Leonid Andreyev

“ From the day of the funeral silence reigned in the little house. It was not stillness, for stillness is merely the absence of sounds; it was silence, because it seemed that they who were silent could say something but would not. So thought Father Ignatius each time he entered his wife's chamber and met that obstinate gaze, so heavy in its aspect that it seemed to transform the very air into lead, which bore down one's head and spine. ”

“ The silence drove him on. It arose from the green graves; it was the breath issuing from the grey, melancholy crosses; in thin, stifling currents it came from all pores of the earth, satiated with the dead. Father Ignatius increased his stride. Dizzy, he circled the same paths, jumped over graves, stumbled across railings, clutching with his hands the prickly, metallic garlands, and turning the soft material of his dress into tatters. His sole thought was to escape. ”

“ The cage kept silence, stilly and tenderly, and in this silence were felt sorrow and tears, and distant dead laughter. The silence of his wife, softened by the walls, continued insistent, heavy as lead, and terrible, so terrible that on the hottest day Father Ignatius would be seized by cold shivers. Continuous and cold as the grave, and mysterious as death, was the silence of his daughter. ”

“ Trembling from head to foot, casting around him sharp and sudden glances, Father Ignatius slowly raised himself and with a prolonged and torturous effort attempted to straighten his spine and to give proud dignity to his trembling body. He succeeded in this. With measured protractiveness, Father Ignatius shook the dirt from his knees, put on his hat, made the sign of the cross three times over the grave, and walked away with an even and firm gait, not recognizing, however, the familiar burial ground and losing his way. ”

“ The rich, red blood, the crude blind force—are Gorky's; the refinement, the conscious artistry—are Andreiyeff's. Though linked in their literary sympathies, each man stands on his own footing.
Andreiyeff's earlier stories, one of which is presented here, are characterized particularly by their purely artistic quality, rather than by the iconoclastic spirit which marks his later work. "Silence" has no moral to teach, no idea to inculcate. ”

“ The air of lifelessness and abandonment permeated the apartment, which for a long time had remained unvisited, and where the timber of the walls, the furniture and other objects gave forth a slight odor of continued putrescence. ”

“ It is simply a story—or better, a melancholy poem, in which the reader is subjected to a series of heart pangs, and is forced to listen to a music, in which the dominant motif is a terrible, oppressive and crushing silence. We are compelled to strain our ear to catch the least noise which might break that silence—but it never comes. ”

“ There are critics who are inclined to place Andreiyeff above Gorky. This is hardly fair to either man. Both are thorough moderns, both are rebels against the life that is, both have shown a decided leaning toward the Nietzschean view, the religion of individualism, have expounded through their art the place which the Ego occupies in our lives; both have attracted the young generation, have raised a storm of applause and protest from antagonistic factions, at the same time laying their impress upon their time by influencing armies of young writers. ”