Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 10on 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 rever-
ently 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. Dur-
ing 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