After Ustina dies, Arseny cannot bear the morning: 'the coming of a new day without Ustina was unbearable to him,' so he sleeps, refusing the day. That refusal is the first honest move grief makes — the day should not be allowed to come without her. The trap is freezing there: sleeping through the day instead of acting inside a present that still holds the dead. The elder's word is that where she is now 'there is no time, but there is the infinite mercy of God' — the dead are not in the past, they are present, so mourning never ends; it changes form. Refuse the new day, then act inside it. Don't sleep through it. Ripped from the novel (translated from the Russian by the cutter): «наступление нового дня без Устины было для него невыносимо» — "the coming of a new day without Ustina was unbearable to him." And: «И нет времени, а есть бесконечная милость Божия, на ню же уповаем.» — "And there is no time, but there is the infinite mercy of God, on which we rely."

— In our words · Source: Laurus (Eugene Vodolazkin)