w face, as though of terra-cotta; and a sprightly,
long-skirted psalmist, animatedly exchanging on his way some gay,
mysterious signs with his friends among the singers.

Tamara walked up to the priest:

"Father," she asked, "how will you perform the funeral service; all
together or each one separate?"

"We perform the funeral service for all of them conjointly," answered
the priest, kissing the stole, and extricating his beard and hair out
of its slits. "Usually, that is. But by special request, and by special
agreement, it's also possible to do it separately. What death did the
deceased undergo?"

"She's a suicide, father."

"Hm ... a suicide? ... But do you know, young person, that by the
canons of the church there isn't supposed to be any funeral service ...
there ought not to be any? Of course, there are exceptions--by special
intercession..."

"Right here, father, I have certificates from the police and from the
doctor ... She wasn't in her right mind ... in a fit of insanity..."

Tamara extended to the priest two papers, sent her the evening before
by Ryazanov, and on top of them three bank-notes of ten roubles each.
"I would beg of you, father, to do everything fitting--Christian like.
She was a splendid being, and suffered a very great deal. And won't you
be so kind--go along with her to the cemetery, and there hold one more
little mass..."

"It's all right for me to go along with her to the cemetery, but in the
cemetery itself I have no right to hold service--there is a clergy of
their own ... And also here's how, young person; in view of the fact
that I'll have to return once more after the rest, won't you, now ...
add another little ten-spot."

And having taken the money from Tamara's hand, the priest blessed the
thurible, which had been brought up by the psalmist, and began to walk
around the body of the deceased with thurification. Then, having
stopped at her head, he in a meek, wontedly sad voice, uttered:

"Blessed is our God. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall
be, world without end!"

The psalmist began pattering: Holy God, Most Holy Trinity and Our
Father poured out like peas.

Quietly, as though confiding some deep, sad, occult mystery, the
singers began in a rapid, sweet recitative: "With Thy blessed saints in
glory everlasting, the soul of this Thy servant save, set at rest;
preserving her in the blessed life, as Thou hast loving kindness for
man."

The psalmist dis