We had hardly deposited the bier upon the floor in the centre of the nave,
when two pale young friars appeared, throwing off their hooded cloaks of
coarse brown, as they passed to the sacristy, and reappearing in their
rope-girdled gowns. One of them bore a lighted taper in his right hand and
a book in his left; the other had also a taper, but a pot of holy water
instead of the book.

They are very handsome young men, these monks, with heavy, sad eyes, and
graceful, slender figures, which their monastic life will presently
overload with gross humanity full of coarse appetites. They go and stand
beside the bier, giving a curious touch of solemnity to a scene composed
of the four pleasant ruffians in the loaferish postures which they have
learned as facchini waiting for jobs; of the two boys with inattentive
grins, and of the priest with wandering eyes, kneeling behind them.

A weak, thin-voiced organ pipes huskily from its damp loft: the monk
hurries rapidly over the Latin text of the service, while

"His breath to heaven like vapor goes"

on the chilly, humid air; and the other monk makes the responses, giving
and taking the sprinkler, which his chief shakes vaguely in the direction
of the coffin. They both bow their heads--shaven down to the temples, to
simulate His crown of thorns. Silence. The organ is still, the priest has
vanished; the tapers are blown out; the pall-bearers lay hold of the bier,
and raise it to their shoulders; the boys slouch into procession behind
them; the monks glide softly and dispiritedly away. The soul is prepared
for eternal life, and the body for the grave.

The ruffians are expansively gay on reaching the open air again. They