Happening upon a cross marking a grave on the vast Russian Steppe (prairie):

Happening upon a cross marking a grave on the vast Russian Steppe (prairie):

"There is something melancholy, pensive, and extremely poetical about a solitary tomb; one feels its silence, and the silence gives one the sense of the presence of the soul of the unknown man who lies under the cross. Is that soul at peace on the steppe? Does it grieve in the moonlight? Near the tomb the steppe seems melancholy, dreary and mournful; the grass seems more sorrowful, and one fancies the grasshoppers chirrup less freely, and there is no passer-by who would not remember the lonely soul and keep looking back at the tomb, till it was left far behind and hidden in the mists..."  (excerpt from "The Steppe," by Anton Chekhov)

Fr. John