, something out of space, and from beyond boundaries
attainable by human thought, had rushed in and trampled down that
life fresh and beautiful. A power invincible--not to be bribed by
wealth, persuaded by reason, or vanquished by energy. A
mysterious power--the beginning and object of which were unknown,
which had flown in on silent wings and swept from the earth
everything that it wished to take; and, against this, there were
no means of resistance, or rescue. It seemed to him that the
gloomy rustle of giant wings was filling that snowy chamber of
the dead from edge to edge; and, for the first time in life, he
felt things beyond mankind and the senses. His breast, which had
breathed with pride; his head, which held one faith, the might of
reason, and that which reason can accomplish, were struck now by
an incomprehensible secret, which roused in him for the first
time a feeling of his own inconceivable insignificance. He felt
as small as an earth-worm must feel when on the grass along which
it is crawling--the shadow of a vulture falls as it sweeps
through the azure sky--and as the worm hides in the crack of a
stone, so he sank into the snowy folds of crape and muslin which
veiled the walls of that chamber. He felt as weak as if he were
not a man of strong will and splendid labor, but a little child
which is unable to push aside with its tiny fingers the terror
which is standing out in front of it. With his shoulders and one
half of his head sunk in the snowy folds, with his glance fixed
on the sleeping face of Cara, which was visible among the white
flowers, he said to her, mentally: "I can do nothing, nothing for
thee, little one! I can do much, almost anything; but for thee I
can do nothing!" Slender, grayish bits of smoke passed above her
sleeping face, and, impelled by invisible movements of air,
stretched in waving threads from her to him. Just at that moment
he saw Kranitski come from an inner apartment of the house and
kneel at the steps strewn with flowers. He looked; he recognized
the man, and felt none of those emotions which his name alone had
roused in him previously. What were human anger, hatred,
disagreement in presence of that immense something into whose
face he was gazing at that moment? What could Kranitski, hitherto
hateful to Darvid, be to him now, when he said to himself: "I
know not; I understand not; it is impossible to comprehend this;
and still it is real; since I--I can do nothing for thee