tributed the candles; and they with warm, soft, living
little flames, one after the other, were lit in the heavy, murky air,
tenderly and transparently illuminating the faces of the women.

Harmoniously the mournful melody flowed forth, and like the sighs of
aggrieved angels sounded the great words:

"Rest, oh God, this Thy servant and establish her in Heaven, wherein
the faces of the just and the saints of the Lord shine like unto
lights; set at rest this Thy servant who hath fallen asleep, contemning
all her trespasses."

Tamara was listening intently to the long familiar, but now long
unheard words, and was smiling bitterly. The passionate, mad words of
Jennka came back to her, full of such inescapable despair and unbelief
... Would the all-merciful, all-gracious Lord forgive or would He not
forgive her foul, fumy, embittered, unclean life? All-Knowing--can it
be that Thou wouldst repulse her--the pitiful rebel, the involuntary
libertine; a child that had uttered blasphemies against Thy radiant,
holy name? Thou--Benevolence, Thou--our Consolation!

A dull, restrained wailing, suddenly passing into a scream, resounded
in the chapel. "Oh, Jennechka!" This was Little White Manka, standing
on her knees and stuffing her mouth with her handkerchief, beating
about in tears. And the remaining mates, following her, also got down
upon their knees; and the chapel was filled with sighs, stifled
lamentations and sobbings ...

"Thou alone art deathless, Who hast created and made man; out of the
dust of the earth were we made, and unto the same dust shall we return;
as Thou hast ordained me, creating me and saying unto me, dust thou art
and unto dust shalt thou return."

Tamara was standing motionless and with an austere face that seemed
turned to stone. The light of the candle in thin gold spirals shone in
her bronze-chestnut hair; while she could not tear her eyes away from
the lines of Jennka's moist, yellow forehead and the tip of her nose,
which were visible to Tamara from her place.

"Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return ..." she was mentally
repeating the words of the canticles. "Could it be that that would be
all; only earth alone and nothing more? And which is better: nothing,
or even anything at all--even the most execrable--but merely to be
existing?"

And the choir, as though affirming her thoughts, as though taking away
from her the last consolation, was uttering forlornly:

"And all mankind may