“The Lord knows! Maybe he was murdered, or maybe he died of himself.”
“Yes, yes. . . . Who knows, brothers? Maybe his soul is now tasting the joys of Paradise.”
“His soul is still hovering here, near his body,” says the young man. “It does not depart from the body for three days.”
“H’m, yes! . . . How chilly the nights are now! It sets one’s teeth chattering. . . . So then I am to go straight on and on? . . .”
“Till you get to the village, and then you turn to the right by the river-bank.”
“By the river-bank. . . . To be sure. . . . Why am I standing still? I must go on. Farewell, brothers.”
The man in the cassock takes five steps along the road and stops.
“I’ve forgotten to put a kopeck for the burying,” he says. “Good orthodox friends, can I give the money?”
“You ought to know best, you go the round of the monasteries. If he died a natural death it would go for the good of his soul; if it’s a suicide it’s a sin.”
“That’s true. . . . And maybe it really was a suicide! So I had better keep my money. Oh, sins, sins! Give me a thousand roubles and I would not consent to sit here. . . . Farewell, brothers.”