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: 

“Rest, oh God, this Thy servant and establish her in Heaven, wherein the faces of the just and the saints of the Lord shine like unto lights; set at rest this Thy servant who hath fallen asleep, contemning all her trespasses.”

Tamara was listening intently to the long familiar, but now long unheard words, and was smiling bitterly.  The passionate, mad words of Jennka came back to her, full of such inescapable despair and unbelief ...  Would the all-merciful, all-gracious Lord forgive or would He not forgive her foul, fumy, embittered, unclean life?  All-Knowing—­can it be that Thou wouldst repulse her—­the pitiful rebel, the involuntary libertine; a child that had uttered blasphemies against Thy radiant, holy name?  Thou—­Benevolence, Thou—­our Consolation!

A dull, restrained wailing, suddenly passing into a scream, resounded in the chapel.  “Oh, Jennechka!” This was Little White Manka, standing on her knees and stuffing her mouth with her handkerchief, beating about in tears.  And the remaining mates, following her, also got down upon their knees; and the chapel was filled with sighs, stifled lamentations and sobbings ...

“Thou alone art deathless, Who hast created and made man; out of the dust of the earth were we made, and unto the same dust shall we return; as Thou hast ordained me, creating me and saying unto me, dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.”

Tamara was standing motionless and with an austere face that seemed turned to stone.  The light of the candle in thin gold spirals shone in her bronze-chestnut hair; while she could not tear her eyes away from the lines of Jennka’s moist, yellow forehead and the tip of her nose, which were visible to Tamara from her place.

“Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return ...” she was mentally repeating the words of the canticles.  “Could it be that that would be all; only earth alone and nothing more?  And which is better:  nothing, or even anything at all—­even the most execrable —­but merely to be existing?”

And the choir, as though affirming her thoughts, as though taking away from her the last consolation, was uttering forlornly: 

    “And all mankind may go...”