Lunev entered the churchyard and went slowly along the broad alley, drawing deep breaths of perfume from the blossoming limes. Between the trees, under the branches' shade, stood monuments of marble and granite, stout and heavy, overgrown with moss and lichen. Here and there in the mysterious twilight crosses or half-erased inscriptions glimmered; golden honeysuckle, acacia, whitethorn and elder grew in the hedges, and their branches hid the graves. Here and there in the dense green a slender grey wooden cross appeared and was lost immediately among the surrounding bushes. White stems of young birch-trees glimmered like velvet through the thick network of leaves; they seemed to choose the shade with calculated modesty in order to be seen more easily. On green mounds, behind railings, shone gay flowers, a bee buzzed by in the stillness, two white butterflies played in the air; all kinds of flies swarmed noiselessly; and everywhere grasses and plants made towards the light, hid the mournful graves, and all the green of the churchyard was full of a tense striving to grow, to develop, to drink in air and light and change the richness of the earth to colour and scent and beauty for the joy of eyes and hearts. Everywhere life prevails and will prevail. Lunev rejoiced to wander at will in the quiet and breathe in the sweet perfume of the flowers and the lime-trees. In his heart, too, there was rest and peace, he thought of nothing, but tasted the joy of solitude long unknown to him. He turned to the left out of the alley by a narrow path, and went slowly reading the inscriptions on crosses and gravestones. The graves hemmed him in with their railings, ornamental and wrought, or plain cast-iron. "Beneath this cross rest the ashes of Vonifanty, servant of God." He read and smiled, the name seemed ridiculous. Over the ashes of Vonifanty was set a huge granite stone. Near by in another enclosure rested "Peter Babushkin, twenty-eight years old." "A young fellow," thought Ilya. On a pillar of white marble he read: "Earth's little flower is plucked and dies, A new star shines in heaven's skies." Lunev read the couplet over and felt something touching in it. Suddenly he felt as though he had been struck to the heart, he swayed and shut his eyes; but through his closed lids he still saw clearly the inscription that had terrified him. The shining, golden letters on the big, brown stone seemed to have been cut on his brain: "Here lies the body of the merchant Gilde Vassily Gavrilovitsch Poluektov, the younger." After a moment or two, terrified at his own fear, he opened his eyes quickly, and looked suspiciously round about him. No one was there, only far off a burial service was being conducted. Through the stillness rang a thin tenor voice singing: "Let us pray." A deep, rather unpleasant voice answered, "Have mercy," and the clinking of the censers was just audible.