WASHINGTON -- There are great ambiguities in the moments of silence for Richard Milhous Nixon, late president of the United States.

As the nation prepared for this day of mourning, the divisions that tore Americans apart in the Nixon years have become evident again. Mr. Nixon, who used political division as a tactic in life, cannot escape it in death.

But this time, after Mr. Nixon's final crisis, it is different.

Perhaps it is the very fact of his death, or the fact that two decades have passed since he left the White House in disgrace, or that many of his views and achievements have proven remarkably durable, but Mr. Nixon's passing has also brought forth a surprisingly generous impulse.

It has returned to our discourse a tone of civility that Mr. Nixon himself helped to expel.

It is not only sentimentality -- or the sort of nostalgia prompted by sepia-toned images of the past -- that has arisen in recent days. Commentators, politicians, millions of those who voted for and against him, and millions more of those too young to understand the passions he let loose on the country are talking of Mr. Nixon's accomplishments and fall from grace. But they are doing so in muted tones, with quiet decency.

''People are conflicted about him,'' said Michael Cromartie, senior research fellow in Protestant studies at the Ethics and Policy Center in Washington.

''They see him as a man who was vindictive but was personally troubled. And they see him being magnanimous toward communists he used to hate. His insecurities drove him to obsessive preoccupation with those who wanted to do him in. There are a lot of people who want to forgive him, and there is something not bad -- something charitable -- about that.''

No amount of historical revisionism will erase the fact that Mr. Nixon left office just short of certain impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate, not only for the famous break-in at the Watergate complex but also for the coverup and other actions that made a mockery of the rule of law, produced a constitutional crisis and endangered the legitimacy of his office.

And so the many quiet moments that have been offered to mark the passing of Mr. Nixon have been awkward ones. There has been silence, to be sure, but, like the 18 1/2-minute gap in the Nixon presidential tapes that played a major role in Watergate, the silence has caused uneasiness, not comfort.

No American of our century was at the center of our politics for so long. No American reached such heights only to fall to such depths, and then rise again. Only Franklin D. Roosevelt rivals him in the depth of feelings he inspired, and in the number of people whose views on politics and government were defined by opposition to his way of conducting them.

And even now that Mr. Nixon is dead, he remains a divisive figure.

Around the country and in odd corners of the capital, the announcement of a national day of mourning for him caused a subterranean stir. A number of government officials are grumbling privately about the cost of such a gesture ($23 million, according to the Office of Personnel Management) and about the symbolism of honoring a man some describe as a crook and dissembler.

One Washington lawyer called today's federal holiday Mr. Nixon's final obstruction of justice. The Los Angeles Times ran a cartoon showing a tombstone with the epitaph, ''Here lies Richard M. Nixon,'' a mordant double- entendre and a reminder of the passions that he stirred.

Few of the criticisms of Mr. Nixon have been expressed publicly, in part, perhaps, because of the recognition that he brought out the worst in people and that they, in turn, brought out the worst in him. As angry as people were at Mr. Nixon, they were also angry at themselves.

In that spirit, President Clinton, who often talks about sin and redemption, was moved on Saturday night to reflect on the life and difficulties of one of his most controversial predecessors.

''The thing that impressed me about him was that he had a tenacious refusal to give up on his own involvement in this country and the world, and his hopes for this country and the world,'' Mr. Clinton said at the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents Association.

He pointedly added, ''I think we should all try to remember when we are tempted to write off anybody because of our differences with them that we share a common humanity.''

Mr. Nixon himself learned that, and he counseled dozens of others who fell from grace.

Now, as we begin the day of mourning for Mr. Nixon himself, the sort of garden-variety remarks at his expense that have been a staple of American politics and comedy somehow seem discordant.

In today's silences, someone may recall that Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas once referred to a joint appearance of former Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Nixon as a gathering of Hear-No-Evil, See-No-Evil -- and Evil. This afternoon Dole, whose own anger and sharp tongue have helped keep him from the White House, delivers a eulogy for Richard Nixon, dead at 81.