At first Foma did not listen to his godfather’s whisper, but when he mentioned Medinskaya, he involuntarily looked back and noticed the governor. A little drop of something pleasant fell into his heart at the sight of this important personage, with a bright ribbon across his shoulder, with orders on his breast, pacing after the coffin, an expression of sorrow on his stern countenance. “Blessed is the road where this soul goeth today,” Yakov Tarasovich hummed softly, moving his nose, and he again whispered in his godson’s ear: “Seventy-five thousand roubles is such a sum that you can demand so many escorts for it. Have you heard that Sonka is making arrangements for the laying of the corner-stone on the fifteenth? Just forty days after the death of your father.” Foma again turned back, and his eyes met the eyes of Medinskaya. He heaved a deep sigh at her caressing glance, and felt relieved at once, as if a warm ray of light penetrated his soul and something melted there. And then and there he considered that it was unbecoming him to turn his head from side to side. At church Foma’s head began to ache, and it seemed to him that everything around and underneath him was shaking. In the stifling air, filled with dust, with the breathing of the people and the smoke of the incense, the flames of the candles were timidly trembling. The meek image of Christ looked down at him from the big ikon, and the flames of the candles, reflected in the tarnished gold of the crown over the Saviour’s brow, reminded him of drops of blood. Foma’s awakened soul was greedily feeding itself on the solemn, gloomy poetry of the liturgy, and when the touching citation was heard, “Come, let us give him the last kiss,” a loud, wailing sob escaped from Foma’s chest, and the crowd in church was stirred to agitation by this outburst of grief. Having uttered the sob, Foma staggered. His godfather immediately caught him by his arms and began to push him forward to the coffin, singing quite loudly and with some anger: “Kiss him who was but lately with us. Kiss, Foma, kiss him--he is given over to the grave, covered with a stone. He is settling down in darkness, and is buried with the dead.” Foma touched his father’s forehead with his lips and sprang back from the coffin with horror. “Hold your peace! You nearly knocked me down,” Mayakin remarked to him, in a low voice, and these simple, calm words supported Foma better than his godfather’s hands.