"It was the same thing at our lady's," he said, pulling his cap on
further. "We were serfs in those days; the younger son of our mistress,
the General's lady, shot himself through the mouth with a pistol, from
too much learning, too. It seems that by law such have to be buried
outside the cemetery, without priests, without a requiem service; but to
save disgrace our lady, you know, bribed the police and the doctors,
and they gave her a paper to say her son had done it when delirious, not
knowing what he was doing. You can do anything with money. So he had
a funeral with priests and every honor, the music played, and he was
buried in the church; for the deceased General had built that church
with his own money, and all his family were buried there. Only this is
what happened, friends. One month passed, and then another, and it was
all right. In the third month they informed the General's lady that the
watchmen had come from that same church. What did they want? They were
brought to her, they fell at her feet. 'We can't go on serving, your
excellency,' they said. 'Look out for other watchmen and graciously
dismiss us.' 'What for?' 'No,' they said, 'we can't possibly; your son
howls under the church all night.'"

Alyoshka shuddered, and pressed his face to the coachman's back so as
not to see the windows.

"At first the General's lady would not listen," continued the old man.
"'All this is your fancy, you simple folk have such notions,' she said.
'A dead man cannot howl.' Some time afterwards the watchmen came to her
again, and with them the sacristan. So the sacristan, too, had heard
him howling. The General's lady saw that it was a bad job; she locked
herself in her bedroom with the watchmen. 'Here, my friends, here are
twenty-five roubles for you, and for that go by night in secret, so that
no one should hear or see you, dig up my unhappy son, and bury him,' she
said, 'outside the cemetery.' And I suppose she stood them a glass...
And the watchmen did so. The stone with the inscription on it is there
to this day, but he himself, the General's son, is outside the
cemetery.... O Lord, forgive us our transgressions!" sighed the
fish-hawker. "There is only one day in the year when one may pray for
such people: the Saturday before Trinity.... You mustn't give alms to
beggars for their sake, it is a sin, but you may feed the birds for the
rest of their souls. The General's lady used to go out to the crossroads
every three da