Part One
 
The Five O'Clock Express
 
1
 
They walked and walked and sang "Memory Eternal,"1 and when they stopped, it seemed that the song went on being repeated by their feet, the horses, the gusts of wind.
 
Passers-by made way for the cortège, counted the wreaths, crossed themselves.  The curious joined the procession, asked:  "Who's being buried?"  "Zhivago," came the answer.  "So that's it.  Now I see."  "Not him.  Her."  "It's all the same.  God rest her soul.  A rich funeral."
 
The last minutes flashed by, numbered, irrevocable.  "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof; the world, and those that dwell therein."  The priest, tracing a cross, threw a handful of earth onto Marya Nikolaevna.  They sang "With the souls of the righteous."  A terrible bustle began.  The coffin was closed, nailed shut, lowered in.  A rain of clods drummed down as four shovels hastily filled the grave.  Over it a small mound rose.  A ten-year-old boy climbed onto it. 
 
Only in the state of torpor and insensibility that usually comes at the end of a big funeral could it have seemed that the boy wanted to speak over his mother's grave.
 
He raised his head and looked around from that height at the autumn wastes and the domes of the monastery with an absent gaze.  His snub-nosed face became distorted.  His neck stretched out.  If a wolf cub had raised his head with such a movement, it would have been clear that he was about to howl.  Covering his face with his hands, the boy burst into sobs.  A cloud flying towards him bega