II

Some­one care­less lifted the veil. With a whiff of a care­less word some­one de­stroyed the bright charms and re­vealed the truth in its ugly naked­ness. The thought had not yet crys­tal­lized in that head of his when the mouth asked, smil­ing:

“Why don’t you tell us, Lazarus, what was there?”

And, struck by the ques­tion, every­one fell silent. It was as if they had only just re­al­ized that for three days Lazarus was dead, and they stared cu­ri­ously, await­ing his an­swer. But Lazarus was silent.

“Don’t you want to tell us,” the ques­tioner was taken aback. “Is it re­ally that dread­ful there?”

And again his thought fol­lowed his words; if it went in front he would not have of­fered the ques­tion, which, at that very mo­ment, made his heart tense up from an in­tol­er­a­ble fear. And every­one grew anx­ious, and al­ready with an­guish they awaited Lazarus’ words, but he re­mained silent, cold, and stern, and his eyes were low­ered. And now again, as if for the first time, they no­ticed the fright­en­ing blue­ness of his face and his re­pul­sive cor­pu­lence; on the table, as if for­got­ten by Lazarus, lay his blue-pur­ple hand—and all eyes were help­lessly riv­eted to it, as if they were wait­ing for it to give them the an­swer they de­sired. The mu­si­cians were still play­ing; but now the si­lence had reached them too, and, like wa­ter poured over smol­der­ing coals, it ex­tin­guished the merry sounds. The pipe fell silent; so too did the res­o­nant drums and the bub­bling gusli; and, as if a string had snapped, the zither called out in a trem­bling, bro­ken note. And all was silent.

“You don’t want to?” re­peated the ques­tioner, un­able to re­strain his talk­a­tive tongue. All was still, and the blue-pur­ple hand lay mo­tion­less. And now it stirred a lit­tle, and every­one sighed with re­lief and raised their eyes. Solemnly and dread­fully, tak­ing them all in with a sin­gle gaze, the res­ur­rected Lazarus was star­ing back at them.

This was the third day af­ter Lazarus left the tomb. From that time on many ex­pe­ri­enced the de­struc­tive power of his gaze, but nei­ther those who were bro­ken by it for­ever, nor those who, in the very springs of life, just as mys­te­ri­ous as death, found the will to re­sist, could ever ex­plain that dread­ful thing that lay mo­tion­less in­side his black pupils. Lazarus’ stare was calm and plain, hav­ing nei­ther the wish to con­ceal any­thing nor a de­sire to say any­thing—a cold stare even, like that of some­one in­fi­nitely in­dif­fer­ent to life. And many care­less peo­ple en­coun­tered him up close and did not no­tice him, and af­ter­wards with sur­prise and fear found out who that calm, fat man was who brushed against them with the edge of his lav­ish, bright gar­ments. When he stared, the sun did not stop shin­ing, the foun­tain did not cease bur­bling, and the na­tive sky re­mained just as clear blue, but a hu­man be­ing, caught by his mys­te­ri­ous gaze, would at once stop sens­ing the sun, would at once cease hear­ing the foun­tain, and he would no longer rec­og­nize his na­tive sky. Some­times a man would weep bit­terly; some­times he would rip out his hair in de­spair and call oth­ers for help, but what hap­pened more of­ten was that he would be­gin to die, calmly and in­dif­fer­ently, and he would con­tinue dy­ing for many years, would die be­fore every­one’s eyes, would die col­or­less, list­less, and dull, like a tree that with­ers away in si­lence atop rocky soil. And the for­mer, those who screamed and raged, some­times re­turned to life, but the lat­ter—never.

“So, you don’t want to tell us, Lazarus, what you saw there?” re­peated the ques­tioner for the third time. But by now his voice was in­dif­fer­ent and dim, and a dead, gray bore­dom peered blandly through his eyes. And that same dead bore­dom cov­ered all their faces, like dust, and the guests looked at each other with dull stu­pe­fac­tion, and they could not un­der­stand why they gath­ered and why they sat at the rich table. They stopped talk­ing. They thought with in­dif­fer­ence that per­haps it was time to go home, but they could not over­come the vis­cous and lazy bore­dom that fa­tigued their mus­cles, and they con­tin­ued to sit, sep­a­rated from each other like faint lights scat­tered across the night sky.

But the mu­si­cians were paid to play, and once again they took their in­stru­ments, and once again the sounds of stud­ied joy and stud­ied sad­ness be­gan to flow and dance. The same fa­mil­iar har­mony un­folded in them, but the guests lis­tened in be­wil­der­ment: they did not know why it was nec­es­sary and why it was good for peo­ple to pull strings, in­flate their cheeks, blow into thin pipes and make strange, dis­cor­dant noises.

“Oh, how badly they play!” some­one said.

The mu­si­cians felt in­sulted and left. Af­ter them, one by one, fol­lowed the guests, for night had al­ready ar­rived. And when dark­ness fell all around them and it was al­ready be­com­ing eas­ier to breathe—sud­denly, be­fore every one of them ap­peared the im­age of Lazarus in a dread glow: the blue face of a corpse, the gar­ments of a bride­groom, lav­ish and bright, and a cold stare, in the depths of which some­thing ter­ri­ble lay frozen. They stood in every cor­ner as if turned to stone, and dark­ness sur­rounded them, and in that dark­ness the ter­ri­ble vi­sion burned brighter and brighter, a su­per­nat­ural im­age of the one who for three days re­mained un­der the mys­te­ri­ous do­min­ion of death. For three days he was dead: for three days the sun rose and set, and he was dead; chil­dren played, wa­ter bur­bled over the rocks, hot dust rose above the road—but he was dead. And now he is again among peo­ple—touch­ing them—look­ing at them—look­ing at them!—and through the black cir­cles of his pupils, as if through dark panes of glass, the un­gras­pable Be­yond was star­ing back at them.