tombs could be clearly read. For the first
moments Startsev was struck now by what he saw for the first time
in his life, and what he would probably never see again; a world
not like anything else, a world in which the moonlight was as soft
and beautiful, as though slumbering here in its cradle, where there
was no life, none whatever; but in every dark poplar, in every tomb,
there was felt the presence of a mystery that promised a life
peaceful, beautiful, eternal. The stones and faded flowers, together
with the autumn scent of the leaves, all told of forgiveness,
melancholy, and peace.

All was silence around; the stars looked down from the sky in the
profound stillness, and Startsev's footsteps sounded loud and out
of place, and only when the church clock began striking and he
imagined himself dead, buried there for ever, he felt as though
some one were looking at him, and for a moment he thought that it
was not peace and tranquillity, but stifled despair, the dumb
dreariness of non-existence. . . .

Demetti's tomb was in the form of a shrine with an angel at the
top. The Italian opera had once visited S---- and one of the singers
had died; she had been buried here, and this monument put up to
her. No one in the town remembered her, but the lamp at the entrance
reflected the moonlight, and looked as though it were burning.

There was no one, and, indeed, who would come here at midnight? But
Startsev waited, and as though the moonlight warmed his passion,
he waited passionately, and, in imagination, pictured kisses and
embraces. He sat near the monument for half an hour, then paced up
and down the side avenues, with his hat in his hand, waiting and
thinking of the many women and girls buried in these tombs who had
been beautiful and fascinating, who had loved, at night burned with
passion, yielding themselves to caresses. How wickedly Mother Nature
jested at man's expense, after all! How humiliating it was to
recognise it!

Startsev thought this, and at the same time he wanted to cry out
that he wanted love, that he was eager for it at all costs. To his
eyes they were not slabs of marble, but fair white bodies in the
moonlight; he saw shapes hiding bashfully in the shadows of the
trees, felt their warmth, and the languor was oppressive. . . .

And as though a curtain were lowered, the moon went behind a cloud,
and suddenly all was darkness. Startsev could scarcely find the
gate--by now it was as dark as it is o