“At first the General’s lady would not listen,” continued the old man. “ ‘All this is your fancy, you simple folk have such notions,’ she said. ‘A dead man cannot howl.’ Some time afterwards the watchmen came to her again, and with them the sacristan. So the sacristan, too, had heard him howling. The General’s lady saw that it was a bad job; she locked herself in her bedroom with the watchmen. ‘Here, my friends, here are twenty-five roubles for you, and for that go by night in secret, so that no one should hear or see you, dig up my unhappy son, and bury him,’ she said, ‘outside the cemetery.’ And I suppose she stood them a glass⁠ ⁠… And the watchmen did so. The stone with the inscription on it is there to this day, but he himself, the General’s son, is outside the cemetery.⁠ ⁠… O Lord, forgive us our transgressions!” sighed the fish-hawker. “There is only one day in the year when one may pray for such people: the Saturday before Trinity.⁠ ⁠… You mustn’t give alms to beggars for their sake, it is a sin, but you may feed the birds for the rest of their souls. The General’s lady used to go out to the crossroads every three days to feed the birds. Once at the crossroads a black dog suddenly appeared; it ran up to the bread, and was such a⁠ ⁠… we all know what that dog was.

The General’s lady was like a half-crazy creature for five days afterwards, she neither ate nor drank.⁠ ⁠… All at once she fell on her knees in the garden, and prayed and prayed.⁠ ⁠… Well, goodbye, friends, the blessing of God and the Heavenly Mother be with you. Let us go, Mihailo, you’ll open the gate for me.”

The fish-hawker and the porter went out. The coachman and Alyoshka went out too, so as not to be left in the coach-house.

“The man was living and is dead!” said the coachman, looking towards the windows where shadows were still flitting to and fro. “Only this morning he was walking about the yard, and now he is lying dead.”

“The time will come and we shall die too,” said the porter, walking away with the fish-hawker, and at once they both vanished from sight in the darkness.