第342章

The boys, seeing that the father would not leave the coffin and that it was time to carry it out, stood round it in a close circle and began to lift it up.

"I don't want him to be buried in the churchyard," Snegiryov wailed suddenly; "I'll bury him by the stone, by our stone! Ilusha told me to.I won't let him be carried out!" He had been saying for the last three days that he would bury him by the stone, but Alyosha, Krassotkin, the landlady, her sister and all the boys interfered.

"What an idea, bury him by an unholy stone, as though he had hanged himself!" the old landlady said sternly."There in the churchyard the ground has been crossed.He'll be prayed for there.One can hear the singing in church and the deacon reads so plainly and verbally that it will reach him every time just as though it were read over his grave."At last the captain made a gesture of despair as though to say, "Take him where you will." The boys raised the coffin, but as they passed the mother, they stopped for a moment and lowered it that she might say good-bye to Ilusha.But on seeing that precious little face, which for the last three days she had only looked at from a distance, she trembled all over and her grey head began twitching spasmodically over the coffin.

"Mother, make the sign of the cross over him, give him your blessing, kiss him," Nina cried to her.But her head still twitched like an automaton and with a face contorted with bitter grief she began, without a word, beating her breast with her fist.They carried the coffin past her.Nina pressed her lips to her brother's for the last time as they bore the coffin by her.As Alyosha went out of the house he begged the landlady to look after those who were left behind, but she interrupted him before he had finished.

"To be sure, I'll stay with them, we are Christians, too." The old woman wept as she said it.

They had not far to carry the coffin to the church, not more than three hundred paces.It was a still, clear day, with a slight frost.The church bells were still ringing.Snegiryov ran fussing and distracted after the coffin, in his short old summer overcoat, with his head bare and his soft, old, wide-brimmed hat in his hand.He seemed in a state of bewildered anxiety.At one minute he stretched out his hand to support the head of the coffin and only hindered the bearers, at another he ran alongside and tried to find a place for himself there.A flower fell on the snow and he rushed to pick it up as though everything in the world depended on the loss of that flower.

"And the crust of bread, we've forgotten the crust!" he cried suddenly in dismay.But the boys reminded him at once that he had taken the crust of bread already and that it was in his pocket.He instantly pulled it out and was reassured.

"Ilusha told me to, Ilusha," he explained at once to Alyosha."Iwas sitting by him one night and he suddenly told me: 'Father, when my grave is filled up crumble a piece of bread on it so that the sparrows may fly down; I shall hear and it will cheer me up not to be lying alone.'""That's a good thing," said Alyosha, "we must often take some.""Every day, every day!" said the captain quickly, seeming cheered at the thought.

They reached the church at last and set the coffin in the middle of it.The boys surrounded it and remained reverently standing so, all through the service.It was an old and rather poor church; many of the ikons were without settings; but such churches are the best for praying in.During the mass Snegiryov became somewhat calmer, though at times he had outbursts of the same unconscious and, as it were, incoherent anxiety.At one moment he went up to the coffin to set straight the cover or the wreath, when a candle fell out of the candlestick he rushed to replace it and was a fearful time fumbling over it, then he subsided and stood quietly by the coffin with a look of blank uneasiness and perplexity.After the Epistle he suddenly whispered to Alyosha, who was standing beside him, that the Epistle had not been read properly but did not explain what he meant.During the prayer, "Like the Cherubim," he joined in the singing but did not go on to the end.Falling on his knees, he pressed his forehead to the stone floor and lay so for a long while.

At last came the funeral service itself and candles were distributed.The distracted father began fussing about again, but the touching and impressive funeral prayers moved and roused his soul.

He seemed suddenly to shrink together and broke into rapid, short sobs, which he tried at first to smother, but at last he sobbed aloud.

When they began taking leave of the dead and closing the coffin, he flung his arms about, as though he would not allow them to cover Ilusha, and began greedily and persistently kissing his dead boy on the lips.At last they succeeded in persuading him to come away from the step, but suddenly he impulsively stretched out his hand and snatched a few flowers from the coffin.He looked at them and a new idea seemed to dawn upon him, so that he apparently forgot his grief for a minute.Gradually he seemed to sink into brooding and did not resist when the coffin was lifted up and carried to the grave.It was an expensive one in the churchyard close to the church, Katerina Ivanovna had paid for it.After the customary rites the grave-diggers lowered the coffin.Snegiryov with his flowers in his hands bent down so low over the open grave that the boys caught hold of his coat in alarm and pulled him back.He did not seem to understand fully what was happening.When they began filling up the grave, he suddenly pointed anxiously at the falling earth and began trying to say something, but no one could make out what he meant, and he stopped suddenly.Then he was reminded that he must crumble the bread and he was awfully excited, snatched up the bread and began pulling it to pieces- and flinging the morsels on the grave.

"Come, fly down, birds, fly down, sparrows!" he muttered anxiously.