when lazarus rose from the grave, after three days and nights in the mysterious thraldom of death, and returned alive to his home, it was a long time before any one noticed the evil peculiarities in him that were later to make his very name terrible. his friends and relatives were jubilant that he had come back to life. they surrounded him with tenderness, they were lavish of their eager attentions, spending the greatest care upon his food and drink and the new garments they made for him. they clad him gorgeously in the glowing colours of hope and laughter, and when, arrayed like a bridegroom, he sat at table with them again, ate again, and drank again, they wept fondly and summoned the neighbours to look upon the man miraculously raised from the dead.
the neighbours came and were moved with joy. strangers arrived from distant cities and villages to worship the miracle. they burst into stormy exclamations, and buzzed around the house of mary and martha, like so many bees.
that which was new in lazarus’ face and gestures they explained naturally, as the traces of his severe illness and the shock he had passed through. it was evident that the disintegration of the body had been halted by a miraculous power, but that the restoration had not been complete; that death had left upon his face and body the effect of an artist’s unfinished sketch seen through a thin glass. on his temples, under his eyes, and in the hollow of his cheek lay a thick, earthy blue. his fingers were blue, too, and under his nails, which had grown long in the grave, the blue had turned livid. here and there on his lips and body, the skin, blistered in the grave, had burst open and left reddish glistening cracks, as if covered with a thin, glassy slime. and he had grown exceedingly stout. his body was horribly bloated and suggested the fetid, damp smell of putrefaction. but the cadaverous, heavy odour that clung to his burial garments and, as it seemed, to his very body, soon wore off, and after some time the blue of his hands and face softened, and the reddish cracks of his skin smoothed out, though they never disappeared completely. such was the aspect of lazarus in his second life. it looked natural only to those who had seen him buried.
not merely lazarus’ face, but his very character, it seemed, had changed; though it astonished no one and did not attract the attention it deserved. before his death lazarus had been cheerful and careless, a lover of laughter and harmless jest. it was because of his good humour, pleasant and equable, his freedom from meanness and gloom, that he had been so beloved by the master. now he was grave and silent; neither he himself jested nor did he laugh at the jests of others; and the words he spoke occasionally were simple, ordinary and necessary words—words as much devoid of sense and depth as are the sounds with which an animal expresses pain and pleasure, thirst and hunger. such words a man may speak all his life and no one would ever know the sorrows and joys that dwelt within him.
thus it was that lazarus sat at the festive table among his friends and relatives—his face the face of a corpse over which, for three days, death had reigned in darkness, his garments gorgeous and festive, glittering with gold, bloody-red and purple; his mien heavy and silent. he was horribly changed and strange, but as yet undiscovered. in high waves, now mild, now stormy, the festivities went on around him. warm glances of love caressed his face, still cold with the touch of the grave; and a friend’s warm hand patted his bluish, heavy hand. and the music played joyous tunes mingled of the sounds of the tympanum, the pipe, the zither and the dulcimer. it was as if bees were humming, locusts buzzing and birds singing over the happy home of mary and martha.
