10 The Brothers Karamazovtwitched 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 cof-
fin 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 an-
other 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 re-
assured.
‘Ilusha told me to, Ilusha,’ he explained at once to Alyo-
sha. ‘I was sitting by him one night and he suddenly told me:
‘Father, when my grave is filled up crumble a piece of bread