again, quieter. “Where’s the canary?”

The cookmaid, who had been crying so much that her nose got swollen and beet-red, replied rudely:

“Out there. Flew away.”

“Why did you let it out?” Fr. Ignaty furrowed his brows menacingly.

Nastasija began to cry, and said through tears, wiping them with the tips of her chintz headscarf:

“Young lady’s... sweetest soul... How can you keep it in?”

Right away Fr. Ignaty thought the gay little yellow canary, that used to sing with her head tilted, was indeed Vera’s soul, and had it not flown away, you couldn’t say that Vera was dead. That made him hate the cookmaid even more.

“Out!” he yelled, and added when Nastasija missed the doorway, “Dunce!"