The clergy came: a little gray priest in gold spectacles, in a skull-cap; a lanky, tall, thin-haired deacon with a sickly, strangely dark and yellow 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 distributed 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: