His grandfather trimmed the light in the lantern and made no answer.

“The man is lost,” he said a little later, with a yawn.  “He is lost, and his children are ruined, too.  It’s a disgrace for his children for the rest of their lives now.”

The porter came back and sat down by the lantern.

“He is dead,” he said.  “They have sent to the almshouse for the old women to lay him out.”

“The kingdom of heaven and eternal peace to him!” whispered the coachman, and he crossed himself.

Looking at him, Alyoshka crossed himself too.

“You can’t pray for such as him,” said the fish-hawker.

“Why not?”

“It’s a sin.”

“That’s true,” the porter assented.  “Now his soul has gone straight to hell, to the devil....”

“It’s a sin,” repeated the fish-hawker; “such as he have no funeral, no requiem, but are buried like carrion with no respect.”

The old man put on his cap and got up.

“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