Now, in the yellow, trembling light of the candles, the face of Jennka became more clearly visible.  The lividness had almost gone off it, remaining only here and there on the temples, on the nose, and between the eyes, in party-coloured, uneven, serpentine spots.  Between the parted dark lips slightly glimmered the whiteness of the teeth, and the tip of the bitten tongue was still visible.  Out of the open collar of the neck, which had taken on the colour of old parchment, showed two stripes:  one dark—­the mark of the rope; another red—­the sign of the scratch, inflicted by Simeon during the encounter—­just like two fearful necklaces.  Tamara approached and with a safety pin pinned together the lace on the collar, at the very chin.

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!”