graceful and confident movements, whenever he made the sign of the cross, bowed, reaching the floor with his hand, took the candle out of the priest's hands, or walked up to the coffin, were exceedingly effective; but I do not know why, I did not like his being able to produce such an effect at that particular moment.
Mimi was leaning against the wall and, it seemed, barely could stand on her feet; her dress was crushed and full of feathers, and her cap was on one side; her swollen eyes were red, her head was shaking; she sobbed without interruption in a heartrending voice, and continually covered her face with a handkerchief and with her hands. It seemed to me that she did so, in order to hide her face from the spectators, when resting a moment from her simulated sobs. I recalled how the day before she told father that mamma's death was a terrible blow to her, from which she never expected to recover, that she had lost everything in mother, that this angel (so she called mamma) had not forgotten her before her death, and had expressed her desire of safeguarding her future and that of Kátenka. She shed bitter tears, while telling this, and it may be that the feeling of sorrow was genuine, but it was not pure and exclusive. Lyúbochka, in a black dress, with mourning ruffles all wet with tears, drooped her head, and looked now and then at the coffin. Her face expressed childish terror. Kátenka stood near her mother and, in spite of her drawn face, was as rosy as usual. Volódya's open nature was also open in its grief; he either stood lost in thought, his immovable look directed to some object, or his mouth suddenly began to twitch, and he hurriedly made the signs of the cross and bowed. All the outsiders who attended the funeral were unbearable to me. The consoling words which they spoke to father — that she would be better there, that she was not for this world — provoked a certain anger in me.
