The cousin and the husband went to the sick-room. The invalid, gently weeping, was gazing at the images. "I congratulate you, my love," said the husband. "Thank you. How well I feel now! what ineffable joy I experience!" said the sick woman, and a faint smile played over her thin lips. "How merciful God is! Is it not so? He is merciful and omnipotent!" And again with an eager prayer she turned her tearful eyes towards the holy images. Then suddenly something seemed to occur to her mind. She beckoned to her husband. "You are never willing to do what I desire," said she in a weak and querulous voice. The husband, stretching his neck, listened to her submissively. "What is it, my love?" "How many times I have told you that these doctors don't know any thing! There are uneducated women doctors: they make cures. That's what the good father said.... A shopkeeper.... send for him".... "For whom, my love?" "Good heavens! you can never understand me." And the dying woman frowned, and closed her eyes. The doctor came to her, and took her hand. Her pulse was evidently growing feebler and feebler. He made a sign to the husband. The sick woman remarked this gesture, and looked around in fright. The cousin turned away to hide her tears. "Don't weep, don't torment yourselves on my account," said the invalid. "That takes away from me my last comfort." "You are an angel!" exclaimed the cousin, kissing her hand. "No, kiss me here. They only kiss the hands of those who are dead. My God! my God!" That same evening the sick woman was a corpse, and the corpse in the coffin lay in the parlor of the great mansion. In the immense room, the doors of which were closed, sat the clerk,[94] and with a monotonous voice read the Psalms of David through his nose. [Footnote 94: _diachók._] The bright glare from the wax candles in the lofty silver candelabra fell on the white brow of the dead, on the heavy waxen hands, on the stiff folds of the cerement which brought out into awful relief the knees and the feet. The clerk, not varying his tones, continued to read on steadily, and in the silence of the chamber of death his words rang out and died away. Occasionally from distant rooms came the voice of children and their romping. "_Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; thou takest away their breath, they die and return to their dust._ "_Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the earth._ "_The glory of the Lord shall endure forever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works._" The face of the dead was stern and majestic. But there was no motion either on the pure cold brow, or the firmly closed lips. She was all attention. But did she perhaps now understand these grand words? IV. At the end of a month, over the grave of the dead a stone chapel was erected. Over the driver's there was as yet no stone, and only the fresh green grass sprouted over the mound that served as the sole record of the past existence of a man.